Newsworthy Science
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Berzerker
Deity
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-nasa-psyche-huge-solar-arrays.html
We're headed to Psyche in August
and...if ancient aliens theorists are right
the monolith...or evidence of tool marks from aliens mining Psyche
We're headed to Psyche in August
and...if ancient aliens theorists are right
the monolith...or evidence of tool marks from aliens mining Psyche
Berzerker
Deity
A new study calculates that exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood stole a collective 824 million IQ points from more than 170 million Americans alive today, about half the population of the United States.
Leaded gas for cars was banned in the U.S. in 1996, but the researchers say that anyone born before the end of that era, and especially those at the peak of its use in the 1960s and 1970s, had concerningly high lead exposures as children.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-exposure-century-shrunk-iq-scores.html
sadly I was one of those children growing up in the 60s and 70s so I have an excuse for my math skills, but does that mean about 5 IQ pts each
Leaded gas for cars was banned in the U.S. in 1996, but the researchers say that anyone born before the end of that era, and especially those at the peak of its use in the 1960s and 1970s, had concerningly high lead exposures as children.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-exposure-century-shrunk-iq-scores.html
sadly I was one of those children growing up in the 60s and 70s so I have an excuse for my math skills, but does that mean about 5 IQ pts each
Where does the rain come from? The sea, obviously.
Exactly what is newsworthy is a question, but the rain is Australia is newsworthy ATM.
Writeup Paper
Exactly what is newsworthy is a question, but the rain is Australia is newsworthy ATM.
At any one time, Earth’s atmosphere holds only about a week’s worth of rain — but heavy rain has been falling for weeks in eastern Australia, and more is forecast. Three researchers explain where all the water is coming from. “By following moisture from the oceans to the land, we worked out exactly how three oceans feed water to the atmosphere,” they write. “A better understanding of how water moves through the atmosphere is vital to more accurately forecast severe weather.”
Writeup Paper
New design of particle accelerators
I do not really understand it, but particle accelerators are useful toys, if this means we get more of them I think it will make a big difference to science, not least biology where they are used for imaging very small and fast things like enzymes doing their thing.
For the perturbed measurements, a leading bunch drives a wakefield, which in turn stimulates motion of the plasma ions. The two probe bunches sample the perturbed plasma in increments of 0.77 ns after the temporally locked leading bunch. For the unperturbed measurements, the procedure is the same but without the presence of the leading bunch.
Writeup Paper
I do not really understand it, but particle accelerators are useful toys, if this means we get more of them I think it will make a big difference to science, not least biology where they are used for imaging very small and fast things like enzymes doing their thing.
Particle accelerators are usually associated with the discovery of fundamental particles, but they also have a long history of powering light sources. One such source is the free-electron laser, in which a high-energy beam of electrons from a linear accelerator generates ultrashort X-ray laser pulses by travelling through a series of magnets. However, conventional accelerators are expensive and unwieldy, needing up to one kilometre of space under Earth’s surface, and a smaller, cheaper accelerator based on plasma (ionized gas) might be capable of doing the job. The plasma in such a device needs to settle before each new interaction with the electron beam, but the interactions must be repeated at a high rate to power a free-electron laser that has sufficient average brilliance. Writing in Nature, D’Arcy et al. report that the maximum repetition rate of a plasma-based accelerator could be as high as one million times per second — or even higher, putting it comfortably in the realm of nearly all potential applications.
Although the specific demands of experiments using particle accelerators differ, the general themes remain the same. Namely, they require high-current, high-energy particle beams of extremely high quality. The quality of the beam is most simply quantified by the relative spread of the energy of the particles making up a single particle bunch, as well as the ability to focus the bunch to a small spot size — a quantity known as emittance. The beam current is the number of particles per bunch multiplied by the bunch repetition rate.
An experiment in 2020 demonstrated the relatively stable operation of a laser-driven plasma accelerator over many hours at a kilohertz repetition rate, representing a key advance.
But many applications require a repetition rate higher than kilohertz, so understanding the physical limitations associated with repetition rate is an area of ongoing investigation. To this end, D’Arcy et al. measured the recovery rate of a plasma source for an electron-beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator. This type of accelerator uses an electron bunch to excite a density wave in a plasma that, in turn, increases the energy of a second, trailing electron bunch. Because the plasma source must be unperturbed for every shot of the electron beam, the recovery time of the plasma dictates the fundamental upper limit on the repetition rate.
