Science & Technology News

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I mean it's not an Indo-European language, so it is unrelated (other than loan words) to any other European languages except for Estonian, Sami and (distantly) Hungarian. The Indo-European languages all have significant similarities in structure and vocabulary. Russian and Classical Latin, for example, although in different branches of Indo-European, are strikingly similar, if you've studied Latin (as I did) you will be way ahead of the game learning Russian (as I was).

Finnish is as far away from all that as Chinese or Turkish, with absolutely nothing recognizable except a few loan words from Swedish and German. It's a very cool language, actually.

Speaking of which:

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Speaking of which:

Ha, ha That about sums it up!


Concerning the partitive case -- this is what blows the minds of Indo-European speakers. Finnish has 15 cases, which sounds insane, but in fact since they don't have prepositions, most of the cases are just doing what our prepositions do (and the declension patterns are totally regular, so learning 15 Finnish cases is easier than learning 6 Russian ones).



There are 4 grammatical cases and three of them are familiar to us. But the partitive is an extremely weird one. It's not even entirely a case -- it actually changes how the verb works

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by geoleo

Talented people worldwide have migrated to the USA since its founding. No other country comes close. This continues. There are many Doctors from India in my area and couple of them have treated me very well. They came here to be paid well for there talents. If this changes with free healthcare for all we will be deprived of these talented people. Duh

Non us medical degrees are not easily transferred to the us. Ifrc

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

Non us medical degrees are not easily transferred to the us. Ifrc

Not to difficult may require a refresher or two to pass licensing tests

[GordMay]

“An estimated 17% of COVID-19 cases show no symptoms”
A new meta-analysis (a study of studies)[1] suggests that, roughly 1-in-6 cases of COVID-19, present without symptoms.
A total of thirteen articles were included, which accounted for 21,708 tested participants which were close contacts of 849 confirmed COVID-19 cases. These studies were selected across seven countries: China, the United States, Taiwan, Brunei, Korea, France, and Italy.
After combining the data from these studies, the researchers estimated that 17% of COVID-19 cases were asymptomatic, or in other words, roughly 1-in-6 COVID-19 cases had no actual symptoms of the disease. The estimated asymptomatic rates were 16% for outside of nursing homes (where the average age was 31) and 20% inside of care homes (where the average age was 75), indicating a slightly higher rate of asymptomatic COVID-19 in higher age groups.
Through analysing the data on secondary infections, they estimated the relative risk of asymptomatic transmission to be 42% lower than that of symptomatic transmission, meaning that while patients with asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 can still transmit the virus, they appear to be 42% less likely to do so compared to patients that presented with actual COVID-19 symptoms.

[1] “Estimating the extent of asymptomatic COVID-19 and its potential for community transmission: Systematic review and meta-analysis” ~ by Oyungerel Byambasuren, MD et al
➥ https://jammi.utpjournals.press/doi/...ammi-2020-0030

[SailOar]

How Green Are Electric Vehicles?

It matters how the electricity is made
Broadly speaking, most electric cars sold today tend to produce significantly fewer planet-warming emissions than most cars fueled with gasoline. The critical factor is how much of the electrical production is by coal?

Raw materials can be problematic
Like many other batteries, the lithium-ion cells that power most electric vehicles rely on raw materials — like cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements — that have been linked to grave environmental and human rights concerns.

Recycling could be better
While 99 percent of lead-acid batteries are recycled in the United States, estimated recycling rates for lithium-ion batteries are about 5 percent.

If done properly, used car batteries could continue to be used for a decade or more as backup storage for solar power, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found in a study last year.


