Plastic waters
There may be 2.5 times more plastic floating around in the ocean than anybody realised. Previous measurements only skimmed the surface waters, but water-mixing created by winds pushes much of the rubbish deeper underwater ().
Dopamine鈥檚 no dope
Dopamine triggers different effects depending on where in the brain it acts. Volunteers chose to complete an easy or difficult task while their brains were scanned. Dopamine acted in a brain area involved in attention control during the 鈥渆asy鈥� task, but for the 鈥渄ifficult鈥� task the chemical operated in the brain鈥檚 reward centres instead (Journal of Neuroscience, ).
Safe gene therapy
Forty-three people with HIV who received a pioneering gene therapy 11 years ago have developed no side effects from the treatment. The finding provides reassurance that the therapy does not trigger cancers (Science Translational Medicine, ).
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Prehistoric premiere
Did cavemen invent movies? Marc Az茅ma at the University of Toulouse in France and his colleague Florent Riv猫re recreated a 10,000-year-old coin-like bone artefact. It is carved on either side with similar pictures of a chamois 鈥� one is standing, the other lying 鈥� and pierced in the middle. By spinning it on a cord, they found that the picture became animated, like a flip-book (Antiquity, vol 86, p 316).
Python-hunting dogs
In the battle to save wildlife of the Florida Everglades from invasive pythons, combatants have been drafted in: dogs. that were formerly sniffing out explosives are being , which can then be trapped.