Discover 3 science news from the latest 24 hours in our #PeerusWhatsNew, now on Medium.
1 Today, there are only 110 days left before the water shortage, according to the countdown displayed by the municipality of Cape Town.
This water crisis does not only affect South Africa. The BBC has published a list of eleven cities with these issues: São Paulo, Bangalore, Beijing, Cairo, Jakarta, Moscow, Istanbul, Mexico City, London, Tokyo and Miami.
Only behavioral changes can avoid these water shortages: decrease of daily consumption, restriction of irrigation, improvement of water networks to avoid leaks.
2 American researchers propose to inject hemophiliac patients with liver cells that can produce the missing coagulation factor.
The researchers developed a new approach for hemophilia. They took blood from two patients with severe hemophilia B. In the laboratory, they reprogrammed the cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are capable of giving many cell types, including liver cells.
The cells survived for at least a year after the transplant. But further work is still needed to bring this technique to the clinical stage. Suvasini Ramaswamy, the main researcher, explained that what is interesting with this cellular approach is to limit the number of treatments.
3 A French study revealed that some storks stop their migration in southern Europe and no longer go to Africa to find heat.
In Portugal, this phenomenon is obvious. Thus, in 1995, the country had only 1,187 storks on its territory in winter. Today, they are more than 14,000. Swallows would also be affected by this phenomenon.
This change in behavior of migratory birds is explained by the climatic disturbance which has made winters milder in the Iberian peninsula. This can have disastrous consequences for the health of birds and humans.
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