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The Atlantic
The Republican Party Is Now in Its End Stages
 
We are living in a time of bad metaphors. Everything is fascism, or socialism; Hitler's Germany , or Stalin's Soviet Union. Republicans, especially, want their followers to believe that America is on the verge of a dramatic time, a moment of great conflict such as 1968—or perhaps, even worse, 1860. (The drama is the point, of course. No one ever says, "We're living through 1955.") Ironically, the
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Science | The Guardian
Black-browed babbler found in Borneo 180 years after last sighting
 
Exclusive: Stuffed specimen was only proof of bird's existence until discovery in rainforest last year In the 1840s, a mystery bird was caught on an expedition to the East Indies. Charles Lucien Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoleon, described it to science and named it the black-browed babbler ( Malacocincla perspicillata). The species was never seen in the wild again, and a stuffed specimen featuri
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The Atlantic
Mars Is a Hellhole
 
There's no place like home—unless you're Elon Musk. A prototype of SpaceX's Starship, which may someday send humans to Mars, is, according to Musk, likely to launch soon , possibly within the coming days. But what motivates Musk? Why bother with Mars? A video clip from an interview Musk gave in 2019 seems to sum up Musk's vision—and everything that's wrong with it. In the video , Musk is seen rea
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The Atlantic
The Man Who Refused to Bow
 
adam Kinzinger is a liberated individual—liberated from his party leadership, liberated from the fear of being beaten in a primary, liberated to speak his mind. The 43-year-old representative was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the attack on the U.S. Capitol. "I don't have a constitutional duty to defend against a guy that is a jerk and maybe says some t
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Science | The Guardian
Atlantic Ocean circulation at weakest in a millennium, say scientists
 
Decline in system underpinning Gulf Stream could lead to more extreme weather in Europe and higher sea levels on US east coast The Atlantic Ocean circulation that underpins the Gulf Stream, the weather system that brings warm and mild weather to Europe, is at its weakest in more than a millennium, and climate breakdown is the probable cause, according to new data. Further weakening of the Atlanti
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NPR
Baffled Canadians Spread Reports Of 'Hard' Butter
 
Reports spreading about "hard" butter aren't softening Canadians. One intrepid food scholar, Sylvain Charlebois, thinks he's found the "buttergate" culprit: palm oil fats. (Image credit: Matthew Mead/AP)
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Science | The Guardian
Will I have to wear a mask after getting the Covid vaccine?
 
With Johnson & Johnson's one-shot vaccine close to distribution in the US, the end of the pandemic seems a big step closer. But not everything will return to normal right away Public health authorities want people to keep wearing masks and social distancing, even after they receive a vaccine . This might seem counterintuitive – after all, if someone gets a vaccine, aren't they protected from the
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ExtremeTechExtreme – ExtremeTech
The US Air Force Quietly Admits the F-35 Is a Failure
 
The Air Force has announced a new study into the tactical aviation requirements of future aircraft, dubbed TacAir. In the process of doing so, Air Force chief of staff General Charles Q. Brown finally admitted what's been obvious for years: The F-35 program has failed to achieve its goals. There is, at this point, little reason to believe it will ever succeed. According to Brown, the USAF doesn't
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The Atlantic
The False Dilemma of Post-Vaccination Risk
 
Editor's Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here . Every day, more than 1 million American deltoids are being loaded with a vaccine. The ensuing immune response has proved to be extremely effective—essentially perfect—at preventing severe cases of COVID-19. And now, with yet another highly effective vaccine on the verge of
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Science | The Guardian
'Unique' petrified tree up to 20m years old found intact in Lesbos
 
Discovery of 19.5-metre tree with roots, branches and leaves is unprecedented, say experts First came the tree, all 19.5 metres of it, with roots and branches and leaves. Then, weeks later, the discovery of 150 fossilised logs, one on top of the other, a short distance away. Nikolas Zouros, a professor of geology at the University of the Aegean, couldn't believe his luck. In 25 years of excavatin
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The Atlantic
You Got the Vaccine! What Can You Do Now?
 
Editor's Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here . The past 11 months have been a crash course in a million concepts that you probably wish you knew a whole lot less about. Particle filtration . Ventilation . Epidemiological variables . And, perhaps above all else, interdependence. In forming quarantine bubbles, in donning
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Phys.org
Light unbound: Data limits could vanish with new optical antennas
 
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a new way to harness properties of light waves that can radically increase the amount of data they carry. They demonstrated the emission of discrete twisting laser beams from antennas made up of concentric rings roughly equal to the diameter of a human hair, small enough to be placed on computer chips.
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Science | The Guardian
Royal Mint to commemorate fossil hunter Mary Anning
 
Special 50p coins will feature some of the Jurassic creatures discovered by 19th-century palaeontologist One of the most terrifying Jurassic sea creatures is to appear on commemorative 50p coins to celebrate the work of the pioneering fossil hunter Mary Anning . The temnodontosaurus coins will shine a light on the 19th-century palaeontologist, who made a series of discoveries near her home in Lym
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The Atlantic
5 Pandemic Mistakes We Keep Repeating
 
W hen the polio vaccine was declared safe and effective, the news was met with jubilant celebration . Church bells rang across the nation, and factories blew their whistles . "Polio routed!" newspaper headlines exclaimed. "An historic victory," "monumental," "sensational," newscasters declared . People erupted with joy across the United States. Some danced in the streets; others wept . Kids were
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Livescience.com
Greek ship carrying parts of the Parthenon is giving up more secrets
 
The latest expedition by divers to the wreck of the Mentor, which sank just off the island of Kythera (also spelled Kithira and Kythira) in 1802, has recovered several pieces of the ship's rigging, coins, the leather sole of a shoe, a metal buckle, a token for playing cards, two chess pieces, fragments of cooking utensils and other seemingly mundane objects.
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Futurism
Company Has Ambitious Plan to Build Private Space Station with Artificial Gravity
 
A space colonization company has some bold plans to turn a specific kind of science fiction into reality: Artificial gravity. Which you may recognize from, say, Interstellar , The Martian , Halo , Cowboy Bebop , 2001: A Space Odyssey , and more . The Orbital Assembly Corporation's (OAC) bold vision? To construct a gigantic orbital space station called Voyager that can hold up to 400 passengers. A
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Phys.org
Bird believed extinct for 170 years spotted in Borneo
 
A team of researchers from Indonesia and Singapore has found evidence of the continued existence of a bird long thought extinct. In their paper published in the journal BirdingASIA, the team describes the history of the bird, why it was thought to be extinct and how it was found in Borneo.
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Paleontologists discover new insect group after solving 150-year-old mystery
 
For more than 150 years, scientists have been incorrectly classifying a group of fossil insects as damselflies, the familiar cousins of dragonflies that flit around wetlands eating mosquitoes. While they are strikingly similar, these fossils have oddly shaped heads, which researchers have always attributed to distortion resulting from the fossilization process.
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Phys.org
Paleontologists discover new insect group after solving 150-year-old mystery
 
For more than 150 years, scientists have been incorrectly classifying a group of fossil insects as damselflies, the familiar cousins of dragonflies that flit around wetlands eating mosquitoes. While they are strikingly similar, these fossils have oddly shaped heads, which researchers have always attributed to distortion resulting from the fossilization process.
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Phys.org
Sub-diffraction optical writing enables data storage at the nanoscale
 
The total amount of data generated worldwide is expected to reach 175 zettabytes (1 ZB equals 1 billion terabytes) by 2025. If 175 ZB were stored on Blu-ray disks, the stack would be 23 times the distance to the moon. There is an urgent need to develop storage technologies that can accommodate this enormous amount of data.
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Science | The Guardian
Archaeologists find unique ceremonial vehicle near Pompeii
 
Well-preserved iron, bronze and tin carriage discovery is 'without precedent in Italy' Archaeologists have unearthed a unique Roman ceremonial carriage from a villa just outside Pompeii, the city buried in a volcanic eruption in 79 AD. The almost perfectly preserved four-wheeled carriage, made of iron, bronze and tin, was found near the stables of an ancient villa at Civita Giuliana, about 700 me
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The Atlantic
American Cynicism Has Reached a Breaking Point
 
O n Tuesday evening, at the start of his Fox News show, Tucker Carlson shared the results of an investigation that he and his staff had conducted into a well-known agent of American disinformation. "We spent all day trying to locate the famous QAnon," Carlson said, "which, in the end, we learned is not even a website . If it's out there, we could not find it." They kept looking, though, checking
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Science | The Guardian
Single Pfizer jab can reduce asymptomatic Covid infections by 75%
 
Cambridge doctors record sharp fall in infections after 12 days in Covid test analysis on healthcare workers Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage A single dose of the Pfizer vaccine can reduce asymptomatic infections by 75%, according to research that suggests the jab could substantially curtail transmission of the disease. Doctors in Cambridge recorded the sharp fall in
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Popular Science | RSS
What underwater sounds can tell us about the state of coral reefs
 
Soundscape ecology is an emerging field of science, examining what sounds might reveal about a coral reef ecosystem. (Pixabay /) When we think about underwater noises, our minds often turn to whale songs and dolphin clicks. But there are other voices, too. In fact, coral reefs generate a constant stream of melodious tunes. Over the past several decades, researchers have learned that analyzing the
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Science | The Guardian
Changes in Atlantic currents may have dire climate implications for the next century | Andrew Meijers
 
Without modifying human behaviour we run the risk of violent weather swings and a drastic effect on crops and ocean life The ocean circulation that keeps our relatively northern corner of Europe warm(ish) is often likened to a gigantic conveyor belt bringing warm equatorial water northwards at the surface, balanced by cold southward flow at great depth. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circula
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The Atlantic
America's Political Roots Are in Eutaw, Alabama
 
G randdaddy's voice was raspy; love laced his hello . His throne, a maroon recliner, filled the corner of the den in his ranch-style home. On a typical summer afternoon—during one of our weeklong sojourns back to Montgomery, Alabama, from wherever the Air Force took my dad—my cousins and I would be sprawled across the floor, keeping up a ruckus. In the evening, Granddaddy would fumble with the re
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Phys.org
Comet makes a pit stop near Jupiter's asteroids
 
After traveling several billion miles toward the Sun, a wayward young comet-like object orbiting among the giant planets has found a temporary parking place along the way. The object has settled near a family of captured ancient asteroids, called Trojans, that are orbiting the Sun alongside Jupiter. This is the first time a comet-like object has been spotted near the Trojan population.
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Phys.org
Did teenage 'tyrants' outcompete other dinosaurs?
 
