Science

Congressional Democrats are asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to intervene in a criminal case against a lawyer found to have falsified scientific evidence and bribed a foreign judge to shake down an oil company, with one member of “The Squad” heralding him as an inspiration for “others to fight back against corporate power.” Evidence indicates that Steven Donziger and his team ran an elaborate legal fraud that included secretly paying a Latin American court’s independent expert to twist science about pollution and ultimately bribing a judge to issue a multi-billion dollar judgment in their favor. Donziger has nonetheless found support from celebrities, media, and members of Congress, raising the question of whether Democrats support obstruction of justice and the falsification of science if it serves their agenda — or whether the mere invocation of ideological buzzwords is enough to distract an increasingly partisan America from bothering to sort out the facts. The …

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Cats and dogs have very distinct tendencies, traits and personalities. So is it impossible for these furry friends to co-exist in a home or even become friends? Lovers of both pets can indeed enjoy the best of both under one roof. However, like all relationships, establishing and nurturing a positive co-existence requires work and there are several elements to consider to maintain a dog and cat friendly home. Speaking to Newsweek , Zazie Todd—the author of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy and the forthcoming book Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy, which is out in spring 2022—said good early life experiences are key and cats will get along better with dogs if they are introduced as kittens. The early part of a kitten's life, from when they are two to around seven weeks old, is a sensitive period for socialization. "A wide range of positive experiences in this time helps them grow up to be friendly, confident, adult cats. So if they have positive …

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Artificial sweeteners are everywhere, but the jury is still out on whether these chemicals are harmless. Also called non-nutritive sweeteners, these can be synthetic—such as saccharin and aspartame—or naturally derived, such as steviol, which comes from the Stevia plant. To date, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved six types of artificial and two types of natural non-nutritive sweeteners for use in food. That's been great news for those working hard to curb their sugar consumption. Aspartame , for example, is found in more than 6,000 foods worldwide, and about 5,000-5,500 tons are consumed every year in the United States alone. The American Diabetes Association—the most well-respected professional group focusing on diabetes— officially recommends diet soda as an alternative to sugar-sweetened beverages. To date, seven U.S. municipalities have imposed a sugary beverage tax to discourage consumption. However, recent medical studies suggest that policymakers …

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Although Kathy Bero underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiation to fight off her cancer, she believes it was a switch to an anti-angiogenic diet that really was the deciding factor in her recovery. Now, Harvard University scientists in Massachusetts are looking into amazing claims such as this to better understand how patients can make seemingly miraculous cancer recoveries. The mother of two was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer in 2005 at age 41. No available treatments were helping to ward off the illness, and when her liver and kidneys began to fail, she worried for the worst. "My lungs were damaged. My heart was damaged," said Bero, WLBT reported. "I told my oncologist that I'm done with that protocol [chemo and radiation therapy] because one way or another, I'm going to die. And I don't want to go that way." Related: Are we winning the war on cancer? The good news At this point, Bero took a nontraditional route to her cancer treatment and went on an …

[Read more...] about A woman claims she beat cancer with an anti-angiogenic diet and reiki

A "game-changing" new cancer drug developed by Australian researchers has dramatically improved the odds of survival for patients with two types of blood cancer, according to the results of two new trials published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The drug, known as venetoclax, could replace chemotherapy and change the way physicians treat blood cancers, according to lead researcher on one of the trials, John Seymour from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (PMCC) in Victoria, Australia. In this large-scale trial , 389 patients across 20 countries with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) who had previously been treated and relapsed were either given venetoclax in combination with a standard immunotherapy drug known as rituximab, or rituximab on its own. CLL is currently untreatable when a patient relapses. But after two years, nearly 85% of patients in the trial who were given venetoclax in combination with rituximab had very few or almost no detectable leukaemia cancer …

[Read more...] about A “game-changing” new drug has been shown to melt away blood cancer

