What is the latest promising covid-19 drug? How do plants survive volcano eruptions? ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for July 4-10 2022 #SciSeekPicks #SciComm

In the latest edition of the best and brightest from the world of science news, we look at a newly-discovered low-power mode for the brain, and an unexpected effect of the Nobel prize-winning CRISPR gene editing method. ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise also cover many other important and exciting topics. Why not have a read, inform yourself, and indulge your scientific curiosity?

• Buried Alive: How Plants Bounce Back from Volcanic Debris by Julia Bebout at Envirobites

On the left, a photograph of Mount Saint Helens shortly after the eruption in 1980 has little visible life. On the right, Mount Saint Helens, photographed in 2018 (38 years after the eruption) has visible plant recovery. Image Source: Nara & DVIDS Public Domain Archive and Wikipedia Creative Commons by user Reywas92

• Ancient Nautilus, Uncertain Future by Kate Evans at Hakai Magazine
• Cancer Drug Greatly Reduces Deaths in Hospitalized Covid Patients by Carl Zimmer for The New York Times
• Using a modified herpes virus to treat skin cancer by Savannah Ziba at Sciworthy 
• The most personalized medicine: Studying your own child’s rare condition by Lydia Denworth at Spectrum
• Why Do Mental Illnesses—From Depression to Schizophrenia—Raise the Risk of Dementia? by Claudia Wallis at Scientific American
• The Brain Has a ‘Low-Power Mode’ That Blunts Our Senses by Allison Whitten for Wired 
• Podcast: What We Gain From Pain at by Shankar Vedantam at Hidden Brain
• Opioid prescriptions significantly higher for patients with lifelong disabilities, study finds at ScienceDaily 
• Electrical stimulation improves arm control in paralyzed monkeys at ScienceDaily
• Unexpected effects of gene editing: aggressive hamsters by Rosa García-Verdugo at Mapping Ignorance
• A Decade of the Higgs Boson and Beyond by Jon Butterworth at Cosmic Shambles Network

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