Global money transfer service Azimo has announced waiving fees for transfers to Nigeria as the...

Marijuanas active components are potentially effective in treating pain, nausea, the anorexia of AIDS wasting, and other symptoms, and should be tested rigorously in clinical trials.

Conducting clinical investigations of mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRT) in humans is ethically permissible as long as significant conditions and principles are met, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Ovarian cancer should not be categorized as a single disease, but rather as a constellation of different cancers involving the ovary, yet questions remain on how and where various ovarian cancers arise, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Mobilization of a rapid and robust clinical research program that explores whether investigational therapeutics and vaccines are safe and effective to combat the next infectious disease epidemic will depend on strengthening capacity in low-income countries for response and research, engaging people living in affected communities, and conducting safety trials before an epidemic hits, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are now serving as the host for the InterAcademy Partnership for Research (IAP-R) secretariat.

NASA’s investment in new instruments to analyze extraterrestrial samples is insufficient to provide for replacement of existing instruments, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

For some patients, the ability to participate in a clinical trial from the comfort of one’s home is becoming a reality.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommends ways to make supply chains -- the systems that provide populations with critical goods and services, such as food and water, gasoline, and pharmaceuticals and medical supplies – more resilient in the face of hurricanes and other disasters, drawing upon lessons learned from the 2017 hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.

Although the immediate side effects of antimalarial drugs are widely recognized, few studies were designed specifically to examine health problems that might occur or persist months or years after people stopped taking them.

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block Congress from seeking the materials, saying, "The government will suffer irreparable harm absent a stay."; Credit: Andrew Harnik/AP

The Supreme Court has temporarily put on hold the release of redacted grand jury material from the Russia investigation to a House panel.

The Trump administration is trying to block the release.

Last October, a district court judge ruled the Justice Department had to turn over the materials, which were blacked out, from former special counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

An appeals court upheld the decision, but the Trump administration, hoping to keep the evidence secret, appealed to the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John Roberts' order temporarily stops the process. Lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee have until May 18 to file their response to the Justice Department's attempts to keep the materials from the House panel.

The Justice Department had until Monday to turn over the material following the appeals court order. But on Thursday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block Congress from seeking it, saying, "The government will suffer irreparable harm absent a stay."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

A 2018 exhibit at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University celebrated the artistic legacy of MAD magazine.; Credit: Andrew Welsh-Huggins/AP

The funny, freckled face of Alfred E. Neuman is more or less retiring.

One of the last widely circulated print satirical magazines in America will leave newsstands after this year, according to sources at DC Comics, which publishes MAD magazine.

While the Harvard Lampoon remains in business, The Onion hasn't been in print since 2013. The once-influential Spy was a casualty of the 1990s.

At MAD's peak in the early 1970s, more than 2 million people subscribed to it, both for its pungent political humor and deeply adolescent jokes.

In 2017, that number had reportedly dropped to 140,000.

MAD isn't completely shutting down, but it will be radically downsized and changed.

Readers will only be able to find the 67-year-old humor magazine at comic book stores and through subscriptions.

After issue No. 10 this fall, there will no longer be new content, except for end-of-year specials which will be all new. Starting with issue No. 11, the magazine will feature classic, best-of and nostalgic content, repackaged with new covers.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Brian Dennehy, known for his interpretations of characters created by Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, has died at the age of 81.; Credit: Mike Piscitelli /Dennehy Family

Brian Dennehy could go from viciously intimidating on film to weak and weary on stage. The actor died yesterday of cardiac arrest. His family says his death was not related to COVID-19. He was 81 years old.

Dennehy had a vast and varied body of work. On screen he was known for his roles in First Blood, Cocoon, and Tommy Boy. In theater, he earned wide acclaim for his depiction of the beleagured Willy Loman in the 1999 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. That performance earned him one of his two Best Actor Tony Awards. He earned the other in 2003 for his portrayal of family patriarch James Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Days Journey into Night.

Brian Manion Dennehy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on July 9, 1938, and grew up on Long Island, New York. He was tall and broad-chested and played football in high school, but was also in love with theater. As an Irish Catholic, he didn't see much of a future for himself in acting until he saw Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. "For the first time when I saw that picture, I realized there were people in the business who looked like me, and who sounded like me. And who came from places I came from" he said in an interview with WHYY's Fresh Air in 1999. "Before that time, acting was like ballet — something I could appreciate but never consider myself a part of."

On stage, Dennehy was a revered actor, particularly in the Chicago theater scene. His two Tony-award winning performances began at the famed Goodman Theatre, where he also performed in Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape. On Broadway, his credits include Translations, Love Letters, and Inherit the Wind.

