Gene therapy to fight a blood cancer succeeds in major study

An experimental gene therapy that turns a patient's own blood cells into cancer killers worked in a major study, with more than one-third of very sick lymphoma patients showing no sign of disease six months after a single treatment, its maker said Tuesday. In all, 82 percent of patients had their cancer shrink at least by half at some point in the study.

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Cooking oil dumped in Lakewood pond kills more than 30 ducks, geese

More than 30 ducks and geese died after someone dumped cooking oil in a retention pond in Lakewood. Now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is asking the public to help them track down the people involved. The Estes Park Trail Gazette published a statement from the FSW about the incident.

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‘Shell knew’: oil giant's 1991 film warned of climate change danger

Public information film unseen for years shows Shell had clear grasp of global warming 26 years ago but has not acted accordingly since.

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Inside the final days of the Standing Rock protest

“Those small victories were always difficult to claim at Standing Rock because the terms of the protests were absolute — either the pipeline was built or it wasn’t — and I imagine that as people return to their homes or ship off to the next fight, they will have to find a more personal justification for the months they spent there.” By Jay Caspian Kang. (Feb. 21, 2017)

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Sand mining: the global environmental crisis you’ve never heard of

From Cambodia to California, industrial-scale sand mining is causing wildlife to die, local trade to wither and bridges to collapse. And booming urbanisation means the demand for this increasingly valuable resource is unlikely to let up

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Are Viruses Alive?

Viruses are contagious, but are they alive? By Laura Geggel.

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China sees sharp decline in ivory smuggling in 2016

Liu Dongsheng, deputy head of the SFA, made the remarks at the opening ceremony of a wildlife protection campaign, without specifying detailed numbers. China will stop commercial processing and sales of ivory by the end of this year. Last year, it imposed a three-year ban on ivory imports in an escalated fight against illegal trading of wild animals and plants. The number of illegal wildlife trade cases has been on the decline since last year, said Liu.

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Plastic and how it affects our oceans

Plastic has transformed our lives, but has created a major environmental problem in our oceans — so just how big is the problem?

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Red states are acting on climate change — without calling it climate change

President Donald Trump has the environmental community understandably concerned. He and members of his Cabinet have questioned the established science of climate change, and his choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has sued the EPA many times and regularly sided with the fossil fuel industry. Even if the Trump administration withdraws from all international climate negotiations and reduces the EPA to bare bones, the effects of climate change are happening and will continue to build.

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Scientists Are Developing Graphene Solar Panels That Generate Energy When It Rains

Solar power is making huge strides as a reliable, renewable energy source, but there's still a lot of untapped potential in terms of the efficiency of photovoltaic cells and what happens at night and during inclement weather. Now a solution has been put forward in the form of producing energy from raindrops. The key to the new process is graphene: a 'wonder' material we've heard plenty about before. Because raindrops are not made up of pure water and contain various salts that split up into positive and negative ions, a team from the Ocean University of China in Qingdao thinks we can harness power via a simple chemical reaction. Specifically,

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Neanderthal DNA Determines Our Health and Appearance Today Way More Than We Thought

The last Neanderthals died out tens of thousands of years ago, but the effects of interbreeding are still being felt today, with a new genetic study revealing that certain traits in modern humans, such as height and schizophrenia risk, can be...

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Decoding the ancient tale of mass suicide in the Judaean desert

Have archaeologists proven the ancient tale of mass suicide in the Judaean desert or twisted science for political end?

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Would You Want a Dog That Was Genetically Engineered to Be Healthier?

“Dogs have more genetic diseases than any other species on the planet.” David Ishee told me this early in our conversation. His claim makes sense: there’s no other animal that humans have purposefully bred with an emphasis on form over function—aesthetics over health—for so long. Centuries of inbreeding have left many dog breeds with a severely limited gene pool, and this lack of genetic diversity is to blame for disorders like brachycephaly in bulldogs, hyperuricemia in dalmations, and cardiomyopathy in boxers.