Paleo-ecologists from The University of New Mexico and at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have demonstrated that the offspring of enormous carnivorous dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex may have fundamentally re-shaped their communities by out-competing smaller rival species.
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Phys.org
Scientists use supercomputers to study reliable fusion reactor design, operation
 
Nuclear fusion, the same kind of energy that fuels stars, could one day power our world with abundant, safe, and carbon-free energy. Aided by supercomputers Summit at the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Theta at DOE's Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), a team of scientists strives toward making fusion energy a reality.
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The Atlantic
Ban All Big Mergers. Period.
 
The oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron each have assets valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Last year, The Wall Street Journal recently revealed , the two companies considered what would have been among the largest corporate mergers in history—a deal that would have reunited parts of the Standard Oil empire that federal trustbusters broke apart in 1911. In the end, ExxonMobil and Chevro
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Futurism
COVID Deaths Have Dropped Dramatically Since January
 
Ever since late January, the number of new coronavirus infections and COVID-19 deaths has been on an enormous decline. The precise reasons why will probably elude us for some time, though experts have previously pointed toward the increased pace of vaccine administration, lifestyle changes, and the fact that a spike from ill-advised holiday travel and gatherings would have ended by now as contrib
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The Atlantic
Overcaution Carries Its Own Danger to Children
 
The past year of COVID-19 has been so terrible that many people struggle to imagine any return to normalcy. More than 500,000 Americans have died. The continued shutdown of schools has led to rising rates of depression and anxiety, unhealthy weight gain, and self-harm among students. Now, because of the rapid development and distribution of highly effective vaccines against COVID-19, a long perio
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The Atlantic
'To Me, This Penis Is Out of Control'
 
The world of Danish children's television is not for the prudish. Kids who turn on the tube in Denmark might be greeted by gratuitous flatulence, cursing, casual nudity, or cross-dressing puppets. One show centers on a pipe-smoking pirate who wallops ninjas and flirts with Satanism . In another , an audience of 11-to-13-year-olds asks probing questions about the bodies of adults who disrobe befor
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Futurism
Scientists Simulate Thousands of New Universes to Understand How Ours Began
 
Rewinding Time Armed with a powerful supercomputer, a team of Japanese scientists is figuratively turning back time to unravel the mysteries that still shroud the first fleeting moments of the universe. We know that our universe began with a rapid expansion, but the "why" is still hazy. Same with what happened in the crucial microseconds after the Big Bang that shaped the universe as it exists to
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Futurism
Single Pfizer Dose "Robust" For Those Who Have Had COVID
 
Ever since the vaccine rollout began, the lingering question of what to do about people who already caught and recovered from COVID-19 has forced scientists to collectively throw up their arms, in a latent conclusion effectively amounting to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. But now, thanks to a pair of new studies published Thursday in medical journal The Lancet , it appears that those with coronavirus antibodies alre
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The Atlantic
You're Thinking About Home Heating Wrong
 
I f you're like me, you know that getting rid of your car is one of the best things you can do for the climate, and also that you will never do it. This is a car-oriented country, and a car-oriented time . But in 2019, the private cars and light trucks that ordinary people drive for work and shopping and leisure were responsible for about 15 percent of U.S. fossil-fuel-energy use. Electric vehicl
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Phys.org
Ancient Egyptian manual reveals new details about mummification
 
Based on a manual recently discovered in a 3,500-year-old medical papyrus, University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Sofie Schiødt has been able to help reconstruct the embalming process used to prepare ancient Egyptians for the afterlife. It is the oldest surviving manual on mummification yet discovered.
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Were it not for humans, woolly mammoths would have lived for 4,000 more years, simulation shows
 
An international team of researchers has used computer simulations to show that it was likely a combination of climate change and human hunting that led to the extinction of the woolly mammoth. They have written a paper describing their findings, available on the bioRxiv preprint server—in it, they suggest that were it not for human hunters, the mammoths would have lasted another 4,000 years.
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Phys.org
Were it not for humans, woolly mammoths would have lived for 4,000 more years, simulation shows
 
An international team of researchers has used computer simulations to show that it was likely a combination of climate change and human hunting that led to the extinction of the woolly mammoth. They have written a paper describing their findings, available on the bioRxiv preprint server—in it, they suggest that were it not for human hunters, the mammoths would have lasted another 4,000 years.
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Science | The Guardian
Life-extending drug for incurable breast cancer approved for NHS
 
About 3,300 women a year may benefit from decision to approve ribociclib Women with incurable advanced breast cancer will be able to get a drug from the NHS that can potentially extend their life by almost eight months after a new ruling. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has approved the drug – ribociclib , also known as Kisqali – for routine use by the NHS in England
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Phys.org
Using deep-sea fiber optic cables to detect earthquakes
 
Seismologists at Caltech working with optics experts at Google have developed a method to use existing underwater telecommunication cables to detect earthquakes. The technique could lead to improved earthquake and tsunami warning systems around the world.
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Popular Science | RSS
Thrift shopping is an environmental and ethical trap
 
Thrifting can be a joyful experience, but it's not a 100-percent guilt-free one. (Becca McHaffie on Unsplash/) There's really nothing quite like finding an incredible piece of clothing sitting on the rack in a thrift store. Among what seems like millions of grandpa sweaters might be a vintage cashmere lurking, or a pair of Prada heels unassumingly tossed in a pile of Payless flats. When you've sp
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Popular Science | RSS
Gyms are still hot spots for spreading COVID-19
 
We aren't out of the woods yet. (CDC/) Click here to see all of PopSci's COVID-19 coverage. Another week has passed by and the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 being officially declared a pandemic is creeping closer. And while case counts are going down across the world, the longer the pandemic lasts, the more chances the virus has to mutate, which could influence how well we can control the viru
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Futurism
A Breakthrough: Actual Video of a Time Crystal
 
For the first time ever, researchers were able to catch space-time crystals on camera using a transmission X-ray microscope. Time-crystals aren't the subject of a corny sci-fi novel. They're the time-space progression of crystals, a solid material made up of a crystal lattice, a highly ordered collection of atoms. Time crystals not only form a repeating atomic lattice structure, they occur symmet
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Popular Science | RSS
Like humans, naked mole-rats have regional accents
 
The naked mole rat may be weird looking, but they're surprisingly complex creatures. (Mehgan Murphy/Smithsonian National Zoo/) If you want to see an elaborate animal society in action, look no further than the naked mole-rat. These pale wrinkly little rodents, indigenous to East Africa, live in underground colonies with rigid roles and elaborate social hierarchies under the stewardship of a queen
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Quanta Magazine
How to Understand COVID-19 Variants and Their Effects on Vaccines
 
Viruses evolve. It's what they do. That's especially true for a pandemic virus like SARS-CoV-2, the one behind COVID-19. When a population lacks immunity and transmission is extensive, we expect viral mutations to appear frequently simply due to the number of viruses replicating in a short period of time. And the growing presence of immune individuals means that the viruses that can still transmi
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Phys.org
First rebbachisaurid dinosaur remains found in Asia
 
A pair of researchers with the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Museum of Natural History in the U.S., respectively, has respectively, uncovered the first known example of a rebbachisaurid dinosaur to be found in Asia. Alexander Averianov and Hans-Dieter Sues have written a paper describing their find and where they believe it fits into the dinosaur ancestral tree. It is available on t
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
First rebbachisaurid dinosaur remains found in Asia
 
A pair of researchers with the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Museum of Natural History in the U.S., respectively, has respectively, uncovered the first known example of a rebbachisaurid dinosaur to be found in Asia. Alexander Averianov and Hans-Dieter Sues have written a paper describing their find and where they believe it fits into the dinosaur ancestral tree. It is available on t
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Futurism
Single-Word Elon Musk Tweet Sends Crypto Dogecoin Soaring
 
Literally All it took was a single word. Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter early Wednesday morning to post a tweet about the alternative cryptocurrency Dogecoin, sending it soaring by 25 percent, as Business Insider reports . The meme, showing a cartoon of a shiba inu flying a flag that says "doge" and "wow" on the Moon, was captioned by the billionaire with the word "literally." Ten minutes la
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Futurism
Elon Musk: Starship Floating Launchpad to Start Operation by "End of Year"
 
Floating Launch Pads Earlier this year, SpaceX bought two massive retired oil rigs and nicknamed them Phobos and Deimos after the two moons of Mars. The company is hoping to turn them into two floating launch pads for its Mars-bound Starship spacecraft that is currently being developed at fever pitch. Now, according to a recent tweet by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, one of the platforms could be "in limi
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Science | The Guardian
Clean break: the risk of catching Covid from surfaces overblown, experts say
 
Prioritising eye protection and face masks will prevent the spread of coronavirus more than disinfecting surfaces, research shows Australia vaccine tracker: when will you get the jab? Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage When cases of Covid-19 first began emerging in Australia, some people reported disinfecting their groceries before bringing them into their homes, and th
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Science | The Guardian
Concerns grow as UK Covid testing labs scaled back before even opening
 
Planned multi-million Lighthouse facilities cut by up to 50%, with smaller labs decommissioned Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage New Lighthouse labs, created by the government to boost the nation's Covid testing capacity, are to be dramatically scaled back before they open. It is understood that new multi-million pound labs in Gateshead and Plymouth, announced last yea
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Futurism
NASA Scientists Spot Strangely Shaped Rock in Latest Mars Panorama
 
Eye-Searing Detail NASA is embarking on its next exciting adventure on the Martian surface — and lucky for us, the agency's taking us along for the ride. Earlier this week, NASA released a stunning high-res panorama taken by Perseverance's Mastcam-Z camera and later stitched together by engineers at the agency's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. The image shows an incredible amount of d
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Futurism
Astronomers Find Five Dozen Baby Black Holes in Distant Psychotic Chaos Galaxy
 
