HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

June 27, 2019 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH 

• ‘Urgent needs from head to toe’: This clinic had two days to fix years of ailments (Washington Post)
• Horns are growing on young people’s skulls. Phone use is to blame, research suggests (Washington Post)
• Legal weed is a danger to dogs. Here’s how to know if your pup got into pot. (NPR)
• Vape explodes in teen’s face, shatters his jaw (10 News)
• Breaking The Booze Habit, Even Briefly, Has Its Benefits (NPR)

SCIENCE AND TECH

• Bill Gates is planning to create clean fuels from C02 captured from air (ReuseC02)
• U.S. meteorologists worry over 5G rollout (BBC)
• New software glitch found in Boeing's troubled 737 Max jet (ABC)
• Amazon Explores Having Its Drones Provide 'Home Surveillance' For Customers (NPR)
• Monarch Butterflies Born In Captivity Have Trouble Migrating South, Study Says (NPR)
• Narlugas are real, and the proof is in the DNA (Atlantic)
• More Bad Buzz For Bees: Record Numbers Of Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter (NPR)

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

HEALTH 

‘Urgent needs from head to toe’: This clinic had two days to fix years of ailments (Washington Post)

They were told to arrive early if they wanted to see a doctor, so Lisa and Stevie Crider left their apartment in rural Tennessee almost 24 hours before the temporary medical clinic was scheduled to open. They packed a plastic bag with what had become their daily essentials after 21 years of marriage: An ice pack for his recurring chest pain. Tylenol for her swollen feet. Peroxide for the abscess in his mouth. Gatorade for her low blood sugar and chronic dehydration.

Horns are growing on young people’s skulls. Phone use is to blame, research suggests (Washington Post)

…New research in biomechanics suggests that young people are developing hornlike spikes at the back of their skulls — bone spurs caused by the forward tilt of the head, which shifts weight from the spine to the muscles at the back of the head, causing bone growth in the connecting tendons and ligaments.

Legal weed is a danger to dogs. Here’s how to know if your pup got into pot. (NPR)

THC, a key psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, is toxic to dogs, veterinarians warn. So keeping dogs away from discarded joints, edible marijuana or drug-tainted poop is important…. Cannabidiol, or CBD, on the other hand, is actually marketed to pet owners for a variety of pet ailments.

Vape explodes in teen’s face, shatters his jaw (10 News)

… One study published in 2018 estimated that more than 2,000 e-cigarette explosion and burn injuries sent users to US hospital emergency departments from 2015 to 2017… In a 2016 letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors at the University of Washington Medical Center described 15 patients who had suffered from e-cigarette explosions in less than a year. Most accidents involved flame burns, and almost 30% of patients endured "blast injuries" that led to "tooth loss, traumatic tattooing, and extensive loss of soft tissue.…the injuries among our 15 patients add to growing evidence that e-cigarettes are a public safety concern that demands increased regulation as well as design changes to improve safety."

Breaking The Booze Habit, Even Briefly, Has Its Benefits (NPR)

 a handful of studies that point to some benefits of abstinence for even moderate drinkers 

SCIENCE AND TECH

Bill Gates is planning to create clean fuels from C02 captured from air (ReuseC02)

Could the future of clean energy be to turn air into petrol? It may sound too good to be true, but Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his partners are experimenting with a technology that could potentially help stop global warming as well as provide clean fuel. At their facility in Squamish, western Canada, engineers have already succeeded in extracting CO2 from the air and using it to produce a mix of petrol and diesel. They hope to eventually replicate the process on an industrial scale, the Guardian reports.

U.S. meteorologists worry over 5G rollout (BBC)

Signals from weather satellites could be disrupted by 5G mobile data networks in the US, meteorologists have warned. US forecasters have expressed concerns about 5G radio interference before, but now a group of scientific bodies has written to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over the issue.

New software glitch found in Boeing's troubled 737 Max jet (ABC)

 A new flaw has turned up in the computer system of the Boeing 737 Max, further delaying the troubled plane's return to flying

Amazon Explores Having Its Drones Provide 'Home Surveillance' For Customers (NPR)

The Seattle tech giant is moving closer to making that scenario a real possibility after winning approval from federal officials this month for a patent for "home surveillance" drones. 

Monarch Butterflies Born In Captivity Have Trouble Migrating South, Study Says (NPR)

Three summers ago, Ayse Tenger-Trolander, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, ordered a batch of monarch butterflies from a breeder, and made an accidental discovery: the butterflies had likely lost the ability to migrate.

Narlugas are real, and the proof is in the DNA (Atlantic)

Narwhals and belugas have been evolving independently for at least 1 million years. They clearly can still breed with each other.

More Bad Buzz For Bees: Record Numbers Of Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter (NPR)

Bee colony death continues to rise. According to the Bee Informed Partnership's latest survey, released this week, U.S. beekeepers lost nearly 40% of their honeybee colonies last winter — the greatest reported winter hive loss since the partnership started its surveys 13 years ago. The total annual loss was slightly above average.