D’Arcy et al. adjusted the separation time between the plasma-perturbing bunch and the pair that followed, and in doing so, were able to emulate the behaviour of a plasma wakefield accelerator operating at repetition rates ranging from roughly 10 MHz to 1 GHz.
Although the specific demands of experiments using particle accelerators differ, the general themes remain the same. Namely, they require high-current, high-energy particle beams of extremely high quality. The quality of the beam is most simply quantified by the relative spread of the energy of the particles making up a single particle bunch, as well as the ability to focus the bunch to a small spot size — a quantity known as emittance. The beam current is the number of particles per bunch multiplied by the bunch repetition rate.
An experiment in 2020 demonstrated the relatively stable operation of a laser-driven plasma accelerator over many hours at a kilohertz repetition rate, representing a key advance.
But many applications require a repetition rate higher than kilohertz, so understanding the physical limitations associated with repetition rate is an area of ongoing investigation. To this end, D’Arcy et al. measured the recovery rate of a plasma source for an electron-beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator. This type of accelerator uses an electron bunch to excite a density wave in a plasma that, in turn, increases the energy of a second, trailing electron bunch. Because the plasma source must be unperturbed for every shot of the electron beam, the recovery time of the plasma dictates the fundamental upper limit on the repetition rate.
D’Arcy et al. adjusted the separation time between the plasma-perturbing bunch and the pair that followed, and in doing so, were able to emulate the behaviour of a plasma wakefield accelerator operating at repetition rates ranging from roughly 10 MHz to 1 GHz.
For the perturbed measurements, a leading bunch drives a wakefield, which in turn stimulates motion of the plasma ions. The two probe bunches sample the perturbed plasma in increments of 0.77 ns after the temporally locked leading bunch. For the unperturbed measurements, the procedure is the same but without the presence of the leading bunch.
Writeup Paper
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Three in a row by me, but I think this is important. The covid thing has increased a significant number of these for me at least.
These are the 12 ways you can drastically cut your dementia risk
New evidence supports adding three modifiable risk factors—excessive alcohol consumption, head injury, and air pollution—to our 2017 Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care life-course model of nine factors (less education, hypertension, hearing impairment, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, and infrequent social contact).
Modifying 12 risk factors might prevent or delay up to 40% of dementias.
Be ambitious about prevention
Specific actions for risk factors across the life course
Tackle inequality and protect people with dementia
Lancet Report New Scientist Writeup
These are the 12 ways you can drastically cut your dementia risk
New evidence supports adding three modifiable risk factors—excessive alcohol consumption, head injury, and air pollution—to our 2017 Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care life-course model of nine factors (less education, hypertension, hearing impairment, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, and infrequent social contact).
Modifying 12 risk factors might prevent or delay up to 40% of dementias.
Be ambitious about prevention
- Prevention is about policy and individuals. Contributions to the risk and mitigation of dementia begin early and continue throughout life, so it is never too early or too late. These actions require both public health programmes and individually tailored interventions. In addition to population strategies, policy should address high-risk groups to increase social, cognitive, and physical activity; and vascular health.
Specific actions for risk factors across the life course
- Aim to maintain systolic BP of 130 mm Hg or less in midlife from around age 40 years (antihypertensive treatment for hypertension is the only known effective preventive medication for dementia).
- Encourage use of hearing aids for hearing loss and reduce hearing loss by protection of ears from excessive noise exposure.
- Reduce exposure to air pollution and second-hand tobacco smoke.
- Prevent head injury.
- Limit alcohol use, as alcohol misuse and drinking more than 21 units weekly increase the risk of dementia.
- Avoid smoking uptake and support smoking cessation to stop smoking, as this reduces the risk of dementia even in later life.
- Provide all children with primary and secondary education.
- Reduce obesity and the linked condition of diabetes. Sustain midlife, and possibly later life physical activity.
- Addressing other putative risk factors for dementia, like sleep, through lifestyle interventions, will improve general health.
Tackle inequality and protect people with dementia
- Many risk factors cluster around inequalities, which occur particularly in Black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups and in vulnerable populations. Tackling these factors will involve not only health promotion but also societal action to improve the circumstances in which people live their lives. Examples include creating environments that have physical activity as a norm, reducing the population profile of blood pressure rising with age through better patterns of nutrition, and reducing potential excessive noise exposure.