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Siberia's 'doorway to the Underworld' Is Getting So Big It's Uncovering Ancient Forests

It's no secret that Siberia's permafrost has been on thin ice lately. Conditions are varying so much that huge holes are appearing out of nowhere , and, in some places, tundra is quite literally bubbling underneath people's feet .

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Galloway Viking Hoard Campaign launched

A new campaign has been launched to keep the Galloway Viking Hoard for exhibition in the county where it was found. Buried in the 10th century, the hoard was discovered by a metal detectorist in field near Castle Douglas in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, in September of 2014. Archaeologists excavated the hoard and found more than 100 silver and gold pieces, from ingots to jewelry to fragments of Byzantine silk to an extremely rare Carolingian pot stuffed with more treasure. The Galloway Viking Hoard is the largest Viking treasure found in Scotland since 1891.

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Blue

A photo from 2015 with a motive I look forward to be able to shot again. Hopefully the weekend will bring some photo options even though it will not be this kind of motives :-)

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How a Pacific Island Changed From Diesel to 100% Solar Power

On a recent Wednesday evening on the island of Ta’u—one of the outer islands in American Samoa—most of the people in all three villages are at pese—or church choir—practice. The annual island-wide youth group showcases are coming up and each choir senses the pressure of having to perfect their routines. For the Faleasao village choir, there is added pressure from being the smallest village on the island. But this year, the underdog choir believe they have a special routine that will blow away the competition.

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From sea to plate: how plastic got into our fish

Eight million tonnes of waste plastic ends up in the sea each year. Fish eat it - and then we do. How bad is it for us?

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'A very mean worm': New species of 'Bobbitt' worm was 1-2 metres long with powerful teeth

Researchers have discovered a new species of an ancient worm that was more than a metre long and had powerful jaws and teeth with which to catch its prey.

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Bumblebees Demonstrate the Power of Insect Brains

Scientists trained bumblebees to move a ball to the center of a platform to gain a sugary treat.

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Watch an Ambush of Tigers Rip a Drone Out of the Sky and Then Eat It

A group of tigers is called an “ambush” for a reason. When these massive cats get together and decide to catch some prey, they’re simply vicious. A quadcopter learned this the hard way at a Siberian tiger enclosure in China’s Heilongjiang Province. Not only did the beasts swipe the drone out of the sky—they took a few bites of the poor gadget.

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India Using $1.8 billion of its Coal Tax Money to Fund Renewable Energy Projects

India is using 1.8 billion of its coal tax fund to invest in renewable energy projects. The tax was collected from fossil fuel companies on every ton of coal mined in, or imported to, India between 2010 and 2016. India wants to quadruple its electricity generating capacity from renewable sources to 175 GW by 2022. It also plans to reduce emissions up to 35 percent by 2030.

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President Trump Takes Aim at the Environment

President Trump brandished executive pen and fresh hyperbole last week in blessing the coal industry’s decades-old practice of freely dumping tons of debris into the streams and mountain hollows of America’s mining communities. “Another terrible job-killing rule,” Mr. Trump declared at a signing ceremony that struck down the Obama administration’s attempt to regulate surface mining wastes. He insisted he was saving “many thousands of American jobs” in sparing coal companies the expense of cleaning up their environmental messes.

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The man behind the 'doomsday' vault that stores every known crop on the planet explains how it came to be

Buried in the side of a mountain in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole, the Global Seed Vault stores virtually every kind of seed.

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North Dakota Senator Seeks Two-Year Ban On Wind Development

Under a bill recently passed by the state’s Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, a North Dakota lawmaker is seeking a two-year moratorium on wind power development. State Sen. Dwight Cook, R-District 34, added an amendment on wind power to S.B.2314, which, according to the text of the bill, relates to “energy rates and resources and renewable energy production.” Specifically, the original bill proposes that North Dakota’s public service commission “supervise the rates of all public utilities."

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New EPA head Scott Pruitt's emails reveal close ties with fossil fuel interests

The close relationship between Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and fossil fuel interests including the billionaire Koch brothers has been highlighted in more than 7,500 emails and other records released by the Oklahoma attorney general’s office on Wednesday. The documents show that Pruitt, while Oklahoma attorney general, acted in close concert with oil and gas companies to challenge environmental regulations...

