By Marsha Lewis, Inside Science

(Inside Science TV) – Ever wonder why that cold can of beer you opened heats up so fast? Well, there's a scientific answer behind it…literally.

Atmospheric scientists at the University of Washington have new insights on what makes your beverage lose its cool.

“Condensation really has an impact on your drink," said Dargan Frierson, a mathematician at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The pressure's on JJ Abrams and the new Star Wars films.Credit: wiredphotostream, CC BY-NC

By Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Manchester Metropolitan University

Coastal regions under threat from sea-level rise need to tackle the immediate threats of human-led and other non-climatic changes, according to a new analysis. It's an even more pressing concern than possible climate change sea rises because those changes are already happening.

A team of 27 scientists led by Dr Sally Brown at the University of Southampton reviewed 24 years of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments, focusing on climate change and sea-level rise impacts in the coastal zone, and examined ways of how to better manage and cope with climate change. 

In 1929 Linus Pauling came up with Pauling's Rules to describe the principles governing the structure of complex ionic crystals.

These rules essentially describe how the arrangement of atoms in a crystal is critically dependent on the size of the atoms, their charge and type of bonding.

According to scientists from the Biohybrid Materials Group of Aalto University Finland led by Mauri Kostiainen, similar rules can be applied to prepare ionic colloidal crystals consisting of oppositely charged proteins and virus particles. The results can be applied for example in packing and protecting virus particles into crystals that mimic 

Researchers have developed a potential antibody therapy for Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV), one of the two most lethal strains of Ebola.

 Sudan ebolavirus
was first identified in 1976 and has caused numerous Ebola outbreaks (most recently in 2012) that have killed more than 400 people in total.  
A different strain, the Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV), is now devastating West Africa.

Raloxifene is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved treatment for decreasing fracture risk in osteoporosis and it is effective at reducing fracture risk, but only partially by suppressing bone loss.

With the use of wide- and small-angle x-ray scattering (WAXS and SAXS, respectively), researchers carried out experiments at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory that revealed an additional mechanism underlying raloxifene action, providing an explanation for how this drug can achieve equivalent clinical benefit.

These data, together with complementary techniques, help define a novel mechanism by which raloxifene increases inherent bone toughness.

Some research has indicated that salt might alter the autoimmune response, which is implicated in the development of multiple sclerosis (MS), but it is not clear if it has any direct effect on the course of the disease itself.

FK506 possesses a well-studied neuroregenerative effect, stimulating neurite extension in the presence of nerve growth factor in vitro, and enhancing nerve regeneration following nerve crush injury and isografting.

The use of FK506 to stimulate nerve regeneration is limited because of the risk of renal failure and hypertension, and its considerable cost. 

With long-term allografts, FK506 alone or combined with other drugs reportedly cause life-threatening infections. Like FK506, rapamycin is an immunosuppressant and FKBP-12-binding ligand, and has a neuroregenerative effect in vitro.

In almost 20 years, China's Research  &  Development (R&D) expenditure as a percentage of its gross domestic product has more than tripled, reaching 1.98 percent in 2012. 

That is a big improvement, it surpasses all 28 countries that make up the European Union, which collectively managed 1.96 percent. But where is the money going? 

It is a word we hear from time to time, but few of us know what it means.

Utilitarianism is the method most people use to decide whether an action is right or wrong. We decide the moral merits of what we do on whether the consequences of that action are good or bad. But utilitarianism has recently been in the firing line of the press and radio and by some moral philosophers.