- Dementia is rising more in low-income and middle-income countries (LMIC) than in high-income countries, because of population ageing and higher frequency of potentially modifiable risk factors. Preventative interventions might yield the largest dementia reductions in LMIC.
Lancet Report New Scientist Writeup
I think besides the air polution I should be fine right now.
I wonder though what the lower education could otherwise be correlated too.
Other news:
https://www.umms.org/ummc/news/2022/in-memoriam-david-bennett the guy with the pig heart has died. No info if this is related to the transplant or not. With 2 months in total I'd say this was a pretty good success for a first attempt.
I wonder though what the lower education could otherwise be correlated too.
Other news:
https://www.umms.org/ummc/news/2022/in-memoriam-david-bennett the guy with the pig heart has died. No info if this is related to the transplant or not. With 2 months in total I'd say this was a pretty good success for a first attempt.
CO2 on The Rocks
Cocktail drinkers can now sip vodka made from carbon dioxide.
Air Company, a Brooklyn-based startup, uses photosynthesis-inspired technology to create vodka distilled from CO2-derived products. It first creates hydrogen from water using a process known as electrolysis, before feeding it into a reactor alongside CO2 captured from ethanol plants in the Northeast, the company says. The gases then go over a catalyst, says Stafford Sheehan, the company’s co-founder and chief technology
officer. The resulting mixture of ethanol and water is distilled into vodka, Dr. Sheehan says. The company estimates that producing one liter of vodka takes a pound of CO2 out of the air.
The liquor, marketed as Air Vodka, comes in 750 ml bottles and retails for around $65. Air Company uses a similar technique to make hand sanitizer and, starting this spring, a fragrance. These products are a stepping stone towards building more complex products such as jet fuel, Dr. Sheehan says. “ We’re not sitting here cranking out vodka for the sake of cranking out vodka.”
Cocktail drinkers can now sip vodka made from carbon dioxide.
Air Company, a Brooklyn-based startup, uses photosynthesis-inspired technology to create vodka distilled from CO2-derived products. It first creates hydrogen from water using a process known as electrolysis, before feeding it into a reactor alongside CO2 captured from ethanol plants in the Northeast, the company says. The gases then go over a catalyst, says Stafford Sheehan, the company’s co-founder and chief technology
officer. The resulting mixture of ethanol and water is distilled into vodka, Dr. Sheehan says. The company estimates that producing one liter of vodka takes a pound of CO2 out of the air.
The liquor, marketed as Air Vodka, comes in 750 ml bottles and retails for around $65. Air Company uses a similar technique to make hand sanitizer and, starting this spring, a fragrance. These products are a stepping stone towards building more complex products such as jet fuel, Dr. Sheehan says. “ We’re not sitting here cranking out vodka for the sake of cranking out vodka.”
Lexicus
Deity
What are the energy costs? That is, how much carbon is emitted to generate the energy needed to do this?
Joke answer : The only thing that matters is how it tastes, and they are not taking about it so it cannot be good.
Serious answer : Quite. They are replacing carbon capture by crops to carbon capture by electricity. You have to compare the costs of those to see if it is any good.
I haven't a clue.
I had a quick look at their site, to see if they say. Man I hate their it, they have clearly spent loads on it, but there is so little information or if it is there it is very hard to find. This is their science/technology page.
Machine learning and phone data can improve targeting of humanitarian aid
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated many low- and middle-income countries, causing widespread food insecurity and a sharp decline in living standards. In response to this crisis, governments and humanitarian organizations worldwide have distributed social assistance to more than 1.5 billion people. Targeting is a central challenge in administering these programmes: it remains a difficult task to rapidly identify those with the greatest need given available data. Here we show that data from mobile phone networks can improve the targeting of humanitarian assistance. Our approach uses traditional survey data to train machine-learning algorithms to recognize patterns of poverty in mobile phone data; the trained algorithms can then prioritize aid to the poorest mobile subscribers. We evaluate this approach by studying a flagship emergency cash transfer program in Togo, which used these algorithms to disburse millions of US dollars worth of COVID-19 relief aid. Our analysis compares outcomes—including exclusion errors, total social welfare and measures of fairness—under different targeting regimes. Relative to the geographic targeting options considered by the Government of Togo, the machine-learning approach reduces errors of exclusion by 4–21%. Relative to methods requiring a comprehensive social registry (a hypothetical exercise; no such registry exists in Togo), the machine-learning approach increases exclusion errors by 9–35%. These results highlight the potential for new data sources to complement traditional methods for targeting humanitarian assistance, particularly in crisis settings in which traditional data are missing or out of date.
