“Our work shows that a key part of the disease process that leads to Alzheimer’s disease, the atrophy of specific brain regions, might be modified by a safe and simple intervention,” said Dr. David Smith, who led the study.

The study–which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences–found that people who took part in a trial had 90% less brain shrinkage when given a dose of vitamin B on a regular basis than those who took a placebo. The areas of the brain that are affected by the disease were protected by the vitamin, including the parts that determine how we learn and how we remember and organize our thoughts.

“I’ve never seen results from brain scans showing this level of protection,” said Paul Thompson, professor of neurology and head of the Imaging Genetics Center at UCLA School of Medicine, California.

The study was conducted previously with only 50% less brain shrinkage determined in the participants. This new trial marks the beginning of a new path for scientists, who have hit blockage after blockage while trying to find a cure–preventative or otherwise–for the disease. Those in charge of the study say that a combination of B-6, B-12, and folic acid was exactly what they were looking for. Because vitamin B keeps amino acids in check–particularly homocysteine, which becomes a brain chemical that controls memory–a healthy dose of it later in life could prevent brain shrinkage.

“The study needs to be repeated because there’s a lot to learn about why homocysteine is damaging and whether lowering it can stop people with memory problems progressing to Alzheimer’s,’ says Professor Thompson. ‘But if the results survive retesting, homocysteine level could be a useful biomarker for Alzheimer’s risk.”

The explosion was caused by a meteorite, 0.3 to 0.4 meters wide, weighing in at about 40 kilograms. When it hit the moon, it was travelling at 56,000 miles per hour. According to NASA, it exploded with the force of 5 tons of TNT.

“On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we’ve ever seen before.”

The impact was so bright, in fact, that anyone looking would have seen it without the help of a telescope.

“It jumped right out at me, it was so bright,” says Marshall Space Flight Center analyst Ron Suggs, who was the first to see the impact.

This type of lunar strike is common, but NASA has yet to see one this large in the nearly 8 years its been monitoring the moon for such impacts. Here’s why:

Unlike Earth, which has an atmosphere to protect it, the Moon is airless and exposed. “Lunar meteors” crash into the ground with fair frequency. Since the monitoring program began in 2005, NASA’s lunar impact team has detected more than 300 strikes, most orders of magnitude fainter than the March 17th event. Statistically speaking, more than half of all lunar meteors come from known meteoroid streams such as the Perseids and Leonids. The rest are sporadic meteors–random bits of comet and asteroid debris of unknown parentage.

Oh, by the way, the “explosion” is special thanks to the lack of oxygen in the Moon’s atmosphere.

“The Moon has no oxygen atmosphere, so how can something explode? Lunar meteors don’t require oxygen or combustion to make themselves visible. They hit the ground with so much kinetic energy that even a pebble can make a crater several feet wide. The flash of light comes not from combustion but rather from the thermal glow of molten rock and hot vapors at the impact site,” says NASA.

[NASA via Wired]

Thankfully, AsapSCIENCE is here to help with a catchy tune the highlights all the elements. I’m not sure that this is as helpful as the U.S. state song, alphabet song, or Spanish prepositions song (there are simply too many elements!), but damnit, it’s fun.

According to the LA Times, the network made their announcement on Monday at their upfront presentation. The series will start with 13 episodes, set to air sometime in 2014. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is attached as a producer.

Sagan’s original Cosmos series is one of the most beloved and popular documentary series in the history of television. Broadcast on PBS in 1980, Cosmos was the most watched series in the public television history until Ken Burns’ The Civil War series overtook that title.

We’ve known that something like this was in the works, as reports of a Cosmos reboot starring Tyson was reported back in 2011. No additional details emerged at that time, and nearly a year later Tyson confirmed on Twitter that we could expect the new Cosmos series to launch in Spring of 2014.

The new show’s host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, is easily the most renowned astrophysicist around. He currently directs the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and has hosted a PBS show before – NOVA ScienceNow from 2006 to 2011. Tyson is also host to the popular StarTalk Radio Show. He’s also a frequent contributor to the alternative nightly show circuit, including The Daily Show, and Real Time with Bill Maher. Oh, and he’s quite popular on the internet.

Earlier this week we learned that Fox is also bringing back the popular action series 24 – but at this point it’s a one-time thing and it will only run 12 more episodes.

[Image via]

The breathalyzer. Anyone pulled over on suspicion of driving under the influence knows it all too well. Since the 1980s, police have used the tool, first developed in 1967, to detect alcohol content in the blood. Until now, breath samples have only really been accurate in terms of alcohol, but Swedish researchers have just published a study which touts the abilities of the new product, a breathalyzer for drugs.