Instead of finding one big black hole at the center of a cluster of 250,000 stars, a pair of astronomers made a very, very unusual discovery: Evidence of a concentration of much smaller black holes, causing nearby stars to move in seemingly random patterns. The discovery, as detailed in a paper published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics earlier this month, could rewrite the way we understa
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Phys.org
Retroviruses are re-writing the koala genome and causing cancer
 
The koala retrovirus (KoRV) is a virus which, like other retroviruses such as HIV, inserts itself into the DNA of an infected cell. At some point in the past 50,000 years, KoRV has infected the egg or sperm cells of koalas, leading to offspring that carry the retrovirus in every cell in their body. The entire koala population of Queensland and New South Wales in Australia now carry copies of KoRV
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Retroviruses are re-writing the koala genome and causing cancer
 
The koala retrovirus (KoRV) is a virus which, like other retroviruses such as HIV, inserts itself into the DNA of an infected cell. At some point in the past 50,000 years, KoRV has infected the egg or sperm cells of koalas, leading to offspring that carry the retrovirus in every cell in their body. The entire koala population of Queensland and New South Wales in Australia now carry copies of KoRV
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Phys.org
The GRANTECAN discovers the largest cluster of galaxies known in the early universe
 
A study, led by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and carried out with OSIRIS, an instrument on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), has found the most densely populated galaxy cluster in formation in the primitive universe. The researchers predict that this structure, which is at a distance of 12.5 billion light years from us, will have evolved becoming a cluster simila
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Popular Science | RSS
Check out the most extensive map of black holes ever
 
Each tiny dot is sweeping up loads of cosmic matter in it's own galaxy. (LOFAR/LOL Survey/) At first glance, this glittering array of white dots against a black background looks like any other night sky. In reality, this image captures something much cooler— those starry white spots are actually thousands of supermassive black holes captured via radio signals. It's the most detailed map of black
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Singularity Hub
The World's First 3D Printed School Will Be Built in Madagascar
 
3D printed houses have been popping up all over the map. Some are hive-shaped , some can float , some are up for sale . Now this practical, cost-cutting technology is being employed for another type of building: a school. Located on the island of Madagascar, the project is a collaboration between San Francisco-based architecture firm Studio Mortazavi and Thinking Huts , a nonprofit whose mission
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Big Think
Scientists are building Earth's virtual twin
 
The European Union envisions an ambitious digital twin of the Earth to simulate climate change. The project is a unique collaboration between Earth science and computer experts. The digital twin will allow policymakers to audition expansive geoengineering projects meant to address climate change. A number of massive geoengineering schemes have been proposed for dealing with climate change. These
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The Atlantic
When a Company Invests in an 'Underdog City'
 
The country is full of "underdog cities"—communities and regions that are aware of losing out and having been overlooked. Some are in Appalachia, some in the Deep South, some around the Great Lakes, some in inland regions of otherwise-prospering states in the West. The imbalances in American opportunity—by race, by gender, by neighborhood and region, by class and economics—are of fundamental impo
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The Atlantic
The Winter Surge Is Melting Away
 
Editor's Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here . All major indicators of COVID-19 transmission in the United States continued to fall this week. Nationally, cases have been falling for six weeks, hospitalizations have been dropping sharply for five weeks, and deaths have been declining for four weeks. The average number o
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The Atlantic
100 Years Ago in Photos: A Look Back at 1921
 
A century ago, Russia was enduring a terrible famine, the Irish Free State was created, U.S. President Warren Harding was inaugurated, the Tulsa race massacre took place in Oklahoma, a new machine called a "dishwasher" was introduced, New York's Madison Square Garden was home to "the world's largest indoor swimming pool," and much more. Please take a moment to look back at some of the events and
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Futurism
Sergey Brin's Mega-Airship to Run Off Record-Breaking Hydrogen Fuel Cell
 
Hydrogen Airship Google co-founder Sergey Brin is working on an extremely ambitious project: a massive airship so big, it'd make the Hindenburg blush. The giant craft is designed to deliver humanitarian aid to those in need in hard to reach places. To power it, Brin's secretive company called LTA Research is hoping to bring out the big guns in the form of a 1.5 megawatt hydrogen propulsion system
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Science Magazine
The influence of juvenile dinosaurs on community structure and diversity
 
Despite dominating biodiversity in the Mesozoic, dinosaurs were not speciose. Oviparity constrained even gigantic dinosaurs to less than 15 kg at birth; growth through multiple morphologies led to the consumption of different resources at each stage. Such disparity between neonates and adults could have influenced the structure and diversity of dinosaur communities. Here, we quantified this effec
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Science Magazine
Afucosylated IgG characterizes enveloped viral responses and correlates with COVID-19 severity
 
Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies are crucial for protection against invading pathogens. A highly conserved N-linked glycan within the IgG-Fc tail, which is essential for IgG function, shows variable composition in humans. Afucosylated IgG variants are already used in anticancer therapeutic antibodies for their increased activity through Fc receptors (FcRIIIa). Here, we report that afucosylated I
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Futurism
This $4,500 EV Is Now Outselling Tesla in China
 
City Slicker A compact electric vehicle that costs just $4,500 is now vastly outselling Tesla's vehicles in China, the BBC reports . Like, beating the the pants off Musk's motors. The adorable city slicker called Hong Guang Mini EV is actually a partnership between General Motors and SAIC Motor, China's top carmaker. Sales for the vehicle have recently taken off, outpacing Tesla's offerings almos
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Futurism
Whoops: Crypto Exchange Accidentally Sells Bitcoin at 88% Discount
 
Oops Philippines-based PDAX, Southeast Asia's largest cryptocurrency exchange, just accidentally sold bitcoin at an incredible 88 percent discount, for around $6,000 a pop. It wasn't pure goodwill, however. The discount was the result of an unintended technical failure, as finance publication Benzinga reports — and now, they'd like their bitcoin back, please. They even threatened their own custom
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Phys.org
Gulf Stream System at its weakest in over a millennium
 
In more than 1,000 years, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as Gulf Stream System, has not been as weak as in recent decades. This is the result of a new study by scientists from Ireland, Britain and Germany. The researchers compiled so-called proxy data, taken mainly from natural archives like ocean sediments or ice cores, reaching back many hundreds of years to r
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Vetenskap | SVT Nyheter
Neandertal-gen kan skydda mot allvarlig covid-19
 
En faktor som avgör hur vi människor påverkas av covid-19 är vilka gener vi bär på. Nu visar en ny studie att nästan hälften av alla människor utanför Afrika bär på en genvariant som minskar risken att bli inlagd på intensivvårdsavdelning och att den är nedärvd från neandertalare.
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The Atlantic
The Atlantic Daily: 14 Fixes for Pandemic Monotony
 
Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox . The prognosis is good, really good: Cases are falling and summer 2021 looks to be incredible . Now we've just got to get through the spring. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of being
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Science | The Guardian
Plants linked to lower levels of violence and self-harm in prisons
 
Researchers say England and Wales study shows demonstrable benefits for prisoners in all categories Green space has been shown to boost learning , improve recovery from hospital operations and lower the risk of mental disorders . Now the power of plants has been linked to lower levels of violence and self-harm in prisons. Researchers mapped the percentage of green space – trees, lawns and shrubbe
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Phys.org
Evidence suggests climate whiplash may have more extremes in store for California
 
Vanderbilt paleoclimatologists using pioneering research have uncovered evidence of ancient climate "whiplash" in California that exceeded even the extremes the state has weathered in the past decade. Their findings present a long-term picture of what regional climate change may look like in the state that supplies the U.S. with more than a third of its vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and
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The Atlantic
Go Ahead and Fail
 
" How to Build a Life " is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness. F or years, I was haunted by a fear of failure. I spent my early adulthood as a professional French hornist, playing in chamber-music ensembles and orchestras. Classical music is a perilous business, relying on absolute precision. Playing the French horn, prone as it is to missing notes, is a
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The Atlantic
Listen: 4 Percent of Nurses, 31.5 Percent of Deaths
 
Listen and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts At the start of the pandemic, Jollene Levid and her mother, Nora, found themselves glued to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's nightly press conferences. In a press conference late last March, Garcetti announced a new milestone: the first health-care worker in Los Angeles County to die of the disease. "When I heard him say
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Nanobodies could help CRISPR turn genes on and off
 
The genetic tool CRISPR has been likened to molecular scissors for its ability to snip out and replace genetic code within DNA. But CRISPR has a capability that could make it useful beyond genetic repairs. "CRISPR can precisely locate specific genes," says Lacramioara Bintu, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford. "What we did was attach CRISPR to nanobodies to help it perform specif
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Phys.org
Nanobodies could help CRISPR turn genes on and off
 
The genetic tool CRISPR has been likened to molecular scissors for its ability to snip out and replace genetic code within DNA. But CRISPR has a capability that could make it useful beyond genetic repairs. "CRISPR can precisely locate specific genes," says Lacramioara Bintu, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford. "What we did was attach CRISPR to nanobodies to help it perform specif
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Nautilus
If Aliens Exist, Here's How We'll Find Them – Issue 97: Wonder
 
Suppose aliens existed, and imagine that some of them had been watching our planet for its entire four and a half billion years. What would they have seen? Over most of that vast timespan, Earth's appearance altered slowly and gradually. Continents drifted; ice cover waxed and waned; successive species emerged, evolved, with many of them becoming extinct. But in just a tiny sliver of Earth's hist
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Nautilus
The Joy of Condensed Matter – Issue 97: Wonder
 
Everyone seems to be talking about the problems with physics: Peter Woit's book Not Even Wrong , Lee Smolin's The Trouble With Physics , and Sabine Hossenfelder's Lost in Math leap to mind, and they have started a wider conversation. But is all of physics really in trouble, or just some of it? If you actually read these books, you'll see they're about so-called "fundamental" physics. Some other p
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Big Think
Lab-grown brain organoids mature like real infant brains
 
Scientists have found that cultures of embryonic brain cells mature at the same rate as a 20-month-old infant's. Researchers have looked to such cell structures, called "organoids," as potential models for understanding the human body's biological mechanisms. Their study validates the use of lab-dish organoids for research. Scientists have been growing cell cultures that resemble natural human ce
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Science | The Guardian
Listen to the first sounds recorded on Mars – video
 
