Discover 3 recent science news in our #PeerusWhatsNew, now on Medium.
1 On the island of Borneo, nearly 150,000 orangutans have disappeared in 16 years, victims of deforestation and exploitation, according to the latest count of researchers. This observation is also a consequence of hunting.
Researchers call for the sustainable management of resources and the awareness of local people.
According to the study published in the journal Current Biology, the populations of these great apes would now only count from 70,000 to 100,000 individuals. Researchers relied on the census of orangutan nests to estimate their density and abundance.
2 Researchers have found that viruses produce molecules close to insulin and able to stimulate human cells. This discovery raises many questions about the origin of certain diseases, such as diabetes or cancer.
The analysis of databases of human intestine viruses suggests that we could be exposed to many viruses, as Ronald Kahn, one of the authors of this work, points out: “It is possible that humans are exposed to these viruses by eating fish“. For the researcher, this discovery could be only the tip of the iceberg, as the number of viruses infecting humans is high.
“It is thought that there are more than 300,000 viruses that can infect or be transported in mammals , and only 7,500 of them, or about 2.5%, were sequenced. Thus, we are certainly expecting to find many more viral hormones, including more viral insulins, in the future. “
3 At a conference in Texas (USA), a researcher at the University of California announced the creation of a human-sheep chimera containing 0.01% human cells. This animal could produce organs usable for transplants.
90,000 organ transplants and donations are performed around the world each year, more than 10 donations every hour. This new solution brings new hopes for thousands of patients waiting for a transplant.
However, the researchers relativize: “We think that it is not yet enough to generate an organ”. According to National Geographic, the development of these hybrid embryos was stopped at 28 days.
Ethical issues still hampers the development of this technology.
