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Pathogens, Pests And Perils In Global Food Security

In wealthy countries, the richest and the aspirational well-off can afford to pay extra for food...

Side Effects Update: Lecanemab To Slow Alzheimer's

In 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration an Alzheimer’s therapy shown in clinical trials...

The Ideal Amount Of Sleep You Need Is Cultural Not Fixed For All People

You've heard that you should get eight hours of sleep per night, a whole industry has built up...

Toward A Unified Theory Of How Language Evolved

Humans are the only species on earth that uses language, combining sounds into words and words...

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Prosthetic Hearing: Soft Brainstem Implant One Step Closer To Human Trials

Prosthetic Hearing: Soft Brainstem Implant One Step Closer To Human Trials

Apr 18 2025 | comment(s)

The cochlear implant has helped many regain hearing functionality and a new study shows a potential roadmap for those whose cochlear nerve is too damaged; the auditory brainstem implant.

The current auditory brainstem implant and its rigid structure does not allow for good tissue contact, which means a majority of the electrodes must be switched off due to unwanted side effects such as dizziness or facial twitching. A soft, thin-film version with electrodes embedded in silicone leads to a pliable array less than a millimeter thick.

Superior conformity means patients will no longer get vague sounds and little speech intelligibility - and fewer side effects.
Duckweed Science May Lead To Food That Farms Itself

Duckweed Science May Lead To Food That Farms Itself

Apr 07 2025 | comment(s)

Duckweed split into different species 59 million years ago, when the climate was more extreme than even the most aggressive climate simulation produced now.

A new study, genome sequences for five duckweed species, reveals how duckweed can essentially farm itself, and because it can double in mass after two days what that might mean for the future of food science.
Sticky Pesticides Reduce Chemicals Needed To Protect Plants

Sticky Pesticides Reduce Chemicals Needed To Protect Plants

Mar 25 2025 | comment(s)

It's easy for Greenpeace employees in cities to talk about farming but in the real world, without pesticides we'd lose 78 percent of fruit, 54 percent of vegetables, and 32 percent of cereal crops.

Most farmers want to optimize razor-thin margins and protect their biggest asset, land, so they are cautious about spraying too much, but the organic process leads to startling amounts of nitrogen runoff into rivers and ground water. A study claims 31 percent of agricultural soils around the world were at high risk from pesticide pollution while the old ways of German farmers recently showed they were exposing everything to wasted chemicals. Seed treatments like neonicotinoids have gone a long way to reducing runoff but some products can only be sprayed. 
Genetic Engineering Could Solve Spider Mite Infestations With Fewer Pesticides

Genetic Engineering Could Solve Spider Mite Infestations With Fewer Pesticides

Mar 19 2025 | comment(s)

The world is producing more food using fewer pesticides than ever, thanks to modern science. The gap between modern pesticide usage and organic food pesticides needed per calorie of food got so large, up to 600% more organic pesticides used, that California stopped itemizing organic pesticides separately to improve the optics of the organic industry.
Cheminformatics: NIH Funds A More Scientific Mosquito Repellent

Cheminformatics: NIH Funds A More Scientific Mosquito Repellent

Mar 12 2025 | comment(s)

Today, the best way to prevent malaria remains DDT. Though banned in the US by a politician over the objections of scientists, it is still recommended by the United Nations for use where malaria has not been wiped out. Our FDA even wrote the book on how to spray it in homes.

Despite 70 years of effort, viable affordable replacements remain elusive but a new program hopes LLMs could help find one. The  National Institutes of Health funded a proposal to use machine learning techniques combined with cheminformatics to help generate new mosquito repellents.
KM3NeT: Most Energetic Neutrino In The Universe Detected

KM3NeT: Most Energetic Neutrino In The Universe Detected

Feb 12 2025 | comment(s)

The  Kilometre Cubic Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT) collaboration has reported detection of  a neutrino with an estimated energy of about 220 PeV (220 million billion electron volts) by its ARCA detector.

The event, KM3-230213A, is the first evidence that neutrinos of such high energies are produced in the Universe and the most energetic neutrino ever observed.