Earlier in his career, Dennehy wasn't picky about his roles — and he wasn't shy about it either. "I had kids," he said in the Fresh Air interview. "I had kids who were ready to go to college, and I knew I had the responsibility — which I did not resent — to make sure they had good educations." Dennhey said his wide range of roles on television, where he acted in everything from Dynasty to M*A*S*H to Just Shoot Me, helped him become a more efficient actor. Dennehy worked all throughout his life, most recently appearing in the television series The Blacklist, as well the upcoming independent film Driveways.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

A new study has investigated the effects of set-aside management —when fields are taken out of agricultural production — on common invertebrate decomposers in soil. The diversity of woodlice species was higher in set-aside fields compared to neighbouring wheat fields and this effect increased in older set-asides. This study highlights the importance of set-aside areas as habitats for soil invertebrates, which are important for soil health.

; Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

What does the right to a unanimous jury verdict have to do with abortion, or school prayer, or federal environmental regulations? Stay tuned.

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday struck down state laws in Louisiana and Oregon that allowed people accused of serious crimes to be convicted by a non-unanimous jury vote. The 6-to-3 decision overturned a longstanding prior ruling from 1972, which had upheld such non-unanimous verdicts in state courts.

And these days, any decision to overturn a longstanding precedent rings the alarm bells in the Supreme Court.

In the short run, Monday's decision was a victory for Evangelisto Ramos, who in 2016 was convicted of second-degree murder by a jury vote of 10-to-2 in Louisiana.

Only two states--Louisiana and Oregon--had provisions allowing non-unanimous verdicts, and Louisiana just recently changed its law to be like those in 48 other states and the federal government.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, laid out the history behind the laws in both states. Gorsuch noted that the measure was first added to the Louisiana state constitution in 1898, after the Supreme Court ruled that racial minorities could not be barred from juries; that same year, Louisiana added the non-unanimous jury provision to its state constitution as part of a package of amendments that deliberately made it difficult for black citizens to vote or otherwise participate meaningfully in the state's governance. Specifically, Gorsuch said, the non-unanimous jury provision was a way to ensure that even if one or two African Americans made it on to a jury, their participation would be "meaningless."

The adoption of the non-unanimous jury rule in Oregon, Gorsuch wrote, "can similarly be traced to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and efforts to dilute the influence of racial and ethnic and religious minorities on Oregon juries."

Despite these state provisions, there has never been any dispute that the unanimous jury requirement applies to the federal government. The question in this case was whether that aspect of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial applied to the states as well.

Over the last 75 years or so, the court has applied just about every other provision of the Bill of Rights to the states, but in 1972 it deviated from that practice, declining to apply the unanimous jury requirement in a similar fashion.

On Monday, however, the 1972 decision came tumbling down. The six-justice court majority — composed of conservatives and liberals — said the earlier ruling was a mistake.

The decision, written by the conservative Gorsuch, was joined in whole or in part by liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Clarence Thomas, another conservative, agreed with the result, but on entirely different grounds.

Writing for the dissenters, Justice Samuel Alito — joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and for the most part, Justice Elena Kagan — maintained that the principle of adhering to precedent should be followed in this case because to do otherwise would require "a potentially crushing" number of new trials for people currently imprisoned under the old rule.

"Where is the justice in that?" replied Justice Gorsuch. "Not a single member of this court" is prepared to say that the 1972 decision was correct, he noted. "Every judge must learn to live with the fact that he or she will make mistakes ... But it is something else entirely to perpetuate" a wrong "only because we fear the consequences of being right."

The consequences of Monday's decision will likely be felt more in Louisiana, which allowed non-unanimous verdicts for more serious crimes than Oregon. The court's decision will require retrials for any prisoner who still has appeals pending.

There are about 100 of those cases in Louisiana, says Jamila Johnson, the managing attorney at the Promise of Justice Initiative, which represented Ramos. But there are also at least 1,700 prisoners in the state who might qualify for a new trial if the court eventually holds that Monday's decision is retroactive.

The high court left that question open for another day.

Altogether the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions totaled a whopping 86 pages and reflected an important subtext--divergent views about when the court should follow its usual rule of adhering to precedent and when it should not.

It's important because, the new ultra-conservative court majority has very different views than the courts of the last 75 years on topics as diverse as abortion, voting rights, federal regulation, and the clash between religious views and generally applicable laws.

"The court's views about when it's OK to overrule prior precedent have always been more about the eye of the beholder than they have been about a rule that is easy or straightforward to apply," says Deborah Pearlstein, professor and co-director of the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy at Cardozo School of Law. Ultimately, she said, "all of these major questions that are coming before the court are going to be fought along these lines."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block Congress from seeking the materials, saying, "The government will suffer irreparable harm absent a stay."; Credit: Andrew Harnik/AP

The Supreme Court has temporarily put on hold the release of redacted grand jury material from the Russia investigation to a House panel.

The Trump administration is trying to block the release.

