Defeating Disease: Exhibit Shows Guinea Worm's Eradication

	Defeating Disease: Exhibit Shows Guinea Worm's Eradication A new museum exhibit will showcase the massive public health effort it took to beat the grisly parasitic infection called Guinea worm disease, and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was here today at a preview of the exhibit's opening. "The number of cases of Guinea worm disease continued decreasing in 2014, bringing Guinea worm eradication closer to the finish line," said Carter, whose organization, The Carter Center, has focused on fighting this waterborne disease since 1986 and helped develop the new exhibit. The route to wiping out the Guinea worm disease is displayed in the exhibit "Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease," which will open on Tuesday (Jan. 13) at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. Guinea worm disease was once common in many African and Asian countries. Read More » NASA Conducts 1st Test Fire of Shuttle-Era Engine for New Rocket The space shuttle main engine (SSME), now renamed the RS-25D, fired for 500 seconds atop the A-1 test stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Four RS-25 engines are planned to power the first stage of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket on future missions, including sending astronauts to an asteroid and ultimately to Mars. The first uncrewed SLS test flight is targeted for 2018. "The RS-25 is the most efficient engine of its type in the world," said Steve Wofford, the manager of the SLS liquid engines office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., where the SLS program is managed. Read More » Seismic Roundup: 2014 Saw Fewer Big Earthquakes Than 2013 Twelve large earthquakes shook the globe in 2014, seven fewer than in 2013, according to a final tally of the year's temblors by the U.S. Geological Survey. The numbers are "pretty normal," said University of Washington professor and Washington state seismologist John Vidale, though the quake data do provide some insight into the relatively recent trend of small and moderate earthquakes that have been linked to the drilling of oil wells. Read More » 220-Year-Old Time Capsule Buried by Sam Adams & Paul Revere Opened In 1795, then-Massachusetts Gov. Samuel Adams, famed patriot Paul Revere and Col. William Scollay buried a time capsule under the Massachusetts State House cornerstone in Boston, and now, after more than 200 years, its contents have been revealed. On Jan. 6, officials from the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston carefully excavated and opened the capsule. The time capsule holds silver and copper coins dating from 1652 to 1855 (the capsule was opened in the decades following its burial in 1795) and a silver plaque that experts believe Paul Revere himself engraved. The capsule also contained a copper medal depicting George Washington, several newspapers, an impression of the seal of the commonwealth and the title page from the Massachusetts Colony Records. Read More » 170-Million-Year-Old 'Fish Lizard' Fossil Unearthed in Scotland A prehistoric marine-reptile fossil found in Scotland's Isle of Skye represents a new species that lived about 170 million years ago, a new study finds. The specimen was a member of a group of extinct marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs. "It's one of a select few specimens of that age in the world," said Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh and co-author of the study, published today (Jan. 12) in the Scottish Journal of Geology. The first ichthyosaurs ever discovered were found in England, and some of the same kinds of rocks where fossils of these animals were found exist in Scotland, Brusatte told Live Science. Read More » Don't Let Artificial Intelligence Take Over, Top Scientists Warn Artificial intelligence has the potential to make lives easier by understanding human desires or driving people's cars, but if it were uncontrolled, the technology could pose a serious threat to society. Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and dozens of other top scientists and technology leaders signed a letter warning of the potential dangers of developing artificial intelligence (AI). In addition to heavyweights like Hawking and Musk, the prominent physicist and billionaire founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, the letter was signed by top researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Google and other institutions. Read More » Are Computers Better Judges of Personality Than Friends? When it comes to truly knowing someone's personality, a computer may do a better job than the individual's friends and family members, a new study suggests. Scientists developed a computer model that mined the Facebook "Likes" of study participants, looking at the products, activities, sports, musicians, books and restaurants to which people gave the "thumbs up." The researchers found that this computer model predicted people's personalities more accurately than did most of the person's friends and family members, with the exception of spouses. Read More » In Bloom! Plankton Swirl Spotted from Space Captured in a satellite image that NASA released Friday (Jan. 9), the milky green and light blue swirls in the image are dense patches of phytoplankton in the ocean, including some that have have scales made of calcite, making them appear white in the image. NASA's Landsat 8 satellite captured the image of the region near Alaska's Pribilof Islands on Sept. 22, 2014. Phytoplankton form the base of the marine ecosystem and provide food to many different kinds of marine life. Near Alaska, huge blooms in the Bering Sea begin growing during the spring,after the winter ice recedes and more nutrients are available near the surface of the water. Read More » Sound Mind and Sound Body? This Protein Helps Both The scientists have found that a nerve-growth factor called BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) — which was already known to enhance memory, nourish blood vessels and nerves and act as natural antidepressant — also helps the heart beat properly. The finding may explain the association seen in recent years between depression and heart disease, and also lead to new treatments for heart failure, the researchers said. BDNF is produced in the brain and, as a growth factor, helps support the generation of new nerves and blood vessels throughout the nervous system. Numerous studies have shown how mice born without the ability to make BDNF die soon after birth from neurological disorders. Read More » Crustacean shells rival plastics for keeping food fresh - study By Chris Arsenault ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Packaging made from recycled crustacean shells could reduce the need for plastic wrappings to preserve fresh vegetables, reduce oil consumption and give food a longer shelf-life, a Spanish study said. Chitosan, a bioplastic made by isolating organic matter from shrimp shells, helped preserve the shelf-life of baby carrots, said the study, published in the journal Postharvest Biology and Technology. ... Read More » Care for Some Science in Your Science Fiction? (Op-Ed) R.L. Akers is the author of the "Gryphens Saga" — "Prometheus Rebound" (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013), "Prometheus Revealed" (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014) and the short story collection "Prometheus Rising" (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014) — which blends science fiction and military thriller elements to tell a story of humanity's present day, real-world response to the threat of alien invasion. We Americans love our science fiction. Read More » Viagra Is a Miracle Drug, For Premature Babies (Op-Ed) Jennifer Tackett was careful to not drink caffeine while she was pregnant, so you can imagine how surprised she was when our team at Nationwide Children's Hospital told her we were going to give the equivalent of a cup of coffee to her premature daughter Autymn. Many people might think caffeine is the last thing a premature baby would need, but caffeine can actually help the lives of babies born prematurely. Read More » Half of Teen, Young Adult Car Crash Deaths Involve Pot or Alcohol Half of the teen and young adult drivers who die in car crashes are under the influence of either pot, alcohol, or both, suggests a new study done in states where toxicology screening for accident victims is routine. "Given the rapid changes currently underway in marijuana availability and permissibility in the U.S., understanding the effects of drug control policies on substance use behavior and adverse health outcomes, such as fatal motor vehicle crashes, has never been more important," study researcher Katherine Keyes, of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, said in a statement. Car crashes are the leading cause of death of 18- to 25-year-olds in the U.S., and driving under the influence is a major cause of accidents. Not every state conducts routine toxicology tests on car crash victims right after the accident, but those that do have come up with alarming results. Read More »