Using pesticides and other chemical-based agents in agriculture has too many potential risks, not just to humans but also to the environment and wildlife. So researchers continue to find ways so that we could farm without chemicals. Now, they are turning to bees to fight pests in a more natural way.

While the GMO controversy rages, a handful of companies are taking another innovative approach to crop protection. Instead of engineering pest-resistant plants, they’re developing products known as biologicals—natural compounds that protect crops but don’t harm beneficial insects or threaten human health.

Ontario-based Bee Vectoring Technologies (BVT) is taking the growth of biologicals one step further by recruiting bees to spread a natural fungus that controls pests and aids plant growth as they pollinate crops.

Listen to the podcast on Genetic Literacy Project.

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Nowadays, with too many distractions taking up our attention, we can easily lose track of time and not be able to get our tasks done or even have enough sleep at night.

Especially for the younger generation, sleep deprivation could be a big issue as it stunts their growth and aggravates the effects of mood swings, physical exhaustion, and mental strain among others due to puberty.

So researchers conducted a study which combined two therapies to enable teens to get more sleep at night. And it resulted with teens getting 43 more minutes of sleep per night.

Stanford researchers increased how long teens slept with light therapy, used to reset their circadian clocks, combined with cognitive behavioral therapy to motivate them to go to bed earlier.

The treatment had two components: brief, early morning flashes of bright, broad-spectrum white light to reset the teens’ circadian clocks, and cognitive behavioral therapy that motivated them to try earlier bedtimes. The findings were published online Sept. 25 in JAMA Network Open.

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A new research published in Cell has revealed that there is an astounding diversity of molecules living inside our bodies, many of which have not yet been described before. All of these microorganisms which compose of bacteria, archaea, and fungi build up the human microbiome and interact with each other in our bodies. -via LBL

“Because it is much more difficult to search for sequences encoding small proteins than it is to trawl for large proteins, our comprehension of the small proteins expressed by microbial communities has always been lacking,” said Nikos Kyrpides, a Berkeley Lab senior scientist who contributed to the work.

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As demand grows, supply should be able to keep up with its pace so that we won't run out of resources. Though it seems like we might have a lot of sources for water given that 75% of the Earth is made of water, not all of that is usable for drinking and other things.

In the US, a new $100M Energy-Water Desalination Hub has been awarded to the National Alliance for Water Innovation in order to ensure the United States' water security in the future. The Hub will help accelerate research and development of desalination technologies and treatment of nontraditional water sources.

NAWI is a research alliance headquartered at Berkeley Lab and includes Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, and 19 founding university partners, and 10 founding industry partners.

NAWI’s goal is to advance a portfolio of novel technologies that will secure a circular water economy in which 90% of nontraditional water sources – such as seawater, brackish water, and produced waters – can be cost-competitive with existing water sources within 10 years.

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Trying to revitalize a city is painstaking labor. Not only do you need to have a vision that would see the city flourishing in the next ten, twenty, fifty years but you also need to understand the city's present condition, especially that of its inhabitants.

Pittsburgh tried several times to transform and reinvent itself starting in the 1940s. There were some setbacks along the way and downsides to the changes they made in certain aspects of the city. But now, it seems that it has gained momentum.

The renaissancers kept trying—“Hope in East Liberty,” ran a 1996 headline—but the people kept leaving. By 2010, Pittsburgh’s population was barely 300,000, less than half its size in 1950. Pittsburgh had all the comparative disadvantages of other Rust Belt cities: high taxes, powerful unions, burgeoning pension obligations, inferior public schools, and a decaying infrastructure. East Liberty and the rest of the city seemed a lost cause.

But then, over the past decade, I was stunned to see the ruins come to life. How did this happen? Outside economic forces were partly to thank: the new money flowing into Pittsburgh from fracking, robotics, health care, and other industries. But some credit goes to the same kind of coalition that led the earlier renaissances: business leaders, philanthropists, nonprofit groups, politicians, and developers. They learned from their predecessors’ mistakes, and the lessons are valuable for any city.

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Making something a habit or routine could be difficult when you're just starting out. But at some point, it becomes such a part of your daily life that it would feel like you're lacking something when you skip a day.

In the case of David Martin, he has flown every day for 1,826 days, which is quite a feat and a record-setter as well. Know more about his story and how he was able to achieve this record on Air Space Mag.

David Martin has always loved to fly. From the time he got his pilot’s license, at 17, he knew that flying for him was more than a casual pastime.

He loved it so much that, even as a teenager, he started thinking about what it would be like to fly every day—for a whole year. In 2014, he decided to find out. He flew every day that year, and the next year, and the next.

(Image credit: David Martin Aerobatics)

One of the most tragic things that could happen to someone is to slowly lose their memories, which is what happens to people with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

Having your cognitive function, sense of self, awareness of your surroundings, and the ability to recall important events or memories in your life can be agonizing. It is disheartening.

So many scientists have been searching for a possible treatment or cure to no avail. But this mother-daughter pair may have just done it.

One very encouraging development has come out of the work done by Dr. Chang Yi Wang, PhD. Wang is a prolific bio-inventor; one of her biggest successes is developing a foot-and-mouth vaccine for pigs that has been administered more than three billion times.