An incredible scientific breakthrough could change our understanding of genetics – and possibly lengthen human life beyond 120 years. University of Cambridge expert Sir Shankar Balasubramanian has invented a new form of genetic sequencing, making it much easier for doctors to spot diseases early. Genome sequencing has the potential for doctors to diagnose mutations and health indicators more quickly and with more precision than humans have ever been capable of. The amazing tech also allows those studying a baby's genes to spot intellectual disabilities and development delays. It's still early days in the development of genome sequencing, but there remains the possibility to extend human life beyond the 120 years we've long thought to be the maximum. Sir Shankar's latest invention involves so-called next generation sequencing, a forward step in the progress of the tech. This lets doctors study DNA in more detail than ever before by scanning the …

[Read more...] about New gene editing tech could soon allow humans to live longer than 120 years

Until about 30 years ago scientists mostly believed that their task was to find as many examples as they could to confirm their theories. Now they realise that they have to look for examples that are apparently inconsistent with them. Karl Popper is to blame, and particularly his slogan "No number of sightings of white swans can prove the theory that all swans are white. The sighting of just one black one may disprove it." Scientists now look for black swans and if they cannot find any, they can feel reasonably confident that their theory is right, although not yet proved. It is, in the present state of knowledge, the best approximation to the truth. Popper (1902-1994) was born in Vienna of Jewish parents who had converted to Christianity. His earlier philosophical work was done in Vienna, but before the Nazis arrived he took a lectureship at Canterbury University College at Christchurch, New Zealand, where he spent the whole of the war. There he wrote what he called his war work: a …

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Among Aotearoa-New Zealand’s mix of unique creatures, torrentfish​ get special mention because they are one of the few freshwater fishes not to have origins in Australia. It’s thought to have emerged from the seas and adapted to freshwater in NZ and nowhere else. Its closest relative may be blue cod ,​ a saltwater species that’s found along rocky coasts up to depths of 150 metres. Torrentfish (panoko,​ Cheimarrichthys fosteri ),​ however, prefer shallow, fast-flowing rapids or riffles in freshwater rivers over much of New Zealand. Their only connection with saltwater is a brief period in the larval stage. After spawning near river mouths, larvae are swept out to sea before returning to rivers as juveniles. READ MORE: Coculture brings environmental and economic benefits Government's dolphin protection plan is flawed and misleading Threatened fish cause $3 million intersection rethink in Christchurch Paradise for eels? Getting to know the secrets of NZ's new icon …

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Back in the spring of 2011, as Gary Speed was beginning the process of revolutionising the Welsh national setup, he called his squad together before a match against England. One of his demands as the newly-installed Wales manager was for every player to sing the national anthem, whether they spoke Welsh or not, and in that meeting he told them he had found a way to help them learn the words. Speed’s grand plan, it turned out, was to recruit Courtenay Hamilton, a classical singer who also happened to be the reigning Miss Wales. Hamilton was performing the anthem before the England game at the weekend and, in the days leading up to the fixture, she was asked by the Football Association of Wales to provide a group singing lesson for the senior squad. Armed with the lyrics on sheets of paper (the Welsh version and the phonetic version), the Wales players inevitably enjoyed the occasion. It was a good laugh, as one might expect, and Speed evidently wanted the players to have fun with …

[Read more...] about A decade after his death, Gary Speed’s Wales legacy lives on

A network of salty ponds may be gurgling beneath Mars’ South Pole alongside a large underground lake raising the prospect of tiny, swimming Martian life. Italian scientists reported their findings Monday, two years after identifying what they believed to be a large buried lake They widened their coverage area by a couple hundred miles, using even more data from a radar sounder on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. In the latest study appearing in the journal Nature Astronomy, the scientists provide further evidence of this salty underground lake estimated to be 12 miles to 18 miles (20 kilometers to 30 kilometers) across and buried 1 mile (1.5 kilometers) beneath the icy surface. Even more tantalizing, they’ve also identified three smaller bodies of water surrounding the lake. These ponds appear to be of various sizes and are separate from the main lake. Roughly 4 billion years ago, Mars was warm and wet, like Earth. But the red planet …

[Read more...] about Salty lake, ponds may be gurgling beneath South Pole on Mars