The Body's Own Bathroom Scales

I've always been blessed with a fairly stable body weight despite sub-optimal eating habits. It turns out the body has own a mechanism for that. This could lead to better understanding and treatments for obesity.

It Isn't Just the Heat

Human-induced global warming may have its most destructive impact by raising humidity in certain areas.

Long-theorized new form of matter, excitonium, finally discovered

Excitonium, Is that like Unobtainium from 'Avatar'?

CRISPR Breakthrough

A recent improvement in the CRISPR technique bypasses some risky problems with the earlier method. The prior method can introduce unanticipated mutations. The new method is much safer. It doesn't change the DNA itself. It changes how the genes express. This area is known as epigenetics. As such it holds much greater promise to treat diseases. It has proven itself for diabetes and muscular dystrophy in mouse models.

Gerrymandering Solution

In addition to the Efficiency Gap measuring system, this looks like it could be a equitable way to establish districts even in those states that don't have bipartisan commissions.

It's a new spin on the old candy-splitting trick we used as kids. Basically, you divide, I choose. The idea is that Party A draws up a an initial districting. Party B gets to "freeze" the boundaries of one of the districts. Then Party B redraws a plan for the remaining geography. Then Party A gets to freeze a district and redraw the remaining space, and so forth.

An End to the Baby Light Box

My own kids and many grand-kids and their parents had to endure the hassle of early baby days in a loaner baby light box. This looks to be pretty cool. But I hope they are easy to clean because...babies happen.

Illuminated pajamas could shine infant jaundice away with light therapy Though infant jaundice can be treated with light therapy, this involves the baby lying alone and naked inside an incubator. A new material could replace this uncomfortable experience, by instead wrapping them inside snug pajamas that radiate light inwards. newatlas.com

3-D Ultrasound on the cheap

Gaming technology leads to medical advances.

How a $10 microchip turns 2-D ultrasound machines into 3-D imaging devices: Low-cost upgrade could more easily image babies, trauma patients who can't be moved Technology that keeps track of how your smartphone is oriented can now give $50,000 ultrasound machines many of the 3-D imaging abilities of their $250,000 counterparts -- for the cost of a $10 microchip. www.sciencedaily.com

What Is Russia Up To?

Europe is showered in radioactive particles… and they may have come from Russia RADIATION levels across Europe have risen mysteriously – and Russia may be behind the baffling phenomenon. German scientists say there has been a slight increase in the amount of particles of… www.thesun.co.uk

Dark Side of Genetically Engineered Crops

The problem with any sort of natural engineering is that evolution will eventually find a way around it. This is an arms race that must be approached thoughtfully. How can we sufficiently control pests without applying so much pressure that it becomes advantageous to circumvent the controls?

Pest resistance to biotech crops surging: A new global assessment helps scientists explain why cases of pest resistance to genetically engineered crops increased by more than fivefold in the past decade, yet some pests remain suppressed Pest resistance to genetically engineered crops Bt crops is evolving faster now than before, researchers show in the most comprehensive study to date. But as expected from evolutionary theory, resistance can be delayed if farmers comply with recommendations to make use of abundant refuges. www.sciencedaily.com

Anti-Abortion Laws Don't Work

In policy debates, it's always useful to have actual cases to which one can refer and possibly learn. Mexico is a poster-child of what happens under strict abortion laws.
Mexico and Latin America have some of the world's strictest laws and consequently have some of the world's highest abortion rates. If one genuinely wants to limit the number of abortions, making them illegal not only fails but makes the numbers higher than they would be otherwise.

Cause for Permian Extinction Found

Another of those geologic mysteries bites the dust. During the time of the eruptions, sedimentary deposits in the area that would eventually become West Texas and New Mexico were laid down. These would eventually be transformed into one of the most productive set of oil fields in the nation.

Siberian volcanic eruptions caused extinction 250 million years ago, new evidence shows The Great Permian Extinction, which occurred approximately 250 million years ago, was caused by massive volcanic eruptions that led to significant environmental changes, new evidence shows. www.sciencedaily.com

Goldman Sachs is in the White House

The guy who created the 2008 financial crisis is now the top White House financial advisor. What does that tell you?

