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+17 +1
Scientists Can Now Clone Thousands of Genes in a Single Reaction
Things are about to speed up dramatically in genetic research, with scientists developing a new technique that can clone thousands of genes in a single reaction. The new technology, called a LASSO probe, could be used to create libraries of proteins from DNA samples, speeding up the search for new drugs by replacing the tedious methods of gene cloning currently used.
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+10 +1
France’s response to Trump may make it a climate science hub
Most world leaders reacted with horror to President Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris climate accords. French President Emmanuel Macron responded with what was largely considered a troll: a short address in which he invites scientists and entrepreneurs to move to France and "make our planet great again." But it turned out to be more than just a troll; France has put research funding on the table and has apparently been drawing lots of interest from scientists.
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+9 +1
Scientists May Have Just Discovered Enormous Amounts Of Water On The Moon
Scientists have found evidence that the Moon may contain vast amounts of water in its interior, which could be hugely beneficial for future lunar explorers. The research was carried out by scientists from Brown University in Rhode Island and published in Nature Geoscience. They investigated how water appeared to be trapped in volcanic glass across the lunar surface, remnants of the Moon’s volcanism billions of years ago.
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+17 +1
Sperm counts among western men have halved in last 40 years – study
Sperm counts among men have more than halved in the last 40 years, research suggests, although the drivers behind the decline remain unclear. The latest findings reveal that between 1973 and 2011, the concentration of sperm in the ejaculate of men in western countries has fallen by an average of 1.4% a year, leading to an overall drop of just over 52%.
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+25 +1
Planet has just 5% chance of reaching Paris climate goal, study says
There is only a 5% chance that the Earth will avoid warming by at least 2C come the end of the century, according to new research that paints a sobering picture of the international effort to stem dangerous climate change.
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+12 +1
A psychologist explains the limits of human compassion
Why do we ignore mass atrocities? It has to do with something called "psychic numbing."
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+13 +1
Hubble has discovered signs that Nasa's newly discovered planets could support life
Three potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in another solar system are likely to contain substantial amounts of water, say astronomers. The discovery by the Hubble Space Telescope increases the chances of life evolving on planets orbiting Trappist-1, a dwarf star 40 light years from the sun. Each of the worlds orbits in the star's "habitable zone", the narrow corridor where temperatures are mild enough to permit bodies of surface water such as lakes and oceans.
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+16 +1
There Are Now 8,000 Fake Science ‘Journals’ Worldwide, Researchers Say
Researchers from high-profile institutions are falling for these scams.
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+29 +1
Sun Unleashes most Powerful Solar Flare since 2006
Two powerful solar flares erupted from the surface of the sun Wednesday, disrupting radio communications on Earth's day side. And we may see some other effects in the coming days, mainly in the form of northern lights.
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+24 +1
Cancer Drugs Cost Way Less to Develop Than What We've Been Led to Think, Study Claims
It's no secret that developing and clinically testing drugs to treat conditions like cancer is a long and rigorous process. But the financial costs could be dramatically less than many people think. An oft-quoted figure used by the pharmaceutical industry and once even referenced by President Trump puts the outlay at about US$2.7 billion in 2017 dollars to bring a drug to market, but a new analysis suggests that's way more than what it actually costs.
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+41 +1
How flying seriously messes with your mind
Travelling by plane has become an everyday activity – but our bodies and brains are still affected by it.
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+13 +1
Europe is Designing a New Particle Collider to Take On China
CERN, the European nuclear physics research organization, is contemplating the development of a particle accelerator three times larger than the Large Hadron Collider that confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson, a move intended to match growing Chinese ambitions in particle physics.
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+15 +1
Psychedelic brew called ayahuasca shows promise in the treatment of eating disorders
Scientists in Canada have found preliminary evidence that a psychedelic drink known as ayahuasca can help people overcome eating disorders. “I was a psychologist working in eating disorders and colleagues and I were witnessing first-hand the drop-out rates, the relapse rates, even deaths, when I watched a documentary on ayahuasca in the context of addictions,” said Dr. Adèle Lafrance, lead author of the study and a clinical psychologist and associate professor at Laurentian University.
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+19 +1
Scientists Have Designed a Crystalline Type of Aluminium That's Insanely Light
Aluminium is already highly prized. It's conductive, has a low melting point, is very strong when alloyed, is impervious to rust and, above all, it's extremely light. But what if you could get it lighter - so light, in fact, that it could float on water even when not made into the shape of a foil boat? According to a model created by researchers at Utah State University and Southern Federal University in Rostov-on Don, Russia, such a thing is actually possible. A team used computational design to conceive a form of crystalline aluminium with extremely low density.
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+21 +1
North American First: U of G Researchers Publish Scientific Study on Cannabis Production
University of Guelph researchers have published what is believed to be the first scientific paper in North America on improving medicinal cannabis plant production, helping move the industry into the realm of high-tech laboratories and evidence-based practices. “Growing marijuana has been illegal for so many years that there has been hardly any scientific research up until this point on how to produce this crop,” said Prof. Youbin Zheng. “There has been no science guiding this industry.”
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+13 +1
Stephen Hawking's PhD thesis crashes University of Cambridge website after it is made available for first time
Stephen Hawking's PhD thesis has caused the University of Cambridge's website to crash after being made freely available to the general public for the first time. Professor Hawking's 1966 thesis "Properties of expanding universes" was made openly accessible on the publications section of university's website just after midnight on Monday.
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+25 +1
Our nights have been getting 2 percent lighter every year
If you're thinking that it seems a little less dark at night … well, you might not be imagining things. According to a new study led by Dr. Christopher Kyba of the German Research Center for Geoscience, Earth's artificially lit outdoor areas grew by 2.2 percent per year from 2012 to 2016.
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+19 +1
Criminalization Makes It Harder to Study Ayahuasca, Scientists Say
It's an impediment to medical research on ayahuasca's potential to treat mental health disorders.
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+18 +1
The scientific evidence for microaggressions is weak and we should drop the term, argues review author
Racism and prejudice are sometimes blatant, but often manifest in subtle ways. The current emblem of these subtle slights is the “microaggression”, a concept that has generated a large programme of research and launched itself into the popular consciousness – prompting last month’s decision by Merriam-Webster to add it to their dictionary.
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+19 +1
Meet the Newly Named 86 Stars of the Night Sky
The new names are drawn from China, Australia, South Africa, Maya, Polynesian and Coptic traditions
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