Here are four good news articles about how science is improving our lives.

1. Scientists have found a way to make nanodiamonds out of PET plastic.
2. A universal, potential COVID-19 vaccine is about to be tested in humans.
3. There are new discoveries about the power to perform random acts of kindness.
4. A woman with a keen sense of smell helped create a simple test for diagnosing Parkinson’s disease.

Watch the video above to get the full digest and check out the details below.

1. Scientists have found a way to make nanodiamonds out of PET plastic.

Turning plastic into diamonds sounds like a modern-day fairy tale, but experiments originally designed to better understand planets known as ice giants, such as Uranus and Neptune, have led to unexpected discoveries. I got

Scientists were investigating a phenomenon called “diamond rain,” which is thought to form due to the unique mix of elements within these planets.

They experimented with PET plastic, a polymer found in packaging such as plastic bottles that consists of a mixture of hydrogen and carbon. The team succeeded in mimicking the processes that take place inside the ice giant by using an optical laser in plastic to create high-pressure shock waves.

If you imagine a million to two million elephants jumping on an object at once, that’s the sort of pressure we’re talking about.

Researchers were thrilled when this produced tiny synthetic diamonds.

What’s really surprising is the clarity of what they saw in the results, says Professor Dominic Kraus of the University of Rostock, who participated in the experiment. .”

“Also, when the pressure is released, the diamonds remain, which means there are ways to recover them and make them applicable and possibly for other uses,” he told Euronews. .

Man-made diamonds share many of the most important properties of natural diamonds, so besides being extremely beautiful, these nanodiamonds hold promise for quantum technology and medical applications.

The experiment was set up to better understand the planets of our solar system. “This could also be one of many examples in the history of science where such curiosity and something so far-fetched can lead to real-world applications,” says Kraus. says the professor.

If this is a new efficient way to produce nanodiamonds using the same plastic that ends up in landfills every year, this could be great news for our planet.

2. A universal, potential COVID-19 vaccine is about to be tested in humans.

For years, public health officials and scientists have complained about a lack of funding to develop vaccines to protect us from current and future viruses. 19 changed everything.

After the pandemic began, tens of millions of dollars were allocated to research groups looking into universal coronavirus vaccines, urgently needed to ensure a COVID-free future.

A ubiquitous COVID-19 vaccine will defeat future diseases caused by possible future variants and entirely new types of coronaviruses.

Luckily, people were already wrestling with this problem long before Alpha, Delta, Omicron and other names were known.

One of these scientists was Alexander Cohen, a doctoral student at Caltech. Researchers in Cohen’s lab are very close to their goal.

The initial results look very promising, as antibodies generated in the lab’s vaccine identified not only all eight coronaviruses contained in the vaccine, but also four additional coronaviruses not included. In May, the group reported that the vaccine appeared to protect mice and monkeys exposed to a series of coronaviruses.In July, the results were published in Science.

The next step would be to test the vaccine in humans, and funding is already available.

3. There are new discoveries about the power of doing random acts of kindness.

Practicing small gestures of kindness makes everyone happy, both the giver and the receiver. But strangely enough, the world’s Good Samaritans tend not to realize how happy they are making people, new research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology reveals. I was.

Researchers believe this may be preventing many of us from doing good for others more often.

They conducted experiments on hundreds of people who gave and received random acts of kindness, such as buying coffee or hot chocolate from strangers, but those who performed the I consistently underestimated how positive others felt.

The idea that kindness increases happiness isn’t all that new. Numerous studies have already shown that voluntarily helping others creates positive emotions for both parties.

But experts say each new discovery strengthens the idea, making it not only seem logical but a stronger scientific argument.

4. A Scottish woman with a keen sense of smell developed a simple test to diagnose Parkinson’s disease.

72-year-old Joy Milne happens to make a major breakthrough in detecting Parkinson’s disease.

Twelve years before she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, she noticed that her husband’s smell had changed, and that he now smelled different from his usual musky odor.

“Weirdly, when I wake up in the morning, I can’t open my eyes and I can smell my surroundings,” she said.

Joy Milne has hereditary hypersmia. People with this condition are known as “super swimmers”.

A team at the University of Manchester used her powers and discovered that Parkinson’s disease has a specific odor.

With the help of Mrs. Milne, they developed a test that can tell if you have Parkinson’s disease in just three minutes.

“We swab a person’s back like that and take it to a mass spectrometer where we analyze the compounds in the skin. From there we can tell if someone has Parkinson’s disease.” Investigation, to Euronews.

“Our focus is to create so-called confirmatory diagnoses so that specialists can receive appropriate treatment.”

Until now, there was no specific test for Parkinson’s disease, and the diagnosis was based on the patient’s symptoms and medical history. A simple swab is about to change everything.

It can be hard to spot among headlines, but remember there is good news too.