Scientists

The Saharan dust intrusion that reached Spain and other European countries in March 2022 posed no risk to human health in terms of exposure to radioactivity, according to an analysis of samples collected by citizens in Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. The dust came from southern Algeria, says the analysis published in Science Advances, and contained plutonium isotopes characteristic of nuclear tests conducted by the U.S. and the Soviet Union - not from French tests in the Reggane area in the 1960s.

Populist movements often pit people against political elites, but they can also target academic elites. Science-related populism pits ‘ordinary people’ and common sense against academic elites and scientific knowledge. A report published by FECYT analyses this phenomenon in Spain for the first time. Science Media Centre España organised an informative meeting with its authors to explain the main results.

World Cancer Day is celebrated on 4 February. Behind the cases of this disease there are people who, although they have overcome it, bear the burden of the diagnosis years after the end of their treatment. Survivors demand the right to be forgotten so as not to suffer financial, employment and social discrimination.

The Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) has produced a report that compiles the results of a pioneering survey in the country on populist attitudes related to science. The research explores, among other issues, the consumption of scientific information, public perceptions of the role of science in politics and society, the benefits of science, attitudes towards technologies such as vaccines and issues such as climate change.

A meta-analysis that brings together data from 628 species of animals, plants and other organisms in terrestrial and marine ecosystems over the last three decades shows that most are losing genetic diversity, especially mammals and birds. ‘The threats affected two thirds of the populations we analysed and less than half are subject to conservation management measures,’ say the authors of the research, published in Nature.

Exposure to cold and heat could affect adolescents' mental health, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. The research, led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), was conducted with nearly 5,000 adolescents from the Netherlands (3,934) and Spain (885). The results showed how exposure to environmental temperatures influences psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and attention problems.

A team of researchers has used embryonic stem cell engineering to create a bipaternal mouse - a mouse with two male parents - that lived to adulthood. Their results, published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, show how targeting a particular set of genes involved in reproduction enabled this breakthrough in unisexual reproduction in mammals.

An international team has analysed temperature and mortality data from 854 urban areas in Europe, and estimated that temperature-related deaths could increase by 50 % by the end of the century - which would mean up to 2.3 million more deaths - if no climate change mitigation measures are taken. This percentage is even higher in southern parts of the continent, such as Spain. The results are published in the journal Nature Medicine.

A team of researchers from the USA has analyzed the B lymphocytes of seven healthy people in whom no exposure to H5 influenza viruses, such as the avian flu virus, had been documented. The results show that they present antibodies capable of recognizing this type of virus, which, according to the authors, could represent “a first line of defense” in the event of a pandemic. The results are published in the journal Science Immunology.

A study in mice reveals that immune cells in the brain 'engulf' microplastics, forming clumps that can cause brain clots. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, highlight how microplastics can indirectly damage the brain by disrupting blood flow, rather than directly infiltrating brain tissue cells.