Weekly Science Picks

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It seems we are around one more Sunday in this month. We left behind us one more fascinating and promising week and now, with the full confidence, we would like to recapitulate what have happened during the last 7 days. We are just wondering if anyone could predict that the amateur in genetics may give such a great contribution. What also dragged our attention is a story on how children’s drawing can affect their intelligence later in their life. Quite amazing, is not it? So, let’s start with our presentation of the previous week.

The amateur geneticist who surprised science

This was in 2002, and Kim, then 44 years old, was already an accomplished endurance athlete. She cycled, ran, climbed and skied through the Rockies for hours every day, and was a veteran of Ironman triathlons. She’d always been the strong one in her family. When she was four, she would let her teenage uncles stand on her stomach as a party trick. In high school, she was an accomplished gymnast and an ardent cyclist. By college, she was running the equivalent of a half marathon on most days. It wasn’t that she was much of a competitor, exactly – passing someone in a race felt more deflating than energising. Mostly Kim just wanted to be moving.

Ebola-affected countries should start screening all passengers, says WHO

There is a low risk of the Ebola virus being transmitted during air travel because unlike infections such as influenza or tuberculosis, it is not spread by breathing air and airborne particles from an infected person, the World Health Organisation said. Nonetheless, all travellers are urged to routinely wash their hands and anyone with an illness consistent with the virus should not be allowed to travel unless it is part of an appropriate medical evacuation.

Ghostbusting in the Gulf

The Gulf of Carpentaria off Australia’s northern coast has one of the highest rates of abandoned fishing nets, or so-called ghostnets, anywhere in the world. In fact, up to three tonnes of netting washes ashore each year for every kilometre of coastline.

Children’s drawings indicate later intelligence, study shows

How 4-year-old children draw pictures of a child is an indicator of intelligence at age 14, according to a new study. The researchers studied 7,752 pairs of identical and non-identical twins and found that the link between drawing and later intelligence was influenced by genes.

These would be the end of our today’s talk. Hope you have enjoyed this trip as we did.