Transport proteins called efflux pumps, and their role in creating drug-resistance in bacteria, could lead to improving effectiveness of drugs against life-threatening diseases and perhaps even bring defunct antibiotics back to prominence.

When pharmacy professionals — rather than doctors or nurses — take medication histories of patients in emergency departments, mistakes in drug orders can be reduced by more than 80 percent, according to a recent paper.

Injuries resulting from medication use are among the most common types of inpatient injuries at U.S. hospitals, affecting hundreds of thousands of patients every year. Errors in medication histories can lead physicians to order the wrong drug, dose or frequency.

There is additional evidence a mantle plume, basically a geothermal heat source such as a volcano, is below Antarctica's Marie Byrd Land and it explains a substantial amount of the melting that creates lakes and rivers under the ice sheet. 

Mantle plumes are thought to be narrow streams of hot rock rising through Earth's mantle and spreading out like a mushroom cap under the crust. The buoyancy of the material, some of it molten, causes the crust to bulge upward. The theory of mantle plumes was proposed in the 1970s to explain geothermal activity that occurs far from the boundary of a tectonic plate, such as Hawaii and Yellowstone. 

Life in the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) is not exactly paradise. Children are indoctrinated, women are severely oppressed, and infidels are beheaded. Ancient cultural artifacts and historical treasures are destroyed. Liberating people conquered by ISIS, therefore, is good not only for humanitarian reasons but for archaeological ones, as well.

Now, it appears there is yet another reason to defeat ISIS: It might be good for the planet.

A new study published by Princeton University and the World Bank shows that oil production in ISIS-controlled areas has fallen by over 70%, from 56,000 barrels per day in December 2014 to 16,000 barrels per day in 2016.

The world’s second densest metal can be used to kill cancer cells by filling them with a deadly version of oxygen, without harming healthy tissue, according to a new paper.

The metal, iridium, was in the asteroid with the strongest link to the extinction of dinosaurs. When combined with organic material, the researchers showed it can be directly targeted towards cancerous cells, transferring energy to the cells to turn the oxygen (O2) inside them into singlet oxygen, which is poisonous and kills the cell - without harming any healthy tissue.

Move over, Bornean and the Sumatran orangutans. Scholars have identified a third orangutan species, the Tapanuli orangutan, that sits alongside the Pongo abelii, living on the island of Sumatra, and the Pongo pygmeaeus, endemic to Borneo, on the evolutionary tree.