“Scientists like Enochs are working overtime to engineer more climate-resistant corals. They are creating booster shots to keep them alive, deploying in vitro fertilization to make larvae grow faster, and importing coral species from around the Caribbean to breed with those in Florida.”

From Wall Street Journal.

“The pretty ferns that adorn windowsills and gardens have some surprising powers. Biologists have long known that this ancient group of plants wards off hungry insects better than other flora, and now they’re homing in on why. They’ve discovered fern proteins that kill and deter pests, including, most recently, one that shows promise against bugs resistant to widely used natural pesticides.”

From Science.

“It’s rare to get a standing ovation at a scientific conference. But on 22 October, cancer researcher Thomas Powles received two.

The first came in the middle of his talk, after he announced that a combination of treatments cut the risk of death in people with advanced bladder cancer by more than half — an unprecedented result in a cancer for which survival rates have been almost unchanged since the 1980s.”

From Nature.

“Scientists in Brazil have announced the development of an innovative new vaccine to treat addiction to cocaine and its powerful derivative, crack.

Dubbed ‘Calixcoca,’ the treatment, which has shown promising results in trials on animals, triggers an immune response that blocks cocaine and crack from reaching the brain. In simple terms, the vaccine would work by preventing addicts from getting high from the drug.”

From Euronews.