It's time to change the name of the White House to Camp Swampy.

Gary Cohn Is Giving Goldman Sachs Everything It Ever ... At Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn nearly wrecked the economy. As Trump's top economic adviser, he's dismantling the rules put in place after the financial crisis. theintercept.com

Alzheimer's News

It might eventually be possible to prevent the disease altogether.

Newly ID'd role of major Alzheimer's gene suggests possible therapeutic target: Blocking ApoE4 in brain may prevent nerve cell death, inflammation A new role has been identified for the major Alzheimer's risk factor ApoE4, suggesting that targeting the protein may help treat the disease. Researchers show that ApoE4 exacerbates the brain damage caused by toxic tangles of a different Alzheimer's-associated protein: tau. In the absence of ApoE, tau tangles did very little harm to brain cells. www.sciencedaily.com

Quantum Gravity?

Could this be a start in unifying quantum mechanics with general relativity?

Gravity may be created by strange flashes in the quantum realm A model of how wave forms of quantum systems collapse reveals a way they could create gravitational fields, and perhaps even reconcile two pillars of physics www.newscientist.com

One Immigration Model

Those who are genuinely serious about effective and just immigration reform can start by looking at what other countries are doing.

Canada Should Be Trump's Model for Immigration Reform ... The U.S. immigration system needs reform, and President-elect Donald Trump might be just the man to do it. Although research shows that low-skilled ... www.bloomberg.com

Hope in Multiple Sclerosis Research

Someday we are going to be able to cure this thing.

Unique gene therapy prevents, reverses multiple sclerosis in animal model Multiple sclerosis can be inhibited or reversed using a novel gene therapy technique that stops the disease's immune response in mouse models, researchers have found. www.sciencedaily.com

SSTO is Coming

Single stage to orbit. It's going to be a new age for orbital access.

ARCA's revolutionary aerospike engine completed and ready for testing ARCA Space Corporation has announced its linear aerospike engine is ready to start ground tests. ​Designed to power the world's first operational Single-Stage-To-Orbit (SSTO) satellite launcher, the engine took only 60 days to complete from when fabrication began.​ newatlas.com

More Emoluments

The gift that keeps on giving.

New Documents Show the National Security Council Spent Taxpayer Money at Trump's Mar-a-Lago John Kelly happened to be visiting at the same time. www.slate.com

Alzheimer's Screening

Detecting Alzheimer's from a  simple MRI scan. Interesting.

AI spots Alzheimer's brain changes years before symptoms emerge A machine-learning algorithm that examines MRI scans can identify alterations in how different regions of the brain are connected that indicate future disease www.newscientist.com

Detecting Alzheimer's

With a new type of sensor, Alzheimer's can be diagnosed before symptoms are apparent from a blood sample.

Breakthrough: Diagnosing Alzheimer's with diamonds One of the most confounding aspects of Alzheimer's Disease is our inability to diagnose the condition with certainty until after death. Now, researchers are claiming a breakthrough in identifying the disease, even in its early stages, using a sensor embedded with a diamond. newatlas.com

Barnyard Mud

This is why Republicans have a long way to go to convince me that they have a clue of what it means to be decent human beings.

The Day Nothing Changed Why 9/11 wasn't another Pearl Harbor. krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

Satanists To The Rescue

Credit Missouri Satanists for using the religious freedom argument to protect access to abortion. This could be a template for the protection of abortion rights in other states.

As a Satanist, Mary said, she believes her body is “inviolable”—thus, a mandatory waiting period with no medical justification that hampers her bodily autonomy inflicts a “substantial burden” on her “sincerely held religious beliefs,” as does the law that requires she be informed that “abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.”

History of Zero

Lest Western civilization get all high and mighty with its perceived accomplishments, India had the zero first.

History of zero pushed back 500 years by ancient Indian text Carbon dating has revealed that the Bakshali manuscript housed in Oxford contains the earliest known version of our modern zero symbol -- and it is nearly 2000 years old www.newscientist.com

Chilling water with "solar" panels

At the proper frequency, heat energy can be shot directly into space.

