July 11, 2017 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• What the brain's wiring looks like (BBC)
• Suspected Cholera Cases Pass 300,000 In Yemen, Red Cross Says (NPR)
• First vaccine shows gonorrhoea protection (BBC)
• Oral sex spreading unstoppable bacteria (BBC)
• Credit Agencies to Ease Up on Medical Debt Reporting (NPR)
• 111 people died under California’s new right-to-die law (CNN)
• Parkinson’s disease is partly an autoimmune disease, Columbia study finds (Knowridge.com)

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

• Internet Companies Plan Online Campaign to Keep Net Neutrality Rules (NPR)
• The Uninhabitable Earth:  Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think. (New York Magazine)
• Microsoft Courts Rural America, And Politicians, With High-Speed Internet (NPR)
• Hot, Dry Madrid Aims for a Cooler, Greener Future (NPR)
• Earth faces "biological annihilation" in sixth mass extinction, scientists warn (CBS)
• First teleportation to low-Earth orbit (BBC)
• 3D-printed structures change shape when heated (BBC)
• Elephant tourism is ‘fueling cruelty’ (BBC)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

HEALTH

What the brain’s wiring looks like (BBC)

The world's most detailed scan of the brain's internal wiring has been produced by scientists at Cardiff University.The MRI machine reveals the fibres which carry all the brain's thought processes.

Suspected Cholera Cases Pass 300,000 In Yemen, Red Cross Says (NPR)

The unfolding epidemic in the war-ravaged country "continues to spiral out of control," the International Committee of the Red Cross announced Monday.

First vaccine shows gonorrhoea protection (BBC)

A vaccine has for the first time been shown to protect against the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea, scientists in New Zealand say.

Oral sex spreading unstoppable bacteria (BBC)

Oral sex is producing dangerous gonorrhoea and a decline in condom use is helping it to spread, the World Health Organization has said.  It warns that if someone contracts gonorrhoea, it is now much harder to treat, and in some cases impossible. The sexually transmitted infection is rapidly developing resistance to antibiotics.

Credit Agenciesto Ease Up on Medical Debt Reporting (NPR)

Starting in September, the three main credit agencies will wait 180 days before including medical debt on a credit report, giving consumers time to resolve disputes with insurers.

111 people died under California’s new right-to-die law (CNN)

One hundred eleven people died last year under California's new right-to-die law, according to a report released Tuesday by the state's Department of Public Health.

Parkinson’s disease is partly an autoimmune disease, Columbia study finds (Knowridge.com)

Researchers have found the first direct evidence that autoimmunity–in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues–plays a role in Parkinson’s disease, the neurodegenerative movement disorder.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Internet Companies Plan Online Campaign to Keep Net Neutrality Rules (NPR)

If the activists' predictions pan out, Wednesday might see one of the largest digital protests to date. Dozens of websites and apps have joined ranks with consumer advocacy groups, through a "Day of Action," to publicly protest the plan by the Federal Communications Commission to roll back regulations it placed on Internet service providers in 2015.

The Uninhabitable Earth:  Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think. (New York Magazine)

… If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. …Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough.  Indeed, absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century.

Microsoft Courts Rural America, And Politicians, With High-Speed Internet (NPR)

In rural America, 23.4 million people do not have high-speed Internet. Microsoft plans to change that.

Hot, Dry Madrid Aims for a Cooler, Greener Future (NPR)

The Spanish capital is one of the hottest, driest cities in Europe — on the front lines of this battle. It's just emerging from a punishing recession and doesn't have a lot of money. So the city has come up with a simple, low-tech solution: plants. Lots of them. Madrid aims to cover as much of its surface as possible with greenery — roof gardens, walls and empty lots. 

Earth faces "biological annihilation" in sixth mass extinction, scientists warn (CBS)

In the study, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico unveiled a granular look at population trends among 27,600 species of birds, amphibians, mammals, and reptiles… / The results are grim: researchers found an "extremely high degree of population decay" among vertebrates, even in species considered at low risk of extinction. In general, they found that the world's temperate regions are losing species at equal or even higher rates than the tropics. 

First teleportation to low-Earth orbit (BBC)

China teleports first object from the ground to satellite

3D-printed structures change shape when heated (BBC)

The 3D-printed structures that could be used for space missions or heart surgery.

Elephant tourism is ‘fueling cruelty’ (BBC)

Millions of people want selfies riding elephants, or washing them, or patting their trunks. But according to a study carried out by World Animal Protection (WAP) across Asia this is helping to fuel a rise in elephants captured from the wild and kept for entertainment. The number in Thailand has increased by almost a third over the last five years.