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Drinking and weight gain seem to go hand in hand, unless, of course, you’re a raging alcoholic who substitutes liquid meals for actual ones. Not so, says a study of Danish teenagers. According to the study, “Among non-smoking adolescents, consumption of alcohol, and in particular wine, seems to be associated with less weight gain until midlife.” That’s all you need to know. http://bit.ly/2njv3fA
A team of researchers at Nova Southeastern University have argued in a controversial paper that rather than keeping space sterile and safe from earthly germs, space agencies should be seriously consider infecting planets like Mars with beneficial microbes. They consider this to be a prudent and logical method to jumpstart the terraforming process. Safe to say, nobody is readying rockets with microorganisms just yet. http://bit.ly/2lLdi8r
And finally, before we break for the weekend. Cormac Mcarthy, one of the great novelists and stylists of recent literature, has been offering advice to scientists writing papers. According to a report in Nature, “For the past two decades, Cormac McCarthy — whose ten novels include The Road, No Country for Old Men and Blood Meridian — has provided extensive editing to numerous faculty members and postdocs at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico.” Who knew? Two scientists who’ve worked with McCarthy condensed his tips into a few bullet points. You’ll have to click through to read them. https://go.nature.com/2nijyFk
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