Nasa scientists release the first sounds ever recorded on Mars, a light gust of wind on the planet's surface on Monday. 'I invite you now to, if you would like to, close your eyes and just imagine yourself sitting on the surface of Mars and listening to the surroundings,' says Dave Gruel, camera suite lead for the Perseverance rover Continue reading…
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Popular Science | RSS
This Airbus prototype could deploy drones from cargo planes
 
A view of the launcher, and drone, in the back of the aircraft. (Airbus/) For a small aircraft, any stretch of open sky can become a runway, if another plane is able to carry it to altitude first. On December 9, 2020, Airbus revealed a prototype of an airborne launcher that is designed to carefully release uncrewed aerial vehicles, or drones, from the loading ramp of a cargo aircraft into the sky
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The Atlantic
Murderers Should Be Called Murderers
US Saudi Khashoggi
•
 
Today the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its report on the murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. If the report were the denouement of a dinner-theater murder mystery, most of the audience would be so confident of the conclusion that they would already be walking out to the parking lot. The crown prince ordered it. In the consulate. With the bone saw . Even the S
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Phys.org
Light-emitting tattoo engineered for the first time
 
Scientists at UCL and the IIT—Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) have created a temporary tattoo with light-emitting technology used in TV and smartphone screens, paving the way for a new type of 'smart tattoo' with a range of potential uses.
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The Atlantic
The Conversation That Can Change the Course of a Cardiac Arrest
 
Cavan / RUNSTUDIO / Getty / The Atlantic T he call came in at 7:42:02 p.m. on March 21, 2019. A man in his early 60s had just sat down to dinner with his daughter and her boyfriend at an otherwise empty North Brooklyn restaurant, when he suddenly slumped in his chair. The daughter shouted at a hostess to call 911. Within seconds—by precisely 7:42:16, according to my review of the incident—a New Y
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ScienceDaily
Gulf Stream System at its weakest in over a millennium
 
Never before in over 1000 years the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as Gulf Stream System, has been as weak as in the last decades. Researchers compiled proxy data, reaching back hundreds of years to reconstruct the AMOC flow history. They found consistent evidence that its slowdown in the 20th century is unprecedented in the past millennium.
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Futurism
Scientists Find Smoking Gun Evidence in Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Case
 
Whodunnit? Decades — or tens of millions of years — later, depending on how you look at it, scientists believe they've finally reached a verdict on the case of what killed the dinosaurs. Back in the 1980s, scientists were fairly confident that a gigantic asteroid rained down hellfire and committed a mass atrocity against the world's dinosaurs. Now, they've finally found the smoking gun evidence t
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MIT Technology Review
What is an "algorithm"? It depends whom you ask
 
Describing a decision-making system as an "algorithm" is often a way to deflect accountability for human decisions. For many, the term implies a set of rules based objectively on empirical evidence or data. It also suggests a system that is highly complex—perhaps so complex that a human would struggle to understand its inner workings or anticipate its behavior when deployed. But is this character
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MIT Technology Review
An AI is training counselors to deal with teens in crisis
 
Counselors volunteering at the Trevor Project need to be prepared for their first conversation with an LGBTQ teen who may be thinking about suicide. So first, they practice. One of the ways they do it is by talking to fictional personas like "Riley," a 16-year-old from North Carolina who is feeling a bit down and depressed. With a team member playing Riley's part, trainees can drill into what's h
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Big Think
New research shows that bullies are often friends
 
Bullies are likely to be friends according to new research published in the American Journal of Sociology. The researchers write that complex social dynamics among adolescents allow the conditions for intragroup dominance. The team uses the concept of "frenemies" to describe the relationship between many bullies and victims. Where do your enemies come from? That's the topic of a new article publi
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Phys.org
Skeletons reveal humans evolved to fight pathogens
 
As COVID-19 impacts lives around the world—a new skeleton study is reconstructing ancient pandemics to assess human's evolutionary ability to fight off leprosy, tuberculosis and treponematoses with help from declining rates of transmission when the germs became widespread.
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The Atlantic
The Biggest Country Musician in America Is a Disgrace
 
It's no exaggeration to say that one of the biggest artists in American music right now is a disgrace. Three weeks after the 27-year-old country singer Morgan Wallen said a racial slur on camera, his second studio album, Dangerous: The Double Album , is at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. His singles have been bobbing in the country-music top 10 and the cross-genre Hot 100. Billboard 's ranking
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Forests' long-term capacity to store carbon is dropping in regions with extreme annual fires
 
More intense and frequent fires are reducing the size of tree communities in many regions of the world.Slower-growing tree species are better at surviving fires, but these may capture less atmospheric carbon and reduce nutrient availability in the soil. Not all regions are suitable for planting trees to tackle climate change; schemes must consider local wildfire frequency, vegetation cover and cli
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Futurism
AI Will Give Perfectly Accurate Half-Assed Effort In Writing Your Term Paper
 
Killing Industries We have horrible news. AI and its job-automating path of destruction just claimed another industry that's kept many a university student afloat: Writing your idiot roommate's term paper for cash and maybe a little Adderall. That's not to say that there's some homework-writing robot out there that you can commission for your lab reports, but a team of scientists found out that t
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forskning.se
Hitta vårens första humla
 
När snön smält dröjer det inte länge förrän humlorna dyker upp. Först ut är drottningarna. Forskare vid Lunds universitet ber nu allmänheten om hjälp med att rapportera in vårens första humlor– för att kartlägga hur de påverkas av en allt tidigare vår. De pollinerande insekterna minskar i antal och artmångfald världen över på grund av att marken brukas allt mer intensivt. En utveckling som exempe
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Popular Science | RSS
The future of probiotics and gut microbiomes is bright
 
While most probiotics overstate their benefits, maybe there will be a magic body-balancing pill someday. (Daily Nouri/Uns/) Every person hosts as many microbial cells as human ones—bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other organisms that help keep us healthy. "It's like another organ system," says Lita Proctor, former director of the National Institutes of Health's Human Microbiome Project, which ident
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Popular Science | RSS
This modular laptop makes repairs and upgrades easy
 
The company will offer a DIY kit that comes fully disassembled for extra fun. (Framework /) I recently switched over to a desktop computer, and after years of using laptops almost exclusively, it still feels novel that I can easily crack open my gaming PC's case and swap out parts. Now, a startup called Framework has built a laptop that would—at least on paper—allow people to easily change just a
11h
MIT Technology Review
The one-shot vaccine from Johnson & Johnson now has FDA support in the US
 
An advisory board to the US Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously in favor of the first single-shot covid-19 vaccine, clearing the path for the health agency to authorize its immediate use as soon as tomorrow. The one-shot vaccine, developed by Johnson & Johnson, has the additional advantage of being easy to store, because it requires nothing colder than ordinary refrigerator temperature
20h
Science | The Guardian
Pride festivals in Manchester and London to go ahead
 
Organisers say vaccine rollout and lockdown easing mean celebrations will take place in some form Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage Pride festivals in Manchester and London will be going ahead this year, organisers have confirmed, with Manchester Pride being an in-person event as long as the UK government's roadmap out of lockdown for England remains on track. After be
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Popular Science | RSS
5 things you have to know about the new USPS trucks
 
It will take at least a decade for the Next Generation Delivery Vehicles to replace the Postal Service's current fleet. (U.S. Postal Service/) The United States Postal Service (USPS) unveiled the designs for its next-gen delivery trucks this week, and the result marks a jarring shift from the cramped cabs that zigzag neighborhoods today. The agency announced it was contracting Wisconsin-based com
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Undark Magazine
Book Review: The Unintended Consequences of Taming Nature
 
In "Under a White Sky," Elizabeth Kolbert explores the consequences of human attempts to control the environment. From the exploding invasive carp population to a nuanced view of geoengineering to dim the sun, Kolbert contemplates the blurring of the boundary between the natural world and the managed one.
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Phys.org
Nuclear physicists on the hunt for squeezed protons
 
While protons populate the nucleus of every atom in the universe, sometimes they can be squeezed into a smaller size and slip out of the nucleus for a romp on their own. Observing these squeezed protons may offer unique insights into the particles that build our universe.
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Science | The Guardian
Coronavirus live news: France may impose regional lockdowns; South Korea starts vaccinations
 
French PM says worrying Covid spread in 20 areas; global death toll passes 2.5m; Brazil death toll passes 250,000. Follow latest updates Biden hails 50m vaccine doses since he took office Moderna forecasts $18bn in sales of Covid vaccine this year Queen urges Britons to 'think about others' and get vaccinated Revealed: four in five Oxford Covid jabs delivered to EU not yet used See all our corona
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Phys.org
A cat of all trades
 
Large carnivores are generally sensitive to ecosystem changes because their specialized diet and position at the top of the trophic pyramid is associated with small population sizes. This in turn leads to lower genetic diversity in top predators compared to animals lower down the food chain. Genetic diversity is very important for a species' ability to survive and adapt to future changes.
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
A cat of all trades
 
Large carnivores are generally sensitive to ecosystem changes because their specialized diet and position at the top of the trophic pyramid is associated with small population sizes. This in turn leads to lower genetic diversity in top predators compared to animals lower down the food chain. Genetic diversity is very important for a species' ability to survive and adapt to future changes.
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences current issue
Vaccinating the oldest against COVID-19 saves both the most lives and most years of life [Social Sciences]
 
Many competing criteria are under consideration for prioritizing COVID-19 vaccination. Two criteria based on age are demographic: lives saved and years of future life saved. Vaccinating the very old against COVID-19 saves the most lives, but, since older age is accompanied by falling life expectancy, it is widely supposed that…
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Science | The Guardian
Answer to fossil record puzzle may lie with teenage T rexes, study finds
 
Absence of smaller dinosaurs may be result of adolescent megatheropods crowding them out Teenage T rexes and other carnivorous dinosaurs the size of lions or bears may have crowded out smaller species, explaining why there are so few of them preserved in the fossil record, research suggests. Despite dominating the land for more than 150 million years, dinosaurs were not particularly diverse, and
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Science Magazine
In situ genome sequencing resolves DNA sequence and structure in intact biological samples
 