Last October, a district court judge ruled the Justice Department had to turn over the materials, which were blacked out, from former special counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

An appeals court upheld the decision, but the Trump administration, hoping to keep the evidence secret, appealed to the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John Roberts' order temporarily stops the process. Lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee have until May 18 to file their response to the Justice Department's attempts to keep the materials from the House panel.

The Justice Department had until Monday to turn over the material following the appeals court order. But on Thursday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block Congress from seeking it, saying, "The government will suffer irreparable harm absent a stay."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

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The molecular mechanism used by many bacteria to kill neighboring cells has redundancy built into its genetic makeup, which could allow for the mechanism to be expressed in different environments, say researchers at Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their new study provides insights into the molecular mechanisms of competition among bacteria. "Many organisms, including humans, acquire bacteria from their environment," said Tim Miyashiro, a biochemist and molecular biologist at Penn State and the leader of the research team. "These bacteria can contribute to functions within the host organism, like how our gut bacteria help us digest food. We're interested in the interactions among bacteria cells, and between bacteria and their hosts, to better understand these mutually beneficial symbiotic relationships." Cells of the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fisheri take up residence in the light organ of newly hatched bobtail squid. At night, the bacteria produce a blue glow that researchers believe obscures a squid's silhouette and helps protect it from predators. The light organ has pockets, or crypts, in the squid's skin that provide nutrients and a safe environment for the bacteria. "When the squid hatches, it doesn't yet have any bacteria in its light organ," said Miyashiro. "But bacteria in the environment quickly colonize the squid's light organ." Some of these different bacteria strains can coexist, but others can't. "Microbial symbioses are essentially universal in animals, and are crucial to the health and development of both partners," says Irwin Forseth, a program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Integrative Organismal Systems, which funded the research. "The results from this study highlight the role small genetic changes can play in microbe interactions. Increased understanding will allow us to better predict organisms' performance in changing environments."

Image credit: Andrew Cecere

Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills, which consist of everyday consumer items, are potential long-term sources of emissions that could threaten the environment and human health if they are not managed carefully after closure. New research has presented a methodology to estimate future emission levels for closed MSW landfills and the impact of different aftercare strategies.

Using ???cool??? materials to construct roads and walkways is an effective way of lowering urban temperatures to make cities more comfortable in hot weather. According to a recent study, surface temperatures were reduced by 12??C and ambient temperatures were reduced by 1.9??C after cool pavements were installed in a city park in Greece.

A new study has investigated the possibility of a regional industrial symbiosis of metal industries across the Sweden-Finland border. The analysis suggests that it is technologically feasible, but that regulatory support may be inefficient, particularly with respect to changing the status of a waste product to a by-product.

A recent study has described a simple method to screen the toxicity of materials used in consumer products. Using utility meter products as examples, the study found, for example, that stainless steel and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) had high toxicity potentials and suggests less toxic, but equally effective and priced, alternatives that could be used instead.

Research into mercury has identified two genes in bacteria that appear to be required for turning the metal into its most toxic form, methylmercury. The study adds to a growing body of research that helps us to understand the transformations that mercury undergoes in the environment and the microbes involved in these transformations.

A new study has investigated the possibility of a regional industrial symbiosis of metal industries across the Sweden-Finland border. The analysis suggests that it is technologically feasible, but that regulatory support may be inefficient, particularly with respect to changing the status of a waste product to a by-product.

A recent study has compared the environmental impact of a range of building materials. Energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and water demand can all be reduced by switching to renewable sources of energy, improving technologies and promoting eco-friendly alternative materials.

New research suggests that the main driver for industrial ecology initiatives is financial gain, whilst regulation plays a smaller role. Policy does influence their development but this tends to be indirectly through initiatives such as pollution control and waste reduction targets, rather than through direct regulation to enforce or encourage industrial ecology.

This year, the U.S. reported for the first time that a patient had been infected by bacteria resistant to colistin, an antibiotic of last resort. The announcement followed several years of warnings that current antibiotics aren't diverse enough to fight pathogens as drug resistance spreads. The cover story of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, sums up how researchers are trying to stay ahead of the bugs.

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Nanomaterials – at a scale of one thousand times smaller than a millimetre – offer the promise of radical technological development. Many of these will improve our quality of life, and develop our economies, but all will be measured against the overarching principle that we do not make some error, and harm ourselves and our environment by exposure to new forms of hazard. This Thematic Issue explores recent developments in nanomaterials research, and possibilities for safe, practical and resource-efficient applications.

A new study has assessed the annoyance caused by a combination of noises typically found on an industrial site. The results could help improve total noise annoyance prediction models. For example, it was found that ‘broadband’ noises, which consist of a wide range of frequencies, lead to more annoyance if they are combined with a specific additional set of low frequency noises, which can lead to an overall identical noise level.

