Friday, May 31, 2019

science news 31.5.2019

Today's selection of science news. Links are normally to press releases on EurekAlert (at the bottom end I may also add a couple of newspaper stories). I include quotes from the summary (using quotation marks) in cases where the title alone doesn't reveal what the story is about. My own thoughts appear without quotation marks, if I have any.


conservation

How protected areas are losing ground in the United States and Amazonia
"Once champions of global conservation, the United States and Brazil are now leading a troubling global trend of large-scale rollbacks in environmental policy, putting hundreds of protected areas at risk, a new study suggests."


humans

Ancient DNA tells the story of the first herders and farmers in east Africa

UCI research helps shed new light on circadian clocks
"Can your liver sense when you're staring at a television screen or cellphone late at night? Apparently so, and when such activity is detected, the organ can throw your circadian rhythms out of whack, leaving you more susceptible to health problems."

Circadian clock and fat metabolism linked through newly discovered mechanism

Eating blueberries every day improves heart health


sustainability

Edible insects? Lab-grown meat? The real future food is lab-grown insect meat

Swapping water for CO2 could make fracking greener and more effective
"Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China University of Petroleum (Beijing) have demonstrated that CO2 may make a better hydraulic fracturing (fracking) fluid than water. Their research, published May 30 in the journal Joule, could help pave the way for a more eco-friendly form of fracking that would double as a mechanism for storing captured atmospheric CO2."





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