Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily

1. Rocky Mountain snow is contaminated, study shows
   Mountain snowpacks accumulate snow throughout the winter, building up stores of water that will supply communities across the American West throughout the long dry season. Now, a new study shows that as storms carry snow to the Rocky Mountains, they are also bringing mercury and other contaminants from mines in the region. The research helps scientists understand how contaminants are spread by atmospheric circulation and has implications for snowpack preservation and illuminating the lasting environmental impact of mining activities.
2. New insight into factors associated with a common disease among dogs and humans
   For dogs housed at Texas kennels, age and fecal score are important factors for screening for subclinical Giardia infections.
3. Metasurfaces: Bilayer device can control many forms of polarized light
   Researchers have created a bilayer metasurface made of two stacked layers of titanium dioxide nanostructures, opening new possibilities for structuring light.
4. Combination immunotherapy shrank a variety of metastatic gastrointestinal cancers
   A new form of tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy, a form of personalized cancer immunotherapy, dramatically improved the treatment's effectiveness in patients with metastatic gastrointestinal cancers, according to results of a clinical trial. The findings offer hope that this therapy could be used to treat a variety of solid tumors, which has so far eluded researchers developing cell-based therapies.
5. Surprising number of environmental pollutants in hedgehogs
   Lead, pesticides, brominated flame retardants, plastic additives, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and heavy metals. This is what researchers found when they collected dead hedgehogs to investigate the environmental pollutants found in urban environments.