Channel 42
Science is the answer to everything.

It seems that our brain can correct speech errors in the same way that it controls other forms of behavior. Niels Schiller and Lesya Ganushchak, NWO researchers in Leiden, made this discovery while studying how the brain reacts to verbal errors. This research can contribute to improvements in the treatment of people who have problems with speaking or in understanding language.

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A new narrowband radio interferometer system has been developed for continuous observation of various processes of a lightning discharge at a time resolution of one microsecond. By using this system, a cloud-to-ground lightning flash containing 19 strokes was observed in inland plateau area of China. Detailed analysis of this lightning flash has revealed several new remarkable characteristics of cloud-to-ground lightning.

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Continental drilling reveals gas anomalies of CH4, CO2, and He in the deep crystalline rocks, which are correlated to the seismic horizontal component reflectors. Geochemical experiments show that porosity of crystalline rocks in the middle crust rose sharply due to water-rock interaction and made natural gas concentration in top of the mid-crust possible, thus resulting in some large gas reservoirs. In such cases, the seismic method can be used to explore these gas reservoirs in the middle crust.

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Researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery have identified a potential new therapeutic target that could be used to treat inflammatory disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis. Drugs that hit this new target are actually in trials for the treatment of another disease, leukemia.

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Breast cancer stem cells are known to be involved in therapy resistance and the recurrence of cancerous tumors. A new study appearing in Clinical and Translational Science shows the mechanisms governing stem cell expansion in breast cancer (called Notch activity), and finds that therapy targeting a protein called cyclin D1 may block the expansion of cancerous stem cells.

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Variations in a common gene pathway may affect esophageal cancer risk, a dangerous and rapidly increasing type of cancer, according to research by scientists at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

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A new study published in Journal of Neuroimaging shows that MRI scans used on multiple sclerosis patients to determine if the disease has affected gray matter in the brain can identify those at-risk for progression of disability.

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Research by the University of Warwick shows how death gave birth to the modern cult of celebrity as the sudden rise in the popularity of obituaries of unusual people in the 1700s provided people with the 18th century equivalent of a celebrity gossip magazine.

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Extreme weather events have a greater effect on flora than previously presumed. A one-month drought postpones the time of flowering of grassland and heathland plants in Central Europe by an average of 4 days. With this a so-called 100-year drought event equates to approximately a decade of global warming. In a study conducted by the University of Bayreuth and the Helmholtz-Center for Environmental Research researchers came to this conclusion.

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The skeleton of a 12,000-year-old Natufian Shaman has been discovered in northern Israel by archaeologists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The burial is described as being accompanied by “exceptional” grave offerings — including 50 complete tortoise shells, the pelvis of a leopard and a human foot. The shaman burial is thought to be one of the earliest known from the archaeological record and the only shaman grave in the whole region.

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