And now for the good news!

If you listen to the news these days you could be forgiven for being a bit despondant about 2019.  Somewhere in between world politics, whatever Brexit turns out to be, antibiotic resistance and global warming there are some genuine reasons to be encouraged about the coming year, so here’s a selection of positive news stories to gear you up for 2019.

Research beginning that could develop a vaccine for cancer – Stanford University has begun to recruit human lymphoma patients to a study into an injection of immune stimulating agents in tumors.  So far the results they have obtained in mice have been very encouraging.  Click here for the full story and breakdown of how it could be a game changer for cancer treatment in the future.

Antiboitic resistance breakthrough – One of the more depressing aspects of recent years’ health news has been the encroaching reality of antibiotic resistance, if we can’t come up with new ways to kill bacterial infections then many routine medical procedures and common diseases could turn into life threatening situations.  As you might imagine there has been a lot of research into stopping this scenario becoming reality, with one of the major breakthroughs coming from the University of East Anglia, click here for the sciency bit!

Speaking of bugs – You may have heard that one of our biggest environmental problems is the amount of plastic that we use and dispose of as if there is no tomorrow (gulp).  Well, nature may be fighting back after scientists accidentally tweaked a bacteria, that they had discovered that would eat plastic, with the results being that it now eats plastic bottles.  It takes only a few days to begin to work, as opposed to the centuries it takes for plastic to break down in the ocean……

Also……you can now look around another planet (requires a smartphone).  How cool is that?  See? Plenty of good news around to keep you upbeat in the darker months!