In January, United Neuroscience, a biotech company founded by Yi, her daughter Mei Mei Hu, and son-in-law, Louis Reese, announced the first results from a phase IIa clinical trial on UB-311, an Alzheimer’s vaccine.

(Image credit: NIH/Flickr)

Vehicular traffic and road congestion have been an issue ever since the first cars were mass produced. In Paris, the problem grew so unbearable in the 1920s that they launched a competition wherein people submitted proposals to ease congestion.

With the help of the father of the Paris metro system, Fulgence Bienvenüe, the Office des inventions was tasked with examining the projects.

Of the 38 proposals from engineers, 25 were eliminated outright and 13 were examined. The expert report by Mr. Ott, the head engineer of the Paris metro's technical service, left just two projects on the list.

These projects involved moving walkways with two systems. Two prototypes were built and tested at the Office nationale de recherche scientifique et industrielle et des inventions at Meudon.

The first system, called "arbres cannelés" (ribbed shafts), used "parallel bands at graded speeds," similar to the platforms that operated at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1892) and the Exposition Universelle in Paris (1900).

The second was a system using "belts" and "single direction of traffic": it operated in stations and was equipped with special devices for loading and unloading passengers. It was equipped with a starter and a decelerator for transitioning by stages up to the speed of 15 km/h.

(Image credit: Fonds historique/CNRS Phototheque)

After taking the first photo of an actual black hole, the Event Horizon Telescope collaborators have all been recognized with the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and received the $3 million prize for the work they did on the EHT.

The EHT is a network of eight radio dishes in Antarctica, Chile, Mexico, Hawaii, Arizona and Spain that creates an Earth-sized interferometer. Its ultra-high angular resolution images of radio emission from a supermassive black hole at the heart of galaxy M87* opened a new window on black holes and other phenomena.

Recently, a team at Brookhaven National Laboratory used the EHT image to disfavour “fuzzy” models of ultra-light boson dark matter.

(Image credit: EHT collaboration)

You read it right. A company is planning to put up a snow park in Florida and they have already received approval from the Board of County Commissioners on the project. It seems far-fetched but the people at Point Summit Incorporated are looking to make it happen. Read more about it on Your Mileage May Vary.

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Music doesn't just affect humans. They also have a soothing effect on animals. And through his music, Martin Agee, a professional violinist, helps soothe shelter dogs who have suffered from abuse. Watch him as he performs classical music, from the likes of Bach, Handel, and Mozart, for rescue dogs at ASPCA.

Every few weeks, Agee carries his violin to the shelter’s Animal Recovery Center, which houses animals coping with medical and behavioral issues stemming from cruelty and neglect.

Often, dogs herald his arrival with barking, jumping and general chaos. Then he sits in a chair and begins to play soothing sonatas by classical composers like Bach, Handel and Mozart.

(Image credit: ASPCA)

Many teenagers and children nowadays are getting woke, as they call it, and participating in social, environmental, and political issues. Perhaps, this may be due to the effects of social media and the internet where they are able to gain access to information quicker and with more depth. It also enables them to become more involved.

One example of such is teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg who delivered her speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit. Watch the full video of her speech here.

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Guitars nowadays have various styles and designs, some are custom-built depending on a person's preferences, but this guitar made of ramen takes creativity to a weird level. Artem Mayer of Copper Guitars used 36 packs of ramen noodles to create this one-of-a-kind guitar.

He used 36 packs of ramen noodles, and covered them in 5 liters of polyester resin, then cut and sanded the structure into a guitar body. He later would add a maple wood neck, and all the necessary hardware to turn it into a working musical instrument.

(Image credit: Artem Mayer/Copper Guitars; Instagram)

I'm sometimes unaware of my own surroundings, so there have been times when I walked toward a pole or bumped my head on a low-hanging beam. And since I'm also a bit clumsy, I sometimes hurt myself when I drop things or when close the drawers and closets.

But there are several surprising ways that one who's over 40 can injure themselves. McSweeneys lists them here.

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Breeding and raising hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes seems like a crazy idea. I mean, there's already a lot of mosquitoes around bringing death everywhere. But researchers from the Oregon Health and Science University just opened a mosquito facility in order to advance malaria research.

Located in the basement of a research building, the facility has three areas, all of which are separated by safety doors. Scientists first enter a small area called an ante-room, which is largely empty and separates the facility from the outside world. Researchers then pass into the main area, where rodents and non-flying larvae and pupae mosquitos will be kept for malaria research.

Through a reinforced screen door is the interior barrier room, where mosquitoes infected with malaria are kept in climate-controlled incubators inside multiple screened barriers. The insects are kept at 78.8 degrees Fahrenheit and at 75% humidity, mimicking the mosquito’s native environment.

The facility is carefully designed to prevent mosquitoes from escaping. But local residents need not worry about such an unlikely event. Wilder raises an African species of the Anopheles mosquito that can’t survive in Oregon’s temperate climate. Only specially trained OHSU staff are allowed to enter.

Scientists hope that with this new facility they will be able to develop a vaccine that would have a long-lasting effect against malaria.

(Image credit: OHSU/Kristyna Wentz-Graff)