New dolphin species found

Heart muscle cells derived from individual patients’ stem cells could be used to test the safety of a drug before it’s administered — a boon for precision medicine. Elena Matsa and Joseph Wu of Stanford University in California and their colleagues made heart muscle cells from induced pluripotent stem cells derived from seven people. They then exposed the muscle cells to one of two drugs that have been linked to heart problems in some people: rosiglitazone and tacrolimus. The results showed differences in how the cells responded to the drugs: one cell line, for example, showed signs of increased stress after treatment that were not observed in cells from other patients. The approach could one day be used to tailor treatment regimens to individuals and to test drug candidates for potential toxicity before they enter clinical trials.

Heart muscle cells derived from individual patients' stem cells could be used to test the safety of a drug before it's administered -a boon for precision medicine.
Elena Matsa and Joseph Wu of Stanford University in California and their colleagues made heart muscle cells from induced pluripotent stem cells derived from seven people. They then exposed the muscle cells to one of two drugs that have been linked to heart problems in some people: rosiglitazone and tacrolimus. The results showed differences in how the cells responded to the drugs: one cell line, for example, showed signs of increased stress after treatment that were not observed in cells from other patients.
The approach could one day be used to tailor treatment regimens to individuals and to test drug candidates for potential toxicity before they enter clinical trials.

Dark-matter evidence weakens
A survey of X-ray light from galaxy clusters has found no evidence of dark matter decaying, in the latest in a series of contradictory results.
In 2014, two separate teams found an unexpected bump in the energy spectra of dozens of galaxy clusters. Emissions at 3.55 kiloelectronvolts (keV) were seen as a possible sign of the decay of 'sterile' neutrinos with a mass of 7.1 keV. Physicists have hypothesized that these heavier cousins of the three known types of neutrino are possible components of dark matter. Now astronomer Florian Hofmann at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, and his team have analysed publicly available data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory concerning 33 galaxy clusters (11 of which were not included in the original studies). Their search found no evidence of an anomalous bump at around 3.55 keV.

Early humans were picky dressers
Ancient clothing is rarely preserved, but two independent teams have discovered what early humans wore to cope with the cold European weather.
Mark Collard at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby,

New dolphin species found
A fossilized dolphin skull in the Smithsonian collection has been identified as an entirely new species 65 years after it was dug out of the ground in Alaska.
Alexandra Boersma and Nicholas Pyenson of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC identified a 23-centimetrelong skull (pictured) as a new genus and species in a family called the Allodelphinidae. The extinct animal is closely related to today's South Asian river dolphin (Platanista gangetica). The fossil dates from around 25 million years ago, a few million years after cetaceans diverged into Canada, and his colleagues compared the animals that modern indigenous groups used to make cold-weather clothing with the bone types found at early human and Neanderthal sites. Remains from animals with fur, such as foxes and rabbits, were more common at early-human sites, whereas bones from deer, bovids and several other animals were found at both types of site equally. This suggests that early humans used fur to sew specialized cold-weather apparel, but that Neanderthals relied on simpler animal-skin capes, the authors say.
In a separate paper, Niall O'Sullivan at the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Bolzano, Italy, and his team sequenced mitochondrial DNA from garments worn by Ötzi, the 5,300-year-old ice mummy. His coat, leggings (pictured left) and loincloth were made from the skins of domestic cattle, sheep and goats, whereas his hat and quiver (pictured right) used brown-bear fur and roe-deer skin.

Bulk production of mother-of-pearl
Artificial mother-of-pearl can be made by mimicking the natural process of mineralization.
Mother-of-pearl, or nacre, is remarkably strong yet biodegradable. However, its complex layered structure, in which mineral plates form in an organic scaffold, makes it difficult to recreate in bulk. Shu-Hong Yu at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei and his colleagues built their own matrix by growing sheets of ice, which squeezed a solution of the biopolymer chitosan into solid layers. They then pumped this scaffold with materials to grow calcium carbonate, and pressed the stack to form synthetic nacre.
The synthetic version has similar mechanical properties to its natural counterpart and takes just two weeks to grow. This method could be used to produce materials for use in the aerospace industry or as armour, say the authors. It is also the most northern specimen yet discovered of the Allodelphinidae, and the researchers have dubbed the animal Arktocara yakatagathe face of the north.
PeerJ 4, e2321 (2016) explain why neutrinos have mass and why the Universe contains more matter than antimatter. Azusa Gando at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, and her colleagues in the KamLAND-Zen Collaboration carried out the most sensitive search so far for radioactive decay indicative of Majorana neutrinos, using an underground detection facility containing a huge balloon filled with purified xenon.
The team's results, although negative, constrain the upper limit of the mass of Majorana neutrinos to 61-165 millielectronvolts. However, the detector's sensitivity must be pushed even further to prove Majorana's theory, the researchers say.