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A Snowbound Orange Cat Repeatedly Scrapes at the Window to Get at a Squirrel On the Other Side

In an amusing scene captured by Dianne Mitchell of Rumford, Maine, a rather persistent snowbound orange tabby named Milo who repeatedly scraped at the window to get at a squirrel in the snow on the…

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Thousands of spills at US oil and gas fracking sites

Up to 16% of hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells spill liquids every year, according to new research from US scientists. They found that there had been 6,600 releases from these fracked wells over a ten-year period in four states. The biggest problems were reported in oil-rich North Dakota where 67% of the spills were recorded. The largest spill recorded involved 100,000 litres of fluid with most related to storing and moving liquids.

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Anti-Mosquito Candles Totally Don't Work

Today in science that turns out to be totally bunk: Citronella candles warding off mosquitoes.

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Terrorists are building drones. France is destroying them with eagles.

A French military program adapts the ancient art of falconry to the threats of unmanned flight.

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IKEA Growroom Is A DIY Sustainable Garden For City Dwellers

:Last week, IKEA released the plans for its latest innovation, The Growroom, a spherical multi-level garden that can grow enough food for an entire neighborhood. The plans are online and can be downloaded for free. The IKEA Growroom comes from Space10, the company's in-house design lab dedicated to creating future products. The IKEA Growroom doesn't come

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This Ancient Sea Creature Is So Messed Up, Scientists Can't Stop Arguing Over It

Last year, scientists declared a decades-old mystery solved - that bizarre monstrosity you see in the image above had for years defied classification, but two separate studies said they finally had solid evidence that it was in fact a vertebrate.

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Ants on Stilts Help Show Bugs Have "Pedometers"

Stilt-walking and half-amputated ants helped scientists solve the mystery of how the insects return straight home, even after extremely twisty trips.

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To help airport passengers deal with anxiety San Francisco airport has hired the first therapy Pig.

Last year for the San Francisco airport ended with something really uncommon – they introduced the first travel anxiety pig. Her name is LiLou and she is now a proud member of SFO Wag brigade, that has been in the airport since 2013. The wag brigade consists of 300 cats, dogs and rabbits and now their newest member LiLou the pig! They are all Certified Animal Assistant therapy animals and their main purpose is to make traveling a little bit less anxious for everybody.

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‘Meditating mice’ reveal secrets of mindfulness training

Can a mouse be mindful? Researchers believe they have created the world’s first mouse model of meditation by using light to trigger brain activity similar to what meditation induces. The mice involved appeared less anxious, too. Human experiments show that meditation reduces anxiety, lowers levels of stress hormones and improves attention and cognition. In one study of the effects of two to four weeks of meditation training, Michael Posner of the University of Oregon and colleagues discovered changes in the white matter in volunteers’ brains, related to the efficiency of communication between different brain regions. The changes, picked up i

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Here's What Happens Inside Your Body When You Flex Your Fingers

Hold your hand in front of you, palm up and fingers splayed. Now bend your fingers at their first joint past the knuckles.

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Substance in crude oil harms fish hearts, could affect humans as well.

Experiments provide direct evidence of how phenanthrene causes irregular heartbeat and weaker contractions of heart cells.Urban air pollution, laden with PAHs, has been implicated in cardiac distress. The current study points the finger at phenanthrene, which could enter the bloodstream through respiratory pathways such as breathing.The researchers also suggest that atmospheric phenanthrene deserves more attention for the possible impact it could have on the cardiovascular health of people. Better understanding of the connection between phenanthrene and human health could potentially lead to insights regarding which aspects of fossil-fuel bur

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A vast new tomb for the most dangerous waste in the world

Chernobyl's new sarcophagus took two decades to make. Bigger than Wembley Stadium and taller than the Statue of Liberty, it will seal in the entire disaster site for 100 years. World leaders jostle with global executives and anonymous men dressed in full camouflage as platters of shrimp, foie gras and cheesecake are passed around by white-gloved staff. It would all seem quite normal were it not for the fact that we’re just 100m (330ft) away from the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history.

