Science X Newsletter Week 08

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Here is your customized Science X Newsletter for week 08:

	400 million year old gigantic extinct monster worm discovered in Canadian museum A previously undiscovered species of an extinct primordial giant worm with terrifying snapping jaws has been identified by an international team of scientists.
	Sugar's 'tipping point' link to Alzheimer's disease revealed For the first time a "tipping point" molecular link between the blood sugar glucose and Alzheimer's disease has been established by scientists, who have shown that excess glucose damages a vital enzyme involved with inflammation response to the early stages of Alzheimer's.
	Second largest Maya jade found in Belize has unique historical inscription To say that UC San Diego archaeologist Geoffrey Braswell was surprised to discover a precious jewel in Nim Li Punit in southern Belize is something of an understatement.
	NASA weighing risk of adding crew to megarocket's first flight NASA is weighing the risk of adding astronauts to the first flight of its new megarocket, designed to eventually send crews to Mars.
	Legal marijuana sales creating escalating damage to the environment Marijuana sales have created an economic boom in U.S. states that have fully or partially relaxed their cannabis laws, but is the increased cultivation and sale of this crop also creating escalating environmental damage and a threat to public health?
	Creative people have better-connected brains, research finds Seemingly countless self-help books and seminars tell you to tap into the right side of your brain to stimulate creativity. But forget the "right-brain" myth—a new study suggests it's how well the two brain hemispheres communicate that sets highly creative people apart.
	New metamaterial is proved to be the world's first to achieve the performance predicted by theoretical bounds In 2015 UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineer and materials scientist Jonathan Berger developed an idea that could change the way people think about high-performance structural materials. Two years later, his concept is paying research dividends.
	Time crystals—how scientists created a new state of matter Some of the most profound predictions in theoretical physics, such as Einstein's gravitational waves or Higgs' boson, have taken decades to prove with experiments. But every now and then, a prediction can become established fact in an astonishingly short time. This is what happened with "time crystals", a new and strange state of matter that was theorised, disproved, revamped and finally created in just five years since it was first predicted in 2012.
	Fasting-mimicking diet may reverse diabetes A diet designed to imitate the effects of fasting appears to reverse diabetes by reprogramming cells, a new USC-led study shows.
	Temperate earth-sized worlds found in extraordinarily rich planetary system (Update) Astronomers have found a system of seven Earth-sized planets just 40 light-years away. They were detected as they passed in front of their parent star, the dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. Three of them lie in the habitable zone and could harbour water, increasing the possibility that the system could play host to life. It has both the largest number of Earth-sized planets yet found and the largest number of worlds that could support liquid water.
	MS treatment that 'resets' immune system may halt disease progression for at least five years A type of treatment for multiple sclerosis that 'resets' the immune system may stop progression of the disease in nearly half of patients.
	Friction in the vacuum? (Phys.org)—When three physicists first discovered through their calculations that a decaying atom moving through the vacuum experiences a friction-like force, they were highly suspicious. The results seemed to go against the laws of physics: The vacuum, by definition, is completely empty space and does not exert friction on objects within it. Further, if true, the results would contradict the principle of relativity, since they would imply that observers in two different reference frames would see the atom moving at different speeds (most observers would see the atom slow down due to friction, but an observer moving with the atom would not).
	Tune your radio: Galaxies sing when forming stars A team led from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has found the most precise way ever to measure the rate at which stars form in galaxies using their radio emission at 1-10 Gigahertz frequency range.
	60,000-year-old microbes found in Mexican mine: NASA scientist NASA scientists have discovered living microorganisms trapped inside crystals for as long as 60,000 years in a mine in Mexico.
	More lessons from Dolly the sheep—is a clone really born at age zero? In 1997 Dolly the sheep was introduced to the world by biologists Keith Campbell, Ian Wilmut and colleagues. Not just any lamb, Dolly was a clone. Rather than being made from a sperm and an egg, she originated from a mammary gland cell of another, no-longer-living, six-year-old Fynn Dorset ewe.
	Epilepsy gene identified in dogs Many breeds of dogs are prone to epileptic seizures. Veterinary neurologists and geneticists have now localized the mutation responsible for a specific form of epilepsy in Rhodesian ridgebacks.
	An alternative to opioids? Compound from marine snail is potent pain reliever A tiny snail may offer an alternative to opioids for pain relief. Scientists at the University of Utah have found a compound that blocks pain by targeting a pathway not associated with opioids. Research in rodents indicates that the benefits continue long after the compound have cleared the body. The findings were reported online in the February 20 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
	Dream of energy-collecting windows is one step closer to reality Researchers at the University of Minnesota and University of Milano-Bicocca are bringing the dream of windows that can efficiently collect solar energy one step closer to reality thanks to high tech silicon nanoparticles.
	Proposed test would offer strongest evidence yet that the quantum state is real (Phys.org)—Physicists are getting a little bit closer to answering one of the oldest and most basic questions of quantum theory: does the quantum state represent reality or just our knowledge of reality?
	Study finds prolonged sleep may predict dementia risk Data from the Framingham Heart Study has shown that people who consistently sleep more than nine hours each night had double the risk of developing dementia in 10 years as compared to participants who slept for 9 hours or less. The findings, which appear in the journal Neurology, also found those who slept longer had smaller brain volumes.

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