Science & Technology News

[GordMay]

Get the latest SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY NEWS with updated newsfeeds & free email newsletters, from (just a few of) the many free, on-line, science & technology journals:

“Nature” ➥ https://www.nature.com/news

“Science” ➥ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/latest-news

NASA ➥ https://science.nasa.gov/science-news

Science Daily ➥ https://www.sciencedaily.com/news/top/science/

Phys Org ➥ https://phys.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI...yAAEgLFsPD_BwE

Science News ➥ https://www.sciencenews.org/

“National Geographic” ➥ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/latest-stories/

“Scientific American” ➥ https://www.scientificamerican.com/

“Live Science” ➥ https://www.livescience.com/news

“New Scientist” ➥ https://www.newscientist.com/

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ➥ https://thebulletin.org/

[GordMay]

“A Habitable-zone Earth-sized Planet Rescued from False Positive Status” ~ by Andrew Vanderburg et al.
About 300 light-years from Earth, lies a planet, Kepler-1649c, that is unlike any other ever discovered: one that is similar to our home, both in terms of size, and temperature, and that lies within its host star's habitable zone.
NASA's Kepler space telescope was launched in 2009, with the sole purpose of searching for planets orbiting other stars. The telescope went out of service in 2018, after experiencing multiple issues. However, before it was decommissioned, it had found thousands of confirmed exoplanets. A team of astronomers are going manually through the data (rejected by Robovetter, a search algorithm), and that's how they found Kepler-1649c.

More ➥ https://iopscience.iop.org/article/1...41-8213/ab84e5

And ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/e...zone-1.5536651

[GordMay]

“Will antibody tests for the coronavirus really change everything?” ~ by Smriti Mallapaty

“... It seems that many tests available now are not accurate enough at identifying people who have had the disease, a property called test sensitivity, and those who haven’t been infected, known as test specificity. A high-quality test should achieve 99% or more sensitivity and specificity, adds Collignon. That means that testing should turn up only about 1 false positive and 1 false negative for every 100 true positive and true negative results ...

... But some commercial antibody tests have recorded specificities as low as 40% early in the infection. In an analysis2 of 9 commercial tests available in Denmark, 3 lab-based tests had sensitivities ranging 67–93% and specificities of 93–100%. In the same study, five out of six point-of-care tests had sensitivities ranging 80–93%, and 80-100% specificity, but some kits were tested on fewer than 30 people. Testing was suspended for one kit. Overall, the sensitivity of all the tests improved over time, with the highest sensitivity recorded two weeks after symptoms first appeared ...

... Point-of-care tests are even less reliable than tests being used in labs, adds Smith. This is because they use a smaller sample of blood (typically from a finger prick) and are conducted in a less controlled environment than a lab, which can affect their performance. They should be used with caution, he says.

The WHO recommends that point-of-care tests only be used for research ...

... Despite the challenges, once reliable antibody tests are available, they could be important to understanding which groups of people have been infected, and how to stop further spread, says Collignon. They could even be used to diagnose active infections when PCR tests fail, adds Smith.”

Much more ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01115-z

[GordMay]

Running a car costs much more than people think — stalling the uptake of green travel
Car owners underestimate total vehicle costs. Giving consumers this information could encourage the switch to cleaner transport and reduce emissions.

“... Consumers decide whether to own a vehicle on the basis of considerations such as where they live and the vehicle’s upfront and lifetime costs12. If they systematically underestimate total costs, this could increase car ownership and its associated emissions. It could also make alternative forms of transport — car sharing, alternative-fuel vehicles, public transport, biking or walking, say — seem less attractive ...
... We find that people underestimate the total cost of owning a car by about 50% ...”

More ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01118-w

Supplementary information ➥ https://media.nature.com/original/ma...118-w/17904042

[GordMay]

LitCovid says 1,608 papers, on Covid-19, were published last week alone (April 13 - 19).
LitCovid is a curated literature hub, for tracking up-to-date scientific information, about the 2019 novel Coronavirus. It is the most comprehensive resource on the subject, providing a central access to 5996 (and growing) relevant articles in PubMed.
LitCovid ➥ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/



Scientists cut peer-review corners under pressure of COVID-19 pandemic
Expedited research should be approached with caution, experts say.
➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmon...tion-1.5539997

[GordMay]

Pick of the coronavirus papers:
Nature wades through the literature, on COVID-19, so you don’t have to.
Goto ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00502-w

[GordMay]

“Survivors' burden” ~ by Kelly Servick
What awaits the sickest COVID-19 patients after they leave the hospital?
For those people who recover, from a severe bout of COVID-19, both the illness and the treatment can have lingering effects. Clinicians are learning lessons from other diseases, about the physical, cognitive and mental-health problems that might be in store.
➥ https://science.sciencemag.org/conte.../6489/359.full

“A rampage through the body” ~ by Meredith Wadman et al.
The lungs are ground zero, but COVID-19 also tears through organ systems from brain to blood vessels.
➥ https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6489/356

[CatNewBee]

Thanks, a lot to digest in lock down [emoji846]


Here something for you...


https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=...&v=Zk11vI-7czE

also interesting and well put. Science and activism are sometimes overstreched and the herd is runnig where it is needed.