Understanding genome organization requires integration of DNA sequence and three-dimensional spatial context; however, existing genome-wide methods lack either base pair sequence resolution or direct spatial localization. Here, we describe in situ genome sequencing (IGS), a method for simultaneously sequencing and imaging genomes within intact biological samples. We applied IGS to human fibroblas
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Phys.org
Forests' long-term capacity to store carbon is dropping in regions with extreme annual fires
 
More intense and frequent fires are reducing the size of tree communities in many regions of the world.Slower-growing tree species are better at surviving fires, but these may capture less atmospheric carbon and reduce nutrient availability in the soil. Not all regions are suitable for planting trees to tackle climate change; schemes must consider local wildfire frequency, vegetation cover and cli
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ScienceDaily
Mechanism by which exercise strengthens bones and immunity
 
Scientists have identified the specialized environment, known as a niche, in the bone marrow where new bone and immune cells are produced. The study also shows that movement-induced stimulation is required for the maintenance of this niche, as well as the bone and immune-forming cells that it contains. Together, these findings identify a new way that exercise strengthens bones and immune function.
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EurekAlert! – Breaking News
Population of critically endangered Bahama Oriole is much larger than previously thought
 
New studies suggest there are at least 10 times as many Bahama Orioles as previously believed. The new data may influence the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to down-list the Bahama Oriole from critically endangered to endangered, freeing up resources to support other threatened species. The new work also showed that Bahama Orioles live and nest in a wider range of habita
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Phys.org
How wildfires may have larger effects on cloud formation than previously thought
 
As the frequency and size of wildfires continues to increase worldwide, new research from Carnegie Mellon University scientists shows how the chemical aging of the particles emitted by these fires can lead to more extensive cloud formation and intense storm development in the atmosphere. The research was published online today in the journal Science Advances.
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Popular Science | RSS
Does a cold winter mean fewer bugs in the summer?
 
Mosquitoes are hardier than you might like. (Pixabay/) As freezing temperatures finally lift across the central US, I've got a burning question about what it left behind. In all honesty, it's something that I'm always wondering about: what happened to the bugs? This month's freeze is unusual for our lifetimes, but it's happening against the backdrop of a warm period without precedent. And as the
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Phys.org
Titan's atmosphere recreated in an Earth laboratory
 
Beyond Earth, the general scientific consensus is that the best place to search for evidence of extraterrestrial life is Mars. However, it is by no means the only place. Aside from the many extrasolar planets that have been designated as "potentially-habitable," there are plenty of other candidates right here in our solar system. These include the many icy satellites that are thought to have inter
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Science | The Guardian
Statins do not cause muscle aches and pains, study finds
 
UK researchers seek to dispel concerns over pills prescribed for those at higher risk of heart attack and strokes Statins are generally not the cause of the muscle aches and pains that stop some people taking the pills prescribed to protect them against serious heart problems, according to a novel study that hopes to dispel some of the concerns. Two million people in the UK who are at higher risk
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Science | The Guardian
Adopting older children can be the start of a special bond
 
For one mother, a potentially challenging choice turned out to be amazingly fulfilling When Margaret Reynolds was in her mid-40s, she was a successful writer, academic and broadcaster. One winter's morning, she asked herself what she would like in her life that she did not already have. The answer was clear and quick: she realised she'd like to have a child. She wanted to be a mother. She was sin
8h
The Atlantic
The Total Absurdity of Outdoor Dining Structures
 
Pandemic creativity in the restaurant industry has been a wonder to behold. All those outdoor tables and benches with planters appeared. They looked tasteful, you know? Like if a shop class had built Paris. But then stupid fall came out of nowhere. So we wheeled out these slick heaters and tried warming up the outside. It was great. You felt like an unsold rotisserie chicken. And you felt free. B
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Science | The Guardian
Coronavirus live news: UK will face 'enormous strains', says chancellor; New Zealand PM says Auckland to go into lockdown for seven days
 
Rishi Sunak warns of risk to economy; Joe Biden tells US 'now is not the time to relax – follow all the day's news as it happens Van-Tam warns against giving up on Covid rules Experts criticise Boris Johnson for putting dates in Covid roadmap See all our coronavirus coverage 9.43am GMT Turkey 's ruling party has come under fire for holding political rallies in areas near the Black Sea where local
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Science | The Guardian
Victoria eases coronavirus restrictions after recording zero new Covid-19 cases
 
Queensland border reopened to greater Melbourne as New South Wales reports no new cases for 41st consecutive day The Queensland border has been reopened to greater Melbourne after the region was declared a hotspot on 13 February following a Covid-19 outbreak at the Holiday Inn quarantine hotel in the city. It means travellers can enter Queensland without a border pass or quarantining, with Victor
20h
Popular Science | RSS
Best ball chair: Improve your posture and strengthen your core
 
Stay fit while you sit. (Amazon/) Experts announced long ago that sitting down all day just isn't good for you. Slumping over at your desk for hours on end can make your back hurt, your body tense, and your neck strain. It can also lead to high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and abnormal cholesterol levels. Doctors recommend taking a break from sitting every thirty to sixty minutes, but we kno
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ScienceDaily
Exposure to diverse career paths can help fill labor market 'skills gap'
 
When Patrick Rottinghaus began college, he had no idea what he wanted to do with his career. He started out as an "Open" major while he explored possibilities. Today, he is helping young people eager to find their place in the world by identifying their strengths and connecting them with careers that match their skill-set, interests and personality. As the father of three children, including a dau
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Phys.org
Engineering the boundary between 2-D and 3-D materials
 
In recent years, engineers have found ways to modify the properties of some "two- dimensional" materials, which are just one or a few atoms thick, by stacking two layers together and rotating one slightly in relation to the other. This creates what are known as moiré patterns, where tiny shifts in the alignment of atoms between the two sheets create larger-scale patterns. It also changes the way e
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Futurism
New Smart Tattoos Have Built-In Lights
 
Glow Up For the first time, engineers figured out how to make glowing tattoos embedded with the same kinds of lights that illuminate your phone and TV screen. The tats could, if embedded with sensors or other smart tech, turn into useful medical sensors or even help keep food fresh, according to research published last month in the journal Advanced Electronic Materials . But that's all so practic
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Popular Science | RSS
Phone anxiety is real—and solvable
 
Much of the anxiety comes from how we think people judge us based on our phone conversations. (Priscilla Du Preez/n/) Ilham Sebah is a teaching fellow in Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London. This story originally featured on The Conversation . Staying in touch with loved ones without seeing them in person has become even more important during the pandemic. But for some people, maki
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Science | The Guardian
The great unknown: do Covid vaccines stop you spreading the virus?
 
We know vaccination is very effective in preventing serious illness, but whether it stops coronavirus transmission is another story As Australia joins the worldwide Covid-19 vaccine rollout, researchers keep emphasising that while we know the various vaccines in use are strong at preventing hospitalisation and severe disease, it's less clear how well they stop the virus spreading to other people.
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ExtremeTechExtreme – ExtremeTech
NASA Probe Returns Amazing Image of Venus
 
NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe in 2018, but the spacecraft just returned an amazing shot of Venus from its most recent flyby. According to NASA, Parker spotted a previously unseen glow that could be a product of oxygen in the inhospitable planet's atmosphere. The unexpected clarity of surface features also has scientists reassessing how sensitive Parker's cameras are. Parker is designed to
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Dinosaur species: 'Everyone's unique'
 
"Everyone's unique" is a popular maxim. All people are equal, but there are of course individual differences. This was no different with dinosaurs. A study by researchers at the University of Bonn and the Dinosaur Museum Frick in Switzerland has now revealed that the variability of Plateosaurus trossingensis was much greater than previously assumed. The paleontologists examined a total of 14 compl
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Phys.org
Dinosaur species: 'Everyone's unique'
 
"Everyone's unique" is a popular maxim. All people are equal, but there are of course individual differences. This was no different with dinosaurs. A study by researchers at the University of Bonn and the Dinosaur Museum Frick in Switzerland has now revealed that the variability of Plateosaurus trossingensis was much greater than previously assumed. The paleontologists examined a total of 14 compl
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Phys.org
The hunt for the quantum collapse
 
The most famous cat in science is Schrödinger's cat, the quantum mechanical mammal, which can exist in a superposition, a state that is alive as well as dead. The moment you look at it, one of both options is chosen. Leiden University physicists simulated an experiment to catch this mysterious moment of choice red handed.
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Phys.org
Signal transduction without signal-receptor clusters can direct cell movement
 
Body cells communicate with each other, receive signals from the outside world and react to them. A central role in this communication network is attributed to receiver proteins, called receptors, that are anchored at the cell membrane. There, they receive and transmit signals to the inside of the cell, where a cell reaction is triggered.
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Signal transduction without signal-receptor clusters can direct cell movement
 
Body cells communicate with each other, receive signals from the outside world and react to them. A central role in this communication network is attributed to receiver proteins, called receptors, that are anchored at the cell membrane. There, they receive and transmit signals to the inside of the cell, where a cell reaction is triggered.
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Phys.org
Monarch butterflies down 26% in Mexico wintering grounds
 
The number of monarch butterflies that showed up at their winter resting grounds in central Mexico decreased by about 26% this year, and four times as many trees were lost to illegal logging, drought and other causes, making 2020 a bad year for the butterflies.
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Big Think
How exercise changes your brain biology and protects your mental health
 
As with many other physicians, recommending physical activity to patients was just a doctor chore for me – until a few years ago. That was because I myself was not very active. Over the years, as I picked up boxing and became more active, I got firsthand experience of positive impacts on my mind. I also started researching the effects of dance and movement therapies on trauma and anxiety in refug
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Phys.org
Study uncovers flaws in process for maintaining state voter rolls
 
States regularly use administrative records, such as motor-vehicle data, in determining whether people have moved to prune their voter rolls. A Yale-led study of this process in Wisconsin shows that a significant percentage of registered voters are incorrectly identified as having changed addresses, potentially endangering their right to vote.
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Futurism
Look At This Horrifying Aircraft That Flaps Its Wings Like a Dragonfly
 
