The remains of 36 bubonic plague victims from a 16th century mass grave in Germany provide evidence that evolutionary adaptive processes, driven by the disease, may have conferred immunity on later generations of people from the region.

The researchers collected DNA samples from the inner ear bones of individuals in a mass grave in the southern German city of Ellwangen which experienced bubonic plague outbreaks in the 16th and 17th centuries. Then they took DNA samples from 50 current residents of the town. They compared their frequency spectra - the distribution of gene variants in a given sample - for a large panel of immunity-related genes and found that innate immune markers increased in frequency in modern people from the town compared to plague victims.

A new analysis finds that nearly 50 percent of people who have children with a partner who suffers from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder themselves meet the criteria for a mental disorder.

Epicurious, a food website owned by the billion-dollar Condé Nast group, has stated it will no longer carry recipes that use beef. Because of the environment.

Horizon

We've all seen how helpful solar panels are in renewable energy. From a consumer perspective, solar power is still an up-and-coming challenger to the existing fossil fuel infrastructure that most power generation systems take advantage of. The University of Michigan estimates that as little as 1.8% of US power generation in 2019 came from solar sources. Part of the reason this number is so low is why more commercial users haven't tapped into the technology. It makes little sense to go to the expense of installing a solar generation system based on the returns that it offers. However, that may soon change, based on new advances in technology.

When 23andMe was in its most ridiculous phase of existence, the co-founder was telling FDA to talk to the hand while she assumed campaign donations to members of Congress would exempt them from being told to stop lying about their tests allowing consumers to “take steps toward mitigating serious diseases” like breast cancer.

Artwork is one of the newest purchasable commodities on the crypto market, thanks to a new technology known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NPR informs us that an NFT is a crypto token that isn't interchangeable but is tied to a specific commodity. The easiest way to think about them is an analog to how they're being used. For the first time in its history, blockchains can be used to hold and trade collectibles. Yet, the trade of these collectible tokens brings with it some alarming environmental concerns.

Tons of Power Consumption

About 23,000,000 years ago, something hit the giant Asteroid 4 Vesta(1) some 120,000,000 miles away and the impact sent huge rocks into space. In 2018, one such meteorite from that time hit Botswana.

It was not unique. Over 30 percent of such Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenites (HED) meteorites that hit Earth year come from just the impact that formed the Antonia crater on Vesta. And then there is everything else happening outside our atmosphere piling on.

Antibiotics won't help with COVID-19 because the disease is not caused by bacteria but instead a virus. However, a new study finds that some antibiotics can prevent the entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into cells. The Drug Design and Molecular Topology Unit group of the University of Valencia found that certain macrolide antibiotics like clarithromycin and azithromycin (used in respiratory tract infections) does just that.