New Organs, Better Pain Management, Climate Change, and Asteroid Rocks

A month's worth of cool science stories summed up.
Alistair Jennings, Contributor

On this monthly roundup, Alistair Jennings from Inside Science sums up some of August's most interesting science: a new organ that senses pain, better opioid use, losing soil on Earth, virtual reality to treat pain, and what rocks tell us about the origin of the Ryugu asteroid.

References:

1.Specialized cutaneous Schwann cells initiate pain sensation

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6454/695

 

2. Genetic behavioral screen identifies an orphan anti-opioid system

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2019/08/14/science.aau2078

 

3. Statewide Implementation of Postoperative Opioid Prescribing Guidelines

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1905045

 

4. Virtual reality for management of pain in hospitalized patients: A randomized comparative effectiveness trial

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0219115

 

5. Climate change and land

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/

 

6. Recent pace of change in human impact on the world’s ocean

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-47201-9

 

7. Deadly Heat Waves Will Likely Get Worse

https://www.insidescience.org/video/deadly-heat-waves-will-likely-get-worse

 

8. Top Science Stories of 2018

https://www.insidescience.org/video/top-science-stories-2018

 

9. Images from the surface of asteroid Ryugu show rocks similar to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6455/817

Author Bio & Story Archive

Ali Jennings has his PhD in neuroscience from University College London.