Pandemic Hobby A team of Russian engineers have built a horrifying new kind of aircraft. It flies by flapping massive sets of wings. Which are not unlike the gigantic robot dragonfly from your (or at least some of our) nightmares. Building flying machines based on insects isn't new, as Gizmodo points out . But any bug-based or otherwise flapping machines are typically extremely small , making thi
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Big Think
Toward a disease-sniffing device that rivals a dog's nose
 
Numerous studies have shown that trained dogs can detect many kinds of disease — including lung, breast, ovarian, bladder, and prostate cancers, and possibly Covid-19 — simply through smell. In some cases, involving prostate cancer for example, the dogs had a 99 percent success rate in detecting the disease by sniffing patients' urine samples. But it takes time to train such dogs, and their avail
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Science Magazine
Model-informed COVID-19 vaccine prioritization strategies by age and serostatus
 
Limited initial supply of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine raises the question of how to prioritize available doses. We used a mathematical model to compare five age-stratified prioritization strategies. A highly effective transmission-blocking vaccine prioritized to adults ages 20 to 49 years minimized cumulative incidence, but mortality and years of life lost
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Science Magazine
Plitidepsin has potent preclinical efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 by targeting the host protein eEF1A
 
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral proteins interact with the eukaryotic translation machinery, and inhibitors of translation have potent antiviral effects. We found that the drug plitidepsin (aplidin), which has limited clinical approval, possesses antiviral activity (90% inhibitory concentration = 0.88 nM) that is more potent than remdesivir against SARS-CoV-2 in
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Futurism
Moderna Testing New Vaccine Designed to Protect Against Deadly Variant
 
Cambridge-based pharmaceutical Moderna has announced it has created the first batch its new COVID-19 vaccine that protects people against a deadly variant of the virus that was first identified in South Africa, The Wall Street Journal reports . The batch has already been shipped to the National Institute of Health to be used in its first human study, which is set to commence within weeks. Moderna
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Super-resolution RNA imaging in live cells
 
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is key to various fundamental biological processes. It transfers genetic information, translates it into proteins or supports gene regulation. To achieve a more detailed understanding of the precise functions it performs, researchers based at Heidelberg University and at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have devised a new fluorescence imaging method which enables
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Phys.org
Super-resolution RNA imaging in live cells
 
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is key to various fundamental biological processes. It transfers genetic information, translates it into proteins or supports gene regulation. To achieve a more detailed understanding of the precise functions it performs, researchers based at Heidelberg University and at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have devised a new fluorescence imaging method which enables
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Singularity Hub
Will Robots Make Good Friends? Scientists Are Already Starting to Find Out
 
In the 2012 film Robot and Frank , the protagonist, a retired cat burglar named Frank, is suffering the early symptoms of dementia. Concerned and guilty, his son buys him a "home robot" that can talk, do household chores like cooking and cleaning, and remind Frank to take his medicine. It's a robot the likes of which we're getting closer to building in the real world. The film follows Frank, who
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Popular Science | RSS
Why spacing out is good for you
 
Time out might be just what we all need. (Ana Galvañ/) Constantly cramming knowledge and experiences into your brain may seem like the quickest path to self-optimization. But sometimes the best thing you can do for your noggin is absolutely nothing at all. Taking time to space out—whether by showering, pulling weeds, or petting a dog—provides an opportunity for what psychologists call wakeful res
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Undark Magazine
How Do We Protect Science From the Next Trump?
 
The Biden administration has promised to restore science to its rightful place, free from political interference. But the political winds could easily shift again. To guard against the return of anti-science ideologies, federal agencies must strengthen the culture of scientific integrity among their ranks.
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Big Think
Why cities are critical to achieving a carbon-neutral world
 
Countries, governments and companies are aligning on a need for net-zero – and this is an opportunity to rethink decarbonizing our cities. There is no "one-size-fits-all" solution – each city's needs must be at the heart of developing integrated energy solutions. A city can only decarbonize through collaboration between government, the private sector, and local communities. The world is at a crit
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Phys.org
Scientists achieve breakthrough in culturing corals and sea anemones cells
 
Researchers have perfected the recipe for keeping sea anemone and coral cells alive in a petri dish for up to 12 days. The new study, led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, has important applications to study everything from evolutionary biology to human health.
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Phys.org
On the line: Watching nanoparticles get in shape
 
Liquid structures—liquid droplets that maintain a specific shape—are useful for a variety of applications, from food processing to cosmetics, medicine, and even petroleum extraction, but researchers have yet to tap into these exciting new materials' full potential because not much is known about how they form.
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Nautilus
Literature Should Be Taught Like Science – Issue 97: Wonder
 
In the past quarter century, enrollment in college English departments has sunk like the Pequod in Moby Dick . Meanwhile enrollment in science programs has skyrocketed. It's understandable. Elon Musk, not Herman Melville, is the role model of the digital economy. But it doesn't have to be that way, says Angus Fletcher, 44, an English professor at Ohio State University. Fletcher is part of "group
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Big Think
Japanese government appoints new "Minister of Loneliness"
 
The Japanese government has appointed a Minister of Loneliness to implement policies designed to fight isolation and lower suicide rates. They are the second country, after the U.K., to dedicate a cabinet member to the task. While Japan is famous for how its loneliness epidemic manifests, it isn't alone in having one. At the time of writing, the COVID-19 pandemic is just a few weeks shy of being
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Phys.org
Apollo rock samples capture key moments in the Moon's early history, study find
 
Volcanic rock samples collected during NASA's Apollo missions bear the isotopic signature of key events in the early evolution of the Moon, a new analysis found. Those events include the formation of the Moon's iron core, as well as the crystallization of the lunar magma ocean—the sea of molten rock thought to have covered the Moon for around 100 million years after the it formed.
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ScienceDaily
Extreme melt on Antarctica's George VI ice shelf
 
Antarctica's northern George VI Ice Shelf experienced record melting during the 2019-2020 summer season compared to 31 previous summers of dramatically lower melt, a new study found. Using satellite observations that detect meltwater on top of the ice and within near-surface snow, the researchers found the most widespread melt of any season. Surface meltwater ponding is potentially dangerous to ic
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Popular Science | RSS
No cell service? These are the best offline apps.
 
It sure is great to be able to check the map on your phone when you're in the middle of nowhere. (Tamas Tuzes-Katai / Unsplash/) We're used to ubiquitous connectivity, but there are still places where you'll find yourself offline: in basements, remote areas, elevators, tunnels, and crowded sports stadiums, for example. And, of course, you can even lose cell or internet service at home for reasons
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Big Think
Here's a 10-step plan to save our oceans
 
2050 is predicted to be a bleak milestone for the oceans – but it's not too late to avert disaster. Here are 10 actions the world can take to strengthen and preserve our oceans for generations to come. The year 2050 has been predicted by some to be a bleak year for the ocean. Experts say that by 2050 there may be more plastic than fish in the sea , or perhaps only plastic left . Others say 90% of
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Popular Science | RSS
Best heated socks: The absolute warmest socks for cold conditions
 
No matter what you're venturing out in, make sure you have your feet covered. (Jasper Guy via Unsplash/) A case of nerves is perfectly understandable right before a wedding, but cold feet will never do—not even in the frostiest winter weather. The best heated socks will not only warm you from the bottom up; they'll provide a toasty barrier between your feet and any cold surface they walk on. You
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Science | The Guardian
Germany now says its seniors could get AstraZeneca jab
 
Regulator concedes process had 'somehow gone wrong' and is set to approve vaccine Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage Germany could soon authorise the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for seniors after the head of the country's vaccination committee said his body's advice to give the Oxford-developed vaccine only to those under 65 had "somehow gone wrong". Unlike the Europ
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Phys.org
Study highlights need for improving methane emission database
 
A University of Oklahoma-led study published in 2020 revealed that both area and plant growth of paddy rice is significantly related to the spatial-temporal dynamics of atmospheric methane concentration in monsoon Asia, where 87% of the world's paddy rice fields are situated. Now, the same international research team has released a follow-up discussion paper in the journal Nature Communications. I
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The Atlantic
The Books Briefing: The Many Sides of Loneliness
 
I'm alone now much more than I used to be. I cook alone, work alone, and occasionally walk alone. The pandemic has limited my social life and forced me into a period of isolation, just as it has for so many others. Sometimes this solitude feels like a restorative pause; other times it just feels lonely. Literature can capture the breadth of these experiences. Some writers explore the nature of so
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ScienceDaily
Comet makes a pit stop near Jupiter's asteroids
 
After traveling several billion miles toward the Sun, a wayward young comet-like object orbiting among the giant planets has found a temporary parking place along the way. The object has settled near a family of captured ancient asteroids, called Trojans, that are orbiting the Sun alongside Jupiter. This is the first time a comet-like object has been spotted near the Trojan population.
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Big Think
Best. Science. Fiction. Show. Ever.
 