Electricity-free Stanford system cuts cooling costs by beaming heat into space Over the last few years a Stanford team has been developing a roof-mounted system that cools a building by reflecting heat into space, and the latest test has managed to use solar panel-like devices to cool water without needing any other energy source. newatlas.com

Steele Dossier

TL;DR
A large part of it predicted things that actually happened. Most of the things that have yet to be proven are completely consistent with how Russia operates. Despite the opportunity to discredit it by being more fully transparent, the administration has chosen to behave as if the allegations are indeed true and that coverup is the mission of highest priority.

A Second Look at the Steele Dossier—Knowing What We Know Now Fmr top CIA official reviews Steele Dossier against newer information. Bottom line: it's generally credible. 5,500-word analysis www.justsecurity.org

D&P Steel

A new form of steel has been discovered that is both more ductile and stronger than any current steel. Look for it in all kinds of products in a few years.

Target Criminals, not Repulsive Ideologues

From a law enforcement viewpoint, the whole concept of radicalization is slippery to monitor and not that helpful in identifying possible offenders. What the research shows is that folks who eventually carry out terrorist acts tend to have other violent acts in their history. Time and treasure spent on watching ideologues could be more productively used by watching previous offenders. It seems they typically latch on to the ideology as a motivation to do what they already want to do and that's to just hurt people.

Profiling white supremacists won't prevent domestic terrorism. The aftermath of the attack on Aug. 12, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images The events in Charlottesville have made many ... www.slate.com

Primer on Voting Efficiency

This is a good primer on the mathematics used to evaluate the level of gerrymandering in a given set of district boundaries.

Gerrymandering Efficiency Gap: A Better Way to Measure ... If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then litigants who challenge gerrymandering must be mad. Last month, a federal ... newrepublic.com

Abstinence-only-until-marriage Programs and Policies Are Failures

Yet another study shows that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and policies fail miserably.

Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and policies in the United States are ineffective as they do not delay sexual initiation or reduce sexual risk behaviors, two scientific review papers show. They also violate adolescent human rights, withhold medically accurate information, stigmatize or exclude many youth, reinforce harmful gender stereotypes, and undermine public health programs. Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs have been widely rejected by health professionals who care for young people.

So now, can we just get on with having real science-based sex education programs?

Medicaid for All

Exclusive: Sen. Schatz's new health care idea could be the Democratic Party's future The Hawaii senator is working on a new bill that would create a Medicaid buy-in for uninsured Americans. www.vox.com

Here's a path to the public option that didn't get into the ACA.

There's More Than One Way To Get Nuclear Power

The TVA is increasing nuclear power in 3 ways, adding an SMR, completing a partially-built power station, and uprating an existing reactor.

Hospitals in Trump Country Suffer

A friend of mine has pointed out that we could make great progress towards reducing our health care costs by making it easier for qualified doctors from foreign countries to work in the United States. Unfortunately, the Trump immigration policies tends to drive them away. And it's our rural citizens who suffer. 

Self-healing Rubber Developed

What's cool about watching research is that occasionally you see things that could someday change the world as we know it. Rubber is one of those materials has been so important that the ability to produce it has strongly contributed to the winning of wars and thereby the course of history. Imagine how our future might change if rubber could be self-healing. Rubber bands would last forever. New possibilities would open up for all kinds of devices and materials for medical, industrial, and consumer use.

Increase Minimum Wage, Reduce Child Neglect

Lindsey Rose Bullinger of Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs says,

Money matters, When caregivers have more disposable income, they're better able to provide a child's basic needs such as clothing, food, medical care and a safe home. Policies that increase the income of the working poor can improve children's welfare, especially younger children, quite substantially.

Those professing to truly care about the welfare of children should look at raising the minimum wage.

Renewable Subsidies Pay for Themselves

A paper in Nature Energy examines the health benefits from moving away from fossil fuels and it finds that the benefits of wind and solar offset all the subsidies.

This Could Be Huge

This reprograms skin cells with as simple touch of a button.