The product and research comes from Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, who used their drug-detecting breathalyzer to detect the presence of a wide variety of illegal drugs – with accuracy. They were even able to detect a host of other drugs with a little less accuracy.

Researchers tapped 47 participants from the Stockholm Drug Emergency Clinic, collected blood and urine samples (for comparison), and had them blow into their device. Researchers say that they were able to accurately detect these substances: amphetamine, methamphetamine, morphine, heroin, THC, Diazepam, Oxazepam, cocaine, and benzoylecgonine.

And with less accuracy, these: Codiene, MDMA, Methadone, Nicotine, Continine, Zolpiden, and MDPV (bath salts)

Here’s how SensAbues describes the technology:

During normal breathing microparticles are formed from the airway liquid fluid by the closure and opening of bronchioles. These particles form a bioaserol that is carried out in the exhaled breath. These bioaerosol particles can be selectively collected by a unique filter technique developed at the Karolinska Institute. Collected particles can be used for drugs of abuse detection by analysis with high sensitivity technique, e.g. liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry.

“Until now, sampling for drug testing has been a complicated, lengthy or intrusive process: urine samples have to be collected under surveillance; blood tests that have to be taken by trained medical staff. SensAbues offers a sampling device for easy and rapid sampling on site, a sampling procedure difficult to adulterate, and analysis by mass spectrometry for legally defensible results,” says SensAbues.

It could be only a matter of time until police everywhere are able to quickly and easily breathalyze you for anything. Yeah, science?

[IOP Science via Digital Trends]

In what IBM calls the “world’s smallest movie,” A Boy and His Atom is a short film that was created by IBM researchers “using a scanning tunneling microscope to move thousands of carbon monoxide molecules (two atoms stacked on top of each other).” They mostly did it just because they could, and the results are pretty amazing:

It may not look like much, but the above movie is the result of IMB meticulously moving individual atoms to create a scene. It’s actually kind of mind blowing when you realize we can now move individual atoms – the basic building blocks of everything, living and non-living, in the universe.

Of course, making movies out of atoms isn’t IBM’s primary objective here. The company is researching atomic memory – a type of memory storage that packs data into incredibly tight spaces to increase the amount of storage possible in tiny spaces. Early last year, IBM was able to store a bit of data on just 12 atoms. As the technology advances, we’ll soon be able to store more and more data on smaller and smaller devices.

Until then, IBM can be content that it holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s smallest movie.

If you’re interested in learning how IBM manipulated the atoms to make the movie, check out the video below:

[h/t: Reddit]

To debate that here would be futile, so we’ll let AsapSCIENCE take over. They explain how both things can hurt like hell, citing nociceptors, nerve attachments, and more.

But in the end, pain is subjective. As a man, I’ll never experience the pain of childbirth. And as a woman, you’ll never know the agony of a swift kick in the balls. See what I did there? Because I have felt one of those pains, I’m biased. I said “agony” instead of simply saying “pain.”

I fear this question will never receive a proper answer. Both hurt. A lot. And even as a man, I can say that I’d rather get kicked in the balls 10 times, by a horse, than have to go through childbirth. Lord almighty.

Either way, it’s a fun watch.

[AsapSCIENCE]

In a new study to be published in Current Biology, McGill University in Quebec found that playing Tetris for an hour a day for two weeks helped strengthen lazy eyes in adults far better than the traditional eye patch method. The game, with the help of special goggles, makes the patient’s eyes work together in unison to strengthen both.

The special goggles work together with Tetris to ensure that both eyes see separate things while playing the game. One eye will only see the falling blocks while the other will only see the blocks that have accumulated on the ground. This forces both eyes to work together to successfully clear rows of blocks.

After this test, the researchers had another group of adults with lazy eyes play Tetris while wearing the same goggles, but these participants had their good eye covered the whole time. They found that playing Tetris with only the lazy eye didn’t lead to any significant improvement. They did find, however, that this group saw significant improvement once they moved to the aforementioned method of having both eyes work together to play the game.

The researchers say that playing Tetris, or any other game that makes both eyes work together, could help cure lazy eyes in adults. The researchers now want to test the same treatment on children. It could prove to be a better alternative to the traditional eye patch that must be incredibly embarrassing to some children not lucky enough to get a pirate-themed eye patch.

[h/t: BBC]

It’s explained by our favorite science animators, AsapSCIENCE. Go ahead, discover the mystery…

Not only is the wringing-out part cool, but so is the whole getting-it-wet-in-the-first-place part.

If this isn’t reason enough to find space programs, I don’t know what is.