Want three reasons why that headline is justified? Characters and acting, universe building, and science. For those who don't know, "The Expanse" is a series that's run on SyFy and Amazon Prime set about 200 years in the future in a mostly settled solar system with three waring factions: Earth, Mars, and Belters. No other show I know of manages to use real science so adeptly in the service of its
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ScienceDaily
Measuring the tRNA world
 
Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) deliver specific amino acids to ribosomes during translation of messenger RNA into proteins. The abundance of tRNAs can therefore have a profound impact on cell physiology, but measuring the amount of each tRNA in cells has been limited by technical challenges. Researchers have now overcome these limitations with mim-tRNAseq, a method that can be used to quantify tRNAs in any
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Phys.org
Maternal instincts lead to social life of bees
 
The maternal care of offspring is one of the behavioral drivers that has led some bee species to have an ever-expanding social life over the history of evolution, new research out of York University has found.
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Scalable software system conducts integrative single-cell chromatin accessibility analysis
 
A team of researchers from Stanford University, working with associates from the Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology and King Abdulaziz University, has developed a software system that can be used for integrative single-cell chromatin accessibility analysis. In their paper published in the journal Nature Genetics, the group describes the software, the platforms on which it can be
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Futurism
AI Tool "Deep Nostalgia" Lets You Reanimate Your Dead Relatives
 
Animate the Dead Have you ever taken a look at old family photos and think, "These just aren't creepy enough!" or "I wish these looked more like the characters from The Polar Express, " perhaps? Now they can! Get this: An online genealogy platform has developed AI that allows you to animate old family photos. Genealogy website MyHeritage introduced a tool called Deep Nostalgia that leverages AI t
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Popular Science | RSS
Best toys for kids that they will love for their birthday
 
Great birthday gifts for kids. (Markus Spiske via Unsplash/) Shopping for toys for kids can be the ultimate exercise in trial and error. Young children are cute and cuddly, but they aren't as predictable as older kids and adults who have settled into lifelong preferences. Just when you think you have them all figured out in the gift-giving department, they'll throw you unexpected curveballs. Sinc
23h
Futurism
Bill Gates: You Should Probably Not Follow Elon Musk 'To The Moon' On BTC
 
Bursting Bubbles It's easy to get sucked up into the mania surrounding cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin, which have been in the news lately as their values surge upward. It feels like easy money: Buy low, sell high, and you'll get to splurge on a Tesla, which just so happens to have announced it'll soon accept car payments in crypto . But Bill Gates has a sobering message for anyone get
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Phys.org
Extreme melt on Antarctica's George VI ice shelf
 
Antarctica's northern George VI Ice Shelf experienced record melting during the 2019-2020 summer season compared to 31 previous summers of dramatically lower melt, a University of Colorado Boulder-led study found. The extreme melt coincided with record-setting stretches when local surface air temperatures were at or above the freezing point.
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EurekAlert! – Breaking News
Plant-based diets improve cardiac function, cognitive health
 
What if you could improve your heart health and brain function by changing your diet? Boston University School of Medicine researchers have found that by eating more plant-based food such as berries and green leafy vegetables while limiting consumption of foods high in saturated fat and animal products, you can slow down heart failure (HF) and ultimately lower your risk of cognitive decline and de
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Popular Science | RSS
Best snow pants to keep you cozy (and active) all winter long
 
Stay dry in the wet weather. (Karsten Winegeart via Unsplash/) Snow pants are the ultimate winter weather accessory: they keep you warm, don't encumber movement, and fit right on top of the clothes you're already wearing (meaning, if you live in a snowy area, you'd be remiss not to own a pair). Whether you're backcountry skiing, flying down the slopes on a snowboard, or walking the kids to school
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Science Magazine
Proliferation tracing reveals regional hepatocyte generation in liver homeostasis and repair
 
Organ homeostasis is orchestrated by time- and spatially restricted cell proliferation. Studies identifying cells with superior proliferative capacities often rely on the lineage tracing of a subset of cell populations, which introduces a potential selective bias. In this work, we developed a genetic system [proliferation tracer (ProTracer)] by incorporating dual recombinases to seamlessly record
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ScienceDaily
A weak heart makes a suffering brain
 
Heart problems cause disturbed gene activity in the brain's memory center, from which cognitive deficits arise. Researchers at the DZNE come to this conclusion based on laboratory studies. They consider that they have found a possible cause for the increased risk of dementia in people with heart problems.
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ScienceDaily
Understanding the evolution of SARS and COVID-19 type viruses
 
As COVID-19 sweeps the world, related viruses quietly circulate among wild animals. A new study shows how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and SARS-CoV-1, which caused the 2003 SARS outbreak, are related to each other. The work helps scientists better understand the evolution of these viruses, how they acquired the ability to infect humans and which other viruses may be poised for human
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Big Think
Scientists grow extremophile microbes on rocks from Mars
 
In a recent study, researchers simulated the environment of ancient Mars and tested whether a type of extremophile found on Earth could grow on fragments of a meteorite from Mars. Extremophiles are organisms that have adapted to survive in conditions in which most life forms cannot, such as ice, volcanoes, and space. The results showed that the extremophiles were able to convert the rock into ene
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Sciencemag
Vetiver
 
In my experience, most organic and medicinal chemists are always ready to hear about the latest results in two branches of the science: things that explode and things with weird smells. Maybe we are in our way "singularly in touch with the primitive promptings of humanity", as Captain Grimes says in Decline and Fall (although let it be noted that he had something very different in mind). So let's
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Phys.org
Molecular bridges power up printed electronics
 
The exfoliation of graphite into graphene layers inspired the investigation of thousands of layered materials: amongst them transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). These semiconductors can be used to make conductive inks to manufacture printed electronic and optoelectronic devices. However, defects in their structure may hinder their performance. Now, Graphene Flagship researchers have overcome t
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EurekAlert! – Breaking News
What to do when a mammogram shows swollen lymph nodes in women just vaccinated for COVID
 
When women undergo breast imaging shortly after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine in the arm, their tests may show swollen lymph nodes in the armpit area. Radiologists at Massachusetts General Hospital say that this is usually a normal finding, and if there are no other concerns, no additional imaging tests are needed unless the lymph nodes remain swollen for more than six weeks after vaccination. The
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ScienceDaily
Under climate stress, human innovation set stage for population surge
 
Aridification in the central plains of China during the early Bronze Age did not cause population collapse, a result that highlights the importance of social resilience to climate change. Instead of a collapse amid dry conditions, development of agriculture and increasingly complex human social structures set the stage for a dramatic increase in human population around 3,900 to 3,500 years ago.
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Phys.org
Scientists use Doppler to peer inside cells
 
Doppler radar improves lives by peeking inside air masses to predict the weather. A Purdue University team is using similar technology to look inside living cells, introducing a method to detect pathogens and treat infections in ways that scientists never have before.
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Science | The Guardian
'I've had my vaccine – how well will it protect me and for how long?'
 
The latest answers to the important medical questions about the vaccines and the pandemic Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage The prospects of vaccines failing to trigger immune responses are dismissed as remote by scientists. "If a vaccine has not been properly refrigerated that might pose problems but doctors take great care to ensure that doesn't happen," said Profess
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ScienceDaily
Light-emitting tattoo engineered
 
The technology, which uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), is applied in the same way as water transfer tattoos. That is, the OLEDs are fabricated on to temporary tattoo paper and transferred to a new surface by being pressed on to it and dabbed with water.
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The Atlantic
The Sports League That Refuses to Court Certain Fans
 
The National Women's Hockey League is just six years old, has only six teams, and, like many women's professional sports leagues, has faced slow early growth. The players are part-time, often competing only on the weekends, and the salaries are small—just $7,500 a year on average. Their games are broadcast on Twitch, an online streaming platform usually used for video games. And the coronavirus p
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Vetenskap | SVT Nyheter
Pandemin spär på den psykiska ohälsan hos unga
 
Flera rapporter kommer nu om att unga är den mest utsatta gruppen under pandemin när det gäller psykisk ohälsa, trots att det är de äldsta som har haft hårdast restriktioner. Det här kan enligt forskarna bero på att ungdomarna är i starten av det vuxna livet, har drömmar om framtiden och hade planer som har satts på paus under pandemin.
16h
Popular Science | RSS
The Royal Navy's robotic sub will be a test bench under the sea
 
An American uncrewed underwater vehicle seen in 2016. (Petty Officer 2nd Class Tyler Thompson / US Navy/) The Royal Navy wants large uncrewed robot submarines to fight its wars under the surface of the ocean, but first, it has to figure out what shape that war will take. On February 16, it announced it will start accepting submissions from companies and universities to win a chance to test sensor
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Phys.org
Men obstructed from entering female-dominated occupations
 
Job applications from men are disfavoured when they apply for work in female-dominated occupations. Reaching the interview stage was most difficult for men applying for jobs as cleaners. These are the results of a study by researchers from Linköping University and the University of California, Irvine, recently published in the scientific journal PLOS One.
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Phys.org
Scalable software system conducts integrative single-cell chromatin accessibility analysis
 
A team of researchers from Stanford University, working with associates from the Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology and King Abdulaziz University, has developed a software system that can be used for integrative single-cell chromatin accessibility analysis. In their paper published in the journal Nature Genetics, the group describes the software, the platforms on which it can be
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ScienceDaily
Openly available toolkit to help lab-based coronavirus research
 
During the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, laboratories worldwide have pivoted from their usual research to working to identify new COVID-19 drug and vaccine candidates. This experimental work requires access to clinical isolates and systems that allow genetic manipulation of SARS-CoV-2. A new paper reports an openly available SARS-CoV-2 laboratory research toolkit aimed at increasing availability of these m
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ScienceDaily
A space-time crystal
 
A research team has succeeded in creating a micrometer-sized space-time crystal consisting of magnons at room temperature. With the help of a scanning transmission X-ray microscope, they were able to film the recurring periodic magnetization structure in a crystal.
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Phys.org
Imaging space debris in high resolution
 
Litter is not only a problem on Earth. According to NASA, there are currently millions of pieces of space junk in the range of altitudes from 200 to 2,000 kilometers above the Earth's surface, which is known as low Earth orbit (LEO). Most of the junk is comprised of objects created by humans, like pieces of old spacecraft or defunct satellites. This space debris can reach speeds of up to 18,000 mi
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Popular Science | RSS
Organize and accessorize your board games with 3D printing
 
Sometimes adding drama to your gameplay is reason enough to 3D-print one of these. (Clint Bustrillos / Unsplash/) Board games have come a long way since the Monopoly era , but some things don't change. Pieces still go missing or end up in the wrong box, and separating all the different card decks takes forever. That's not even considering how tedious putting everything away can be, and the dread
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ScienceDaily
'Miracle poison' for novel therapeutics
 
Researchers demonstrate they can engineer botulinum toxin proteins (called proteases) to find new targets with high selectivity, a critical advance toward potential new treatments for everything from neuroregeneration to cytokine storm.
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ScienceDaily
Pushing computing to the edge by rethinking microchips' design
 
Responding to artificial intelligence's exploding demands on computer networks, researchers in recent years have radically increased the speed and slashed the energy use of specialized AI systems. Now, the researchers have moved their innovation closer to widespread use by creating co-designed hardware and software that will allow designers to blend these new types of systems into their applicatio
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Phys.org
What do our climate refugees look like?
 