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Child’s Play: Team Trump Rewrites a Department of Energy Website for Kids

“These websites are actually giving us clues as to what this administration is going to do, much more so than the very public media show that we are getting through the White House press secretary, through President Trump tweeting or through Kellyanne Conway on ‘Meet the Press,’” said Jennifer Wingard, an associate professor of rhetoric at the University of Houston. “It is intentional, these shifts in words are meaningful, and it’s smart to pay attention to them.”

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Scientists have just detected a major change to the Earth’s oceans linked to a warming climate

A large research synthesis, published in one of the world’s most influential scientific journals, has detected a decline in the amount of dissolved oxygen in oceans around the world — a long-predicted result of climate change that could have severe consequences for marine organisms if it continues.

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Brewery offers paid 'paw-ternity' leave for employees with new puppies

A newborn puppy can be a full-time job, that's why beer maker BrewDog — a Scottish brewery set to open up an Ohio location later this year — now offers a week of paid leave for employees with new puppies or rescued dogs. The company said it's the first company in the United States, and the first brewery in the United Kingdom, to offer the "paw-ternity" benefit. BrewDog, in an announcement made earlier this week, said the benefit will be offered to all of its nearly 1,000 employees across the world, including those at its soon-to-be brewery near Columbus, Ohio, which is set to open in the spring.

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Strong Storms Pound North Carolina Coast

This video has been uploaded for use by Storyful's subscription clients with the permission of the content owner. To obtain a Storyful subscription, contact sales@storyful.com.

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What Mirrors Tell Us About Animal Minds

… including our own.

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How Silicon Valley Is Trying to Hack Its Way Into a Longer Life

The titans of the tech industry are known for their confidence that they can solve any problem--even, as it turns out, the one that's defeated every other attempt so far. That's why the most far-out strategies to cheat death are being tested in America's playground for the young, deep-pocketed and brilliant: Silicon Valley. Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle, has given more than $330 million to research about aging and age-related diseases. Alphabet CEO and co-founder Larry Page launched Calico...

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Less snow and a shorter ski season in the Alps

After long-awaited snowfall in January, parts of the Alps are now covered with fresh powder and happy skiers. But the Swiss side of the iconic mountain range had the driest December since record-keeping began over 150 years ago, and 2016 was the third year in a row with scarce snow over the Christmas period. A study published today in The Cryosphere, a journal of the European Geosciences Union, shows bare Alpine slopes could be a much more common sight in the future.

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Woolly mammoth on verge of resurrection, scientists reveal

Scientist leading ‘de-extinction’ effort says Harvard team just two years away from creating hybrid mammoth-elephant embryo

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Heatwave kills thousands of bats across NSW

Thousands of dead bats are dropping from trees after temperatures topped 45 degrees in parts of New South Wales. The area worst affected was Casino in the Richmond Valley region of northern New South Wales, where more than 2,000 dead flying foxes have been found. Richmond Valley Council general manager Vaughan Macdonald said many of the dead bats were difficult to access because they were scattered along riverbanks.

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The Amount of Oxygen in the Ocean Has Dropped Thanks to Humans

You are probably aware that global temperatures are rising thanks to human-made greenhouse gases emissions. You might not be aware of some of the many associated side effects, for instance, the fact that our oceans have been losing oxygen over the past few decades.

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Climate Change Has Already Harmed Almost Half of All Mammals

The effect of climate change on endangered species has been wildly underestimated, a new study has found. A survey of studies has determined that climate change has had a particularly dire effect on mammals and birds on the endangered species list. That includes about half of the mammals and almost a quarter of the birds on the “red list” kept by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The study found that about 700 species on the list were affected by the warming planet.

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Earth Has a New Continent Called 'Zealandia', Study Reveals

Kids are frequently taught that seven continents exist: Africa, Asia, Antarctica, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.

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