This interactive online tool tries to incorporate all relevant factors

[Fbfisher]

As a Los Angeles native, who learned to sail attending summer camp on Catalina Island, and was later a camp counselor at that same camp teaching others, and spent too many days to count at the beach, and later brought my own kids to the beach and taught them to snorkel at the island, and for years now I’ve had a mooring at Catalina and make a dozen or more trips a year to spend time there (and in the water), and who often wondered what that “dump site” on the nautical chart was about, this ****ing pisses me off:

https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-...umping-ground/

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Fbfisher

I’ve had a mooring at Catalina and make a dozen or more trips a year to spend time there (and in the water), and who often wondered what that “dump site” on the nautical chart was about, this ****ing pisses me off:

https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-...umping-ground/

... yet CF has commenters who have repeatedly told us that Rachel Carson is some kind of mass murderer because of the malaria deaths that have occurred since DDT's ban in some places. This of course ignores the proven impact on bird populations, the concentration of DDT and observed harm in fish and marine mammals, and even its effect on human birthweight and a suspected link to autism.

We've reached a point in our development and technical "success" that we can no longer put our waste out of sight and then forget about it. We pollute too much to simply dilute. The reality is that we have to pollute less and actively develop less toxic products.

[Ded reckoner]

“Estimating the extent of asymptomatic COVID-19 and its potential for community transmission: Systematic review and meta-analysis” ~ by Oyungerel Byambasuren, MD et al
➥ https://jammi.utpjournals.press/doi/...ammi-2020-0030

This is a study compiling results of other related studies. It aggregates results and tries to find new observations. Unfortunately, "Diagnosis in all studies was confirmed using a real-time reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction test." This means all these studies are suspect, because the results of RT-PCR tests are dependent upon the thermal cycles, Ct, used and the WHO published error prone recommendations to use too high Ct. That means the labs can replicate just dead virus or parts of the coronavirus at high enough Ct counts, and lead to a false positive conclusion. If you're looking for transmission capability of asymptomatic people who tested positive for COVID-19, then uncorrelated PCR testing is not an accurate way to study it. If the PCR test was not backed up by correlations of Ct with cultured samples, then the results are suspect. The benchmark study done of contacts of asymptomatic people testing positive for COVID-19 using the accurate lab methodology involving cultured samples leads to the conclusion asymptomatic people testing positive for coronavirus aren't infectious.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Ded reckoner

The benchmark study done of contacts of asymptomatic people testing positive for COVID-19 using the accurate lab methodology involving cultured samples leads to the conclusion asymptomatic people testing positive for coronavirus aren't infectious.

The sticking point is "asymptomatic". Unless there's full followup, we don't know with certainty whether a person without symptoms who tests positive, will go on to develop symptoms.

Earlier estimates that 80% of infections are asymptomatic were too high and have since been revised down to between 17% and 20% of people with infections.12 Studies estimating this proportion are limited by heterogeneity in case definitions, incomplete symptom assessment, and inadequate retrospective and prospective follow-up of symptoms, however.3 Around 49% of people initially defined as asymptomatic go on to develop symptoms.45
...
Viral culture studies suggest that people with SARS-CoV-2 can become infectious one to two days before the onset of symptoms and continue to be infectious up to seven days thereafter; viable virus is relatively short lived.7 Symptomatic and presymptomatic transmission have a greater role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 than truly asymptomatic transmission.121213

... again, without enough followup we don't know which of the "asymptomatic" tested-positive go on to develop symptoms. The base problem remains: people without symptoms don't know they're infected, and they carry on as normal, making them the most likely spreaders... assuming that those with symptoms have the good sense to stay the F home and isolate.

Therefore... masks, social distancing, restrictions are still important til there's herd immunity through vaccination

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

The sticking point is "asymptomatic". Unless there's full followup, we don't know with certainty whether a person without symptoms who tests positive, will go on to develop symptoms.



... again, without enough followup we don't know which of the "asymptomatic" tested-positive go on to develop symptoms. The base problem remains: people without symptoms don't know they're infected, and they carry on as normal, making them the most likely spreaders... assuming that those with symptoms have the good sense to stay the F home and isolate.

Therefore... masks, social distancing, restrictions are still important til there's herd immunity through vaccination

Here is the problem with that view on herd immunity.
They can't make up their minds except to go with what will garner the most profit.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Here is the problem with that view on herd immunity.
They can't make up their minds except to go with what will garner the most profit.