Breakthrough device heals organs with a single touch: Device instantly delivers new DNA or RNA into living skin cells to change their function www.sciencedaily.com Researchers have developed a device that can switch cell function to rescue failing body functions with a single touch. The technology, known as Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT), injects genetic code into skin cells, turning those skin cells into other types of cells required for treating diseased conditions.

Rich are Hoarding the Growth

Economic growth thrives on demand. When workers don't have sufficient disposable income, demand dries up. This article explains where all that money is.

You're not imagining it: the rich really are hoarding economic growth www.vox.com Some of the most complete data on inequality ever is here, and it's staggering.

For My Navy Friends

USS Gerald R Ford launches first aircraft using electromagnetic catapult newatlas.com The USS Gerald R Ford scored a double first less than a week after commissioning, as the nuclear-powered supercarrier launched and recovered a fighter plane for the first time using an electromagnetic catapult.

Some Real Health Care Reform

Whenever we get the Republicans out of power and can do some real health care reform, here's something we could look at.

America Should Adapt New Zealand's Method of Handling Medical Malpractice Cases www.slate.com We still need to lower health care costs. Here's one way.

Save your scent

This should be a basic household precaution. Line 'em up, swab them, and save the bottles. Just in case.

A woman with dementia went missing. Fortunately, she'd bottled her scent. www.tri-cityherald.com A Florida sheriff's office is trying to use the case of one woman to encourage others to buy scent preservation kits.

Trump Causes His Leaks

He can replace all the people he wants, but the leaks won't stop because that's how his staff can best get their messages to him.  Sad.

If Trump wants the leaks to stop, he needs to learn ... - Vox www.vox.com The leaks won't stop. The Trump administration might make a renewed effort to identify and punish leakers. It might find a convenient scapegoat (such as, as Foreign ...

T-Rex Couldn't Run

Should I ever come across a Tyrannosaurus rex in the wild, it's nice to know that I could outrun it.

Running not an option for Tyrannosaurus rex - newatlas.com newatlas.com The good news may be 65 million years too late, but a new study indicates that you could outrun a Tyrannosaurus rex. By combining two separate biomechanical ...

Food From Thin Air

Protein produced with electricity to alleviate world hunger www.sciencedaily.com A batch of single-cell protein has been produced by using electricity and carbon dioxide, report scientists. Protein produced in this way can be further developed for use as food and animal feed. The method releases food production from restrictions related to the environment. The protein can be produced anywhere renewable energy, such as solar energy, is available.

This is food from thin air. What does it do to the economic structure if you can cheaply manufacture food from air?

First of all the agro-business fodder industry is in for a big upset. Food for starving people around the world, even in low-resource places becomes possible. The key resource is energy. Imagine a small-scale processor in a shipping container.

Fake News from Natural Gas Industry

From our own James Conca:

Natural Gas Industry Blasts Nuclear Power With Fake News www.forbes.com Natural Gas, the darling energy source of the millennia, has decided it needs to take down its biggest competitor – nuclear power. The American Petroleum ...

Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

Drug discovery: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's spurred by same enzyme: AEP protease acts on amyloid, tau and now alpha-synuclein www.sciencedaily.com Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are different. But at the biochemical level, these two neurodegenerative diseases start to look similar. This is how Emory scientists landed on a potential drug target for Parkinson's.

Let's Make America Ignorant Again

Paul Krugman points out that the Republicans complain that folks in higher education are biased. Yet they don't seem concerned that the military officer corps is also biased. 

Of Tweets And Trade

All 45 can do about trade is mess it up.

Krugman on Trump and trade.

Fast Batteries

Here are two articles about a recent battery development that could lead to charge rates similar to super-capacitors.

In the fast lane: Conductive electrodes are key to fast-charging batteries: Researchers use mxene to push charging rate limits in energy storage www.sciencedaily.com Can you imagine fully charging your cell phone in just a few seconds? Researchers can, and they took a big step toward making it a reality with their recent work unveiling of a new battery electrode design.

And from New Atlas.

"Ion highway" electrodes drive development of batteries that charge in seconds

newatlas.com

A team at Drexel University has used the two-dimensional material MXene to develop a new type of electrode, combining the capacitance of a regular battery with the speed of a supercapacitor, which could lead to devices that recharge in a matter of seconds.