We cause more damage with good intentions ...

[GordMay]

I prefer Mary Chapin Carpenter’s singing, to Michael Moore’s.
➥

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lJVFl4JXi4

[GordMay]

Coronavirus shutdown forces research ship to break out of Arctic ice
When scientists planned for MOSAiC — an epic research expedition that would remain trapped in Arctic sea ice for one year — they considered the North Pole’s hazards. They worried about hypothermia, isolation, crushing ice and polar bears. They had dozens of contingency plans. But no one anticipated a pandemic.
The travel restrictions and flight cancellations imposed because of the coronavirus outbreak have now forced mission planners to make a seemingly impossible decision: Polarstern, the German research vessel central to the expedition, will temporarily leave its position in the ice to exchange its crew. At the same time, it will be forced to abandon the research camp where it has been frozen since October.
he disruption is a blow to the mission’s researchers, who have created a unique platform from which to study xxxxxxx xxxxxx in the Arctic, with a continuous data set collected over an entire year. Although they hope to refreeze the ship at the same camp after a three-week pause, the interruption will leave a hefty gap in the data set — and potentially miss a crucial time for data collection as Arctic ice begins its springtime melt...
More ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01253-4

Alternative resupply plan for Polarstern now in place
Thanks to the support of the German research vessels Merian and Sonne, the MOSAiC expedition will continue, despite the coronavirus pandemic. The new MOSAiC team will start in May.
More ➥ https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/servi...-in-place.html

Trapped: why 300 scientists are locking themselves in Arctic ice
For one year, a research ship will drift while frozen in sea ice — and give scientists their closest look at the rapid changes gripping the polar north.
More ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02823-x

Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate
MOSAiC ➥ https://mosaic-expedition.org/

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=...&v=Zk11vI-7czE

also interesting and well put. Science and activism are sometimes overstreched and the herd is runnig where it is needed.

We cause more damage with good intentions ...

Beware, most especially of our best intentions.

Just watched. Got a bit too preachy and propagandist for my liking, but I completely agree with the main thesis: We need to use less of this planet. As it sums up, "less is more."

I've often said all the so-called "green energy" is a bit like shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic. Unless we face the fundamental challenge of reducing our use of resources, all we're doing is buying a little time.

[GordMay]

Exoplanet orbiting nearby star 'disappears'
In 2008, NASA announced*1 that a new exoplanet was found orbiting a star 25 light-years away. But now it seems to have vanished.
It turns out that it likely wasn't a planet at all.
The initial observation of the potential exoplanet, named Fomalhaut b, was made in 2004 using the Hubble Space Telescope, with follow-up observations in 2006. But additional observations by Hubble in 2014 revealed*2 ... nothing.
More ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/e...ears-1.5542759

New HST data and modeling reveal a massive planetesimal collision around Fomalhaut
[2] 2020 ➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2.../15/1912506117

Hubble Directly Observes a Planet Orbiting Another Star
[1] 2008 ➥ https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/h...fomalhaut.html

[GordMay]

“Solidarity” clinical trial for COVID-19 treatments
"Solidarity” is an international clinical trial to help find an effective treatment for COVID-19, launched by the World Health Organization and partners. As of April 21 2020, over 100 countries are working together to find effective therapeutics as soon as possible, via the trial.
The Solidarity Trial will compare four treatment options against standard of care, to assess their relative effectiveness against COVID-19:
Remdesivir; Lopinavir/Ritonavir; Lopinavir/Ritonavir with Interferon beta-1a; and Chloroquine or Hydroxychloroquine.
Here ➥ https://www.who.int/emergencies/dise...-19-treatments
And ➥ https://www.who.int/emergencies/dise...vid-19-vaccine

WHO Latest COVID-19 Reports
➥ https://www.who.int/teams/blueprint/covid-19

[GordMay]

Whose coronavirus strategy worked best? Scientists hunt most effective policies
Researchers sift through data to compare nations’ vastly different containment measures.
More ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01248-1

[GordMay]

Electronic skin fully powered by sweat can monitor health
Caltech's Wei Gao, assistant professor in the Andrew and Peggy Cherng department of Medical Engineering, wants to learn more about you, from your skin, and to that end, he has developed an electronic skin, or e-skin, that is applied directly on top of your real skin. The e-skin, made from soft, flexible rubber, can be embedded with sensors that monitor information like heart rate, body temperature, levels of blood sugar and metabolic byproducts that are indicators of health, and even the nerve signals that control our muscles. It does so without the need for a battery, as it runs solely on biofuel cells powered by one of the body's own waste products - sweat.


“Biofuel-powered soft electronic skin with multiplexed and wireless sensing for human-machine interfaces”
➥ https://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/5/41/eaaz7946