Very awkwardly expressed, but what the Director-General is saying (see: https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-de...s-and-covid-19) is simply that dealing with the pandemic by just letting it spread freely is not what we should be doing. This is not controversial -- no country I know of is just doing nothing. And time has shown more and more that doing nothing would NOT have been the right thing to do -- look at Italy, which despite the pretty horrendous toll from two bad waves, is now having a third wave. Herd immunity of course can be eventually achieved from natural immunity, but it takes a long time.

Note that in the very same speech, the Director-General speaks out against the indisciminate use of lockdowns:

"Large scale physical distancing measures and movement restrictions, often referred to as ‘lockdowns’, can slow COVID‑19 transmission by limiting contact between people.
"However, these measures can have a profound negative impact on individuals, communities, and societies by bringing social and economic life to a near stop. Such measures disproportionately affect disadvantaged groups, including people in poverty, migrants, internally displaced people and refugees, who most often live in overcrowded and under resourced settings, and depend on daily labour for subsistence.
"WHO recognizes that at certain points, some countries have had no choice but to issue stay-at-home orders and other measures, to buy time.
Governments must make the most of the extra time granted by ‘lockdown’ measures by doing all they can to build their capacities to detect, isolate, test and care for all cases; trace and quarantine all contacts; engage, empower and enable populations to drive the societal response and more.
"WHO is hopeful that countries will use targeted interventions [i.e., not lockdown, which is not "targeted"] where and when needed, based on the local situation."

WHO advice looks pretty spot on to me.

[GordMay]

Local mom finds cure to weight loss, Scientists are dumbfounded...
... at how gullible, people on the internet can be.

[GordMay]

"Combating ecosystem collapse from the tropics to the Antarctic”

~ by Dana M. Bergstrom et al

Scientists warn that key ecosystems, around Australia and Antarctica, are collapsing, and propose a three-step framework to combat irreversible global damage.

Their report [1], authored by 38 Australian, UK and US scientists, from universities and government agencies, is published in the international journal Global Change Biology. Researchers say it heralds a stark warning for ecosystem collapse worldwide, if action if not taken urgently.

The paper, and extensive case studies, examine the current state, and recent trajectories of 19 marine and terrestrial ecosystems across all Australian states, spanning 58° of latitude from coral reefs to Antarctica.
Findings include:
- Ecosystem collapse (defined as potentially irreversible change to ecosystem structure, composition and function) is occurring now in 19 case studies. This conclusion is supported by empirical evidence, rather than modelled predictions.
- No ecosystems have collapsed across their entire range, but for all case studies there is evidence of local collapse.
- The 19 ecosystems include the Great Barrier Reef, mangroves in the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Mediterranean forests and woodlands, the arid zone of central Australia, Shark Bay seagrass beds in Western Australia, Great Southern Reef kelp forests, Gondwanan conifer forests of Tasmania, Mountain Ash forest in Victoria, and moss beds of East Antarctica.
- Drivers of ecosystem collapse are pressures from global climate change and regional human impacts, categorised as chronic 'presses' (eg. changes in temperature and precipitation, land clearing) or acute 'pulses' (eg. heatwaves, storms, fires and pollution after storms).

The paper recommends a new '3As' framework to guide decision-making about actions to combat irreversible damage:
- Awareness of the importance of the ecosystem and the need for its protection.
- Anticipation of the risks from current and future pressures.
- Action on reducing the pressures to avoid or lessen their impacts.

[1] The Report ➥ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.15539


See also ➥ https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3366075

[Dockhead]

Interesting article on Universal Basic Incomes, in the Economist today:


https://www.economist.com/finance-an...l-basic-income


We were discussing this issue upthread.



We'll probably never get something like this through our own deeply polarized political system, which is too bad. A lot of conservatives and libertarians object to different different proposals to improve the welfare state because of perverse incentives created. UBI is nearly free from such effects, so potentially could get much broader political support.