HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

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June 23, 2016 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting-edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH & SCIENCE

For excerpts and full stories, click "read more" and scroll down.

HEALTH

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria give urgent warning (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Life free of deadly infectious diseases is rare, unnatural, hard to preserve.

Would it be wrong to eradicate mosquitoes? (BBC)

The mosquito is the most dangerous animal in the world, carrying diseases that kill one million people a year. Now the Zika virus, which is carried by mosquitoes, has been linked with thousands of babies born with brain defects in South America. Should the insects be wiped out?

Stent 'may help bowel cancer treatment'

A expandable tube, or stent, inserted into the bowels of cancer patients can cut the odds of them needing a colostomy bag, cancer doctors say.

Jimmy Carter may soon get his 90th birthday wish: no more Guinea worm (NPR)

Former President Jimmy Carter may be on the brink of celebrating the birthday wish he made last year: the global eradication of Guinea worm disease. This year, there are only two confirmed cases, compared to 3.5 million a year in the 1980s. It's a medical milestone that took a nearly 30-year effort by the Carter Center and its partners.

News In Numbers: AIDS Remains A Stubborn Foe In San Diego County (KPBS)



While the San Diego County HIV numbers were dropping from 492 cases in 2011 to 467 in 2013, the latest numbers indicate a slight resurgence, with 13 more cases in 2014 than in 2013.

SCIENCE

Scientists turn CO2 to stone in just two years: a solution for climate change? (+video) (CS Monitor)

Researchers at the world's largest geothermal power plant have found a way to store carbon dioxide underground and turn it to rock.

Bionic leaf converts energy from our sun better than nature does (CS Monitor)

Researchers at Harvard have created a device that mimics the natural process of photosynthesis, taking solar energy and converting it into chemical energy or liquid fuel. 

King Tut: a ruler swathed in mystery also wielded a cosmic dagger (CS Monitor)

A research team recently confirmed that one of the daggers buried with the remains of the ancient Egyptian king Tutankhamun was made from 'iron of the sky,' a weapon fashioned from a meteorite.

Researchers find 39 unreported sources of major pollution: NASA (Reuters)

 Researchers in the United States and Canada have located 39 unreported sources of major pollution using a new satellite-based method, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

Tortoise injured in a forest fire gets a 3D-printed shell (CS Monitor)

The tortoise is among a slew of animals benefiting from advances in 3D printing technology.

VIDEO: Can baking soda save the world? (BBC)

US researchers are testing a key ingredient of baking soda as a means of capturing carbon dioxide.

This Futuristic "Straddling Bus” Can Drive Itself Over Cars (IFL Science)

The "straddling bus” is part mass transport, part tunnel.

Can asteroids be turned into self-driving spaceships? (CS Monitor)

An engineering company hopes to develop an additive manufacturing (3D printing) process that can turn asteroids into mechanical craft capable of delivering their resources to future human outposts across space.

How long would it take to read the terms of your smartphone apps? These Norwegians tried it out. (Washington Post)

A few Norwegians wanted to make a point and decided to publicly read aloud the terms of 33 apps in a live-streamed event hosted on their website. On average, Norwegians have 33 apps installed. But reading the terms of all of them took the activists more than 31 hours.

Feds: Drought Kills 66M Trees In Sierra Nevada (KPBS)

The number of trees in California's Sierra Nevada forests killed by drought, a bark beetle epidemic and warmer temperatures has dramatically increased since last year, raising fears they will fuel catastrophic wildfires and endanger people's lives.

Warmer winters play important role in EU emissions drop (BBC)

Milder winters have contributed to a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions across the EU over the past quarter of a century.

Diesels more polluting below 18C, research suggests(BBC)

Testing company Emissions Analytics told the BBC it has measured a significant rise in poisonous gas emissions from a wide range of models as the temperature drops. It found the problem is worst among the Euro 5 category of cars, which became mandatory in 2011.

New crop varieties 'can't keep up with global warming'(BBC)

Temperatures around the world are rising faster than scientists can develop varieties that can cope with a warmer world, according to a new study.

Dead Sea drying   (BBC)



The Dead Sea is one of the great ecological treasures of the world but it is shrinking at an alarming rate, as Kevin Connolly reports.

 


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