When the bushfires hit the town of Drake in NSW, Rod Simpson says he became one of Australia's first climate refugees. He's traveled across States, and the Tasman waters in search of a place to settle. More than a year on, he's still searching.
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ScienceDaily
Sulfur metabolism may have paved the way for evolution of multicellularity
 
When the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum runs out of food, sulfur limitation drives its development from a unicellular to a multicellular organism. Researchers now present the nutrient signaling pathways in this early eukaryote in great detail. Their results show how metabolism may have played a crucial role in the origins of multicellularity. Moreover, the findings also have therapeutic impli
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Phys.org
Agents of food-borne zoonoses confirmed to parasitise newly-recorded in Thailand snails
 
Parasitic flatworms known as agents of food-borne zoonoses were confirmed to use several species of thiarid snails, commonly found in freshwater and brackish environments in southeast Asia, as their first intermediate host. These parasites can cause severe ocular infections in humans who consume raw or improperly cooked fish that have fed on infected snails. The study, conducted in South Thailand
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Agents of food-borne zoonoses confirmed to parasitise newly-recorded in Thailand snails
 
Parasitic flatworms known as agents of food-borne zoonoses were confirmed to use several species of thiarid snails, commonly found in freshwater and brackish environments in southeast Asia, as their first intermediate host. These parasites can cause severe ocular infections in humans who consume raw or improperly cooked fish that have fed on infected snails. The study, conducted in South Thailand
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Population of critically endangered Bahama Oriole is much larger than previously thought
 
On a low-lying island in the Caribbean, the future of the critically endangered Bahama Oriole just got a shade brighter. A new study led by researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) estimates the population of these striking black and yellow birds at somewhere between 1300 and 2800 individuals in the region they surveyed, suggesting the overall population is likely several
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EurekAlert! – Breaking News
A solid solvent for unique materials
 
Materials impossible to obtain with existing methods can be produced using a solid, nanostructured silica solvent. Scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow presented an innovative approach to the production of substances with unique physical and chemical properties.
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Science Magazine
Quantum interference between spin-orbit split partial waves in the F + HD -> HF + D reaction
 
The effect of electron spin-orbit interactions on chemical reaction dynamics has been a topic of much research interest. Here we report a combined experimental and theoretical study on the effect of electron spin and orbital angular momentum in the F + HD -> HF + D reaction. Using a high-resolution imaging technique, we observed a peculiar horseshoe-shaped pattern in the product rotational-state–
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Biology News – Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology
Sea turtle: Sentinels and victims of plastic pollution in the Adriatic Sea
 
Sea turtles are witnesses and victims of the high level of plastic pollution of the Adriatic Sea. A group of researchers at the University of Bologna analyzed 45 turtles hospitalized at Fondazione Cetacea in Riccione and found plastic debris in their feces. Besides confirming the role of turtles as ideal sentinels to monitor plastic pollution in the sea, the results of their analysis—published in
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Futurism
Google Promised Staff They'll Be Less Evil With AI
 
About Face Google is desperately trying to save face after recently kicking to the curb two of the most prominent AI ethicists in the field, who once worked for them. This is fun: Leaked audio, from an internal Google meeting, acquired by Reuters . It reveals that the company's in a bit of a scramble to turn things around and restore its reputation as a leader of responsible AI development. It's
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Phys.org
Rare bee found after 100 years
 
A widespread field search for a rare Australian native bee not recorded for almost a century has found it's been there all along—but is probably under increasing pressure to survive.
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ScienceDaily
Study finds short window for donating convalescent plasma to COVID-19 patients
 
The optimal timeframe for donating convalescent plasma for use in COVID-19 immunotherapy, which was given emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in August 2020, is within 60 days of the onset of symptoms, according to a new study. The research also reveals that the ideal convalescent plasma donor is a recovered COVID-19 patient who is older than 30 and whose illness had be
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ScienceDaily
On the line: Watching nanoparticles get in shape
 
Scientists have captured real-time, high-resolution videos of liquid structures taking shape as nanoparticles form a solid-like layer at the interface between oil and water. Their findings could help advance all-liquid robotics for targeted cancer drug delivery and other applications.
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ScienceDaily
Apollo rock samples capture key moments in the Moon's early history
 
Volcanic rock samples collected during NASA's Apollo missions bear the isotopic signature of key events in the early evolution of the Moon, a new analysis found. Those events include the formation of the Moon's iron core, as well as the crystallization of the lunar magma ocean — the sea of molten rock thought to have covered the Moon for around 100 million years after the it formed.
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ScienceDaily
Scientists capture the choreography of a developing brain
 
The formation of a brain is one of nature's most staggeringly complex accomplishments. The intricate intermingling of neurons and a labyrinth of connections also make it a particularly difficult feat for scientists to study. Now researchers have devised a strategy that allows them to see this previously impenetrable process unfold in a living animal — the worm Caenorhabditis elegans.
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ScienceDaily
African leopard: A cat of all trades
 
The leopard stands out as an elusive, versatile, and adaptable animal. Researchers have just published the first genomic data for the African subspecies of the leopard. The results showed an exceptionally high genetic diversity compared to other top predators, transforming our understanding of population dynamics in species at the top of the food chain.
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ScienceDaily
What to do when a mammogram shows swollen lymph nodes in women just vaccinated for COVID
 
When women undergo breast imaging shortly after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine in the arm, their tests may show swollen lymph nodes in the armpit area. Radiologists say that this is usually a normal finding, and if there are no other concerns, no additional imaging tests are needed unless the lymph nodes remain swollen for more than six weeks after vaccination. The team has published an approach to
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Futurity.org
Fewer than 366 North Atlantic right whales are left on Earth
 
Fewer than 366 surviving North Atlantic right whales remain on Earth as extinction pressures mount on the critically endangered species, according to a new study. Climate change, vessel strikes, entanglements in fishing gear, and underwater noise pollution have taken a toll on the species' health and slowed its rate of reproduction, but there is still time to turn the numbers around, the report's
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Popular Science | RSS
The best knife sharpener to keep your blades safe and effective
 
Make sure all cuts, chops, and slivers are quick and clean. ( Louis Hansel @shotsoflouis via Unsplash/) It might sound crazy, but a dull knife is a dangerous knife. When a kitchen knife is dull, it's more likely to slip off whatever you're attempting to cut, and when it slips, that's when it can hit a finger. A super-sharp knife, on the other hand, will stay where you want it to—away from your ha
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ExtremeTechExtreme – ExtremeTech
NASA's Juno Spacecraft Spots Asteroid Impact on Jupiter
 
An image from Juno showing the clouds of Jupiter in astounding detail. NASA's Juno spacecraft has been puttering around the Jovian system for the last few years, taking images and measurements of the solar system's largest planet. Juno reached the end of its pre-planned mission recently, but NASA renewed it for at least a few more years . There's a lot to see on and around Jupiter, like the aster
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Phys.org
Tool that more efficiently analyzes ocean color data will become part of NASA program
 
Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have developed a new machine learning-powered platform, known as OC-SMART, that can process ocean color in satellite images 10 times faster than the world's leading platform. The work, which will be adopted by NASA, is one of the first machine learning-based platforms in ocean color analysis that can process both coastal and open ocean regions globall
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ScienceDaily
Ancient skeletal hand could reveal evolutionary secrets
 
Evolutionary expert Charles Darwin and others recognized a close evolutionary relationship between humans, chimps and gorillas based on their shared anatomies, raising some big questions: how are humans related to other primates, and exactly how did early humans move around?
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Retraction Watch
Nanotech group that retracted Nature study pulls two more papers
 
Nanotechnology researchers in Japan, who in November retracted a paper in Nature for lack of reproducibility, have retracted two more articles after what they said was a failure to replicate their findings. As we reported previously, the authors, led by Kenichiro Itami of Nagoya University, called for an investigation into the problems with their work, … Continue reading
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Science | The Guardian
A practical guide to tackling the climate crisis – podcast
 
The first UN climate change conference was held in 1995 in Berlin. More than two decades later, our planet remains on track for three degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. The answer to avoiding this catastrophe is both simple and staggeringly complicated: drastically reducing and reversing the amount of carbon dioxide entering our atmosphere. How do we do this
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ScienceDaily
Engineering the boundary between 2D and 3D materials
 
For practical applications, two-dimensional materials such as graphene must at some point connect with the ordinary world of 3D materials. Researchers have come up with a way of imaging what goes on at these interfaces, down to the level of individual atoms, with the goal of better controlling these materials' electronic properties.
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Popular Science | RSS
Best ergonomic keyboards for hand and wrist pain
 
Stay comfortable and combat wrist pain with a great ergonomic keyboard. (Amazon/) How are your wrists feeling? If you've been spending an increasing amount of time in your office, you may have noticed added discomfort from all that typing. Whether you're typing for work or gaming with friends, the best ergonomic keyboards can help you focus on the task at hand—instead of how the task is making yo
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60-Second Science
Machine Learning Pwns Old-School Atari Games
 
You can call it the "revenge of the computer scientist." An algorithm that made headlines for mastering the notoriously difficult Atari 2600 game Montezuma's Revenge can now beat more games, achieving near perfect scores, and help robots explore real-world environments. Pakinam Amer reports.
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Singularity Hub
This Week's Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through February 27)
 
GENETICS An Extinct Cave Bear's DNA Was Still Readable After 360,000 Years George Dvorsky | Gizmodo "The bone analyzed in the new study—a petrous bone from the inner ear of an extinct cave bear—was approximately seven times older than any the team had studied before, 'showing that genome data can be recovered from temperate zone samples spanning more than 300 millennia,' [Axel Barlow] said. Indee
6h
Phys.org
After Hurricane Irma, soundscape reveals resilient reef ecosystem
 
A new study from North Carolina State University reveals that the soundscapes of coral reef ecosystems can recover quickly from severe weather events such as hurricanes. The work also demonstrates that non-invasive monitoring is an important tool in shedding further light on these key ecosystems.
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The Atlantic
The Atlantic Daily: A Guide to America's Awkward, Semi-Vaccinated Months
 
Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox . A possibly beautiful summer is ahead, but, first, Americans have to get through an awkward season of pandemic life. Our writers lay out how to think about safety in a semi-vaccinated world. Ameri
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