A recent study has analysed risks to European renewable industries from the Chinese supply of critical raw materials. The offshore wind sector was found to be the most vulnerable of the renewable industries to supply risks. EU and industry strategies should be able to deal with these supply risks in the short term, but there are potential long-term risks to solar and wind sectors. The development of alternative technologies less reliant on these raw materials, and methods to recycle these materials is, therefore, a priority.

Continuing economic development and public health measures are likely to outweigh the impact of climate change on malaria prevalence, according to new research. The research found that the prevalence of malaria has declined over the past century despite rising temperatures.

By 2080, parts of Germany could be susceptible to the spread of malaria for up to six months a year, according to new research. The study mapped areas at risk of an outbreak, considering predicted climate change-driven rise in air temperature and data on the spread of malaria.

As wind power becomes more important in the energy mix, so too does the need to manage its variability. A new study has reviewed the options and indicates that, although state-of-the art technologies exist to maximise gains from wind power, they need proper and insightful management.

A recent study has projected changes in the spread of malaria caused by climate change and climate variability in Africa by including the effect of variations in land use on local climate. It concludes that the risk of malaria epidemics is likely to shift from the north to the south of the Sahel, and to highland areas previously free of the disease.

Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills, which consist of everyday consumer items, are potential long-term sources of emissions that could threaten the environment and human health if they are not managed carefully after closure. New research has presented a methodology to estimate future emission levels for closed MSW landfills and the impact of different aftercare strategies.

A recent study has investigated how taxes on virgin raw materials used in construction, such as gravel and sand, have reduced the use of these resources, based on experiences in Denmark, Sweden and the UK. However, greater incentives to recycle these materials are still needed, says the study.

A new study has investigated the possibility of a regional industrial symbiosis of metal industries across the Sweden-Finland border. The analysis suggests that it is technologically feasible, but that regulatory support may be inefficient, particularly with respect to changing the status of a waste product to a by-product.

Recycled waste material could play a major role in the construction of roads in Europe, bringing both environmental and economic benefits. A new study proposes a scenario where 50% of the asphalt for Europe’s roads consists of recycled materials, leading to significant reductions in costs, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

The development of future recycling technologies must be informed by data about products and materials that will enter the waste stream, but such forecasts are subject to a high level of uncertainty. In this study, researchers have proposed a methodology for predicting emerging waste materials, applying it to silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) panels. The findings show that closed-loop recycling — when post-consumer waste is recycled to make new products — of PV panel materials could mitigate up to 0.2% of the annual environmental impact of Flanders1, Belgium, if suitable technology was developed.

A successful circular economy for valuable metals needs more than just effective recycling technologies, as a new study shows. The research, which explored the governance of recovering vanadium from steel-industry waste, revealed that industry stakeholders feel the prospect of financial gain, or reduced costs, through recovery is too distant at present. This perception could hinder a circular economy for critical materials from industrial residue, the study warns.

The potential of recycling aluminium scrap in Austria has been modelled in a new study. A surplus of mixed aluminium scrap is expected by 2045 if no advanced sorting technologies are applied. Increased demand for wrought aluminium alloys could mean this surplus occurs sooner. New methods to intensively sort aluminium could prevent this excess and contribute towards REACH1 recycling and climate targets.

Scientists have tested the behaviour of biodegradable plastics in managed composting and anaerobic conditions, as well as under simulated environmental conditions, such as in seawater or soil. This study found that blending different types of biodegradable plastics may open up new opportunities in relation to their end-of-life treatment — notably the potential to make one of the world’s best-selling biodegradable plastics, polyactic acid (PLA), home-compostable by blending it with another polymer (polycaprolactone — PCL). However, the researchers were also concerned that most materials tested could still cause plastic pollution as they failed to biodegrade sufficiently — and, in some cases, not at all, in particular, in soil and the marine environment.

Researchers have devised a blueprint to integrate the efficient use of waste wood throughout a bioeconomy system — part of the economy that uses renewable biological resources from land and sea. This study assessed the environmental sustainability of three scenarios for increasing targeted levels of industrial symbiosis within the wood-based bioeconomy of central Germany, and found that, in most cases, the three alternative future bioeconomy networks outperformed the selected fossil-based reference systems, mitigating environmental impacts by 25 to 130%.

Researchers have found that natural materials, such as plant fibres or wool, can be used to construct sustainable sound absorbers that help prevent noise pollution, which are as effective as conventional absorbers made from combinations of minerals and plastics.

A new review examines the potential uses and scientific, technical and manufacturing problems facing ‘van der Waals heterostructures’ - an emerging science which uses building block-like nanomaterials. Van der Waals heterostructures are nanomaterials built by layering different materials, each one atom thick, on top of each other, to create materials with unique properties and uses.