a, b, The performance of phone-based targeting (green) compared with alternative approaches that were feasible (red) and unfeasible (blue) in Togo in 2020. Targeting is evaluated for the actual rural Novissi programme (a), which focused on Togo’s 100 poorest cantons (using a 2020 survey representative of mobile subscribers in the 100 cantons, where PMT is a ground truth for poverty since consumption data was not collected in the phone survey); and a hypothetical nationwide anti-poverty programme (using a national field survey conducted in 2018–2019, where consumption is a ground truth for poverty) (b). The darker bar in each pair indicates recall and precision (left axis), which is equivalent to 1 – exclusion error; the lighter bar in each pair indicates area under the curve (right axis). The bar height represents the point estimate from the full simulation; whiskers show s.d. produced from n = 1,000 bootstrap simulations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated many low- and middle-income countries, causing widespread food insecurity and a sharp decline in living standards. In response to this crisis, governments and humanitarian organizations worldwide have distributed social assistance to more than 1.5 billion people. Targeting is a central challenge in administering these programmes: it remains a difficult task to rapidly identify those with the greatest need given available data. Here we show that data from mobile phone networks can improve the targeting of humanitarian assistance. Our approach uses traditional survey data to train machine-learning algorithms to recognize patterns of poverty in mobile phone data; the trained algorithms can then prioritize aid to the poorest mobile subscribers. We evaluate this approach by studying a flagship emergency cash transfer program in Togo, which used these algorithms to disburse millions of US dollars worth of COVID-19 relief aid. Our analysis compares outcomes—including exclusion errors, total social welfare and measures of fairness—under different targeting regimes. Relative to the geographic targeting options considered by the Government of Togo, the machine-learning approach reduces errors of exclusion by 4–21%. Relative to methods requiring a comprehensive social registry (a hypothetical exercise; no such registry exists in Togo), the machine-learning approach increases exclusion errors by 9–35%. These results highlight the potential for new data sources to complement traditional methods for targeting humanitarian assistance, particularly in crisis settings in which traditional data are missing or out of date.
a, b, The performance of phone-based targeting (green) compared with alternative approaches that were feasible (red) and unfeasible (blue) in Togo in 2020. Targeting is evaluated for the actual rural Novissi programme (a), which focused on Togo’s 100 poorest cantons (using a 2020 survey representative of mobile subscribers in the 100 cantons, where PMT is a ground truth for poverty since consumption data was not collected in the phone survey); and a hypothetical nationwide anti-poverty programme (using a national field survey conducted in 2018–2019, where consumption is a ground truth for poverty) (b). The darker bar in each pair indicates recall and precision (left axis), which is equivalent to 1 – exclusion error; the lighter bar in each pair indicates area under the curve (right axis). The bar height represents the point estimate from the full simulation; whiskers show s.d. produced from n = 1,000 bootstrap simulations.
Spoiler I think this graph may be more relevant but do not ask me to explain it :
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Ferocitus
Deity
A team of physicists in Paris have reported the most precise measurement yet of the fine-structure
constant: α = 1/137.035999206, with a margin of error of 81 parts per trillion.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2964-7
constant: α = 1/137.035999206, with a margin of error of 81 parts per trillion.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2964-7
That will be a function of the energy source. Electrolysis is energetically costly. Sequestering CO2 is energetically costly. But it will be a bridge technology, because making carbon fuels from water and CO2 will be a necessary part of our future.
This technology they're showing is mostly just 'for interest sake', much like lab-grown meat will be for some time. You'll need these technologies as we pivot the production chain, however.
And Christ I hate the new style of business web-pages.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Why poisonous Australian toad tadpoles have evolved into ravenous cannibals
Scientists say the invasive species may have adapted to regulate its own population
The same toxins that protect Australian cane toads from predators are turning their babies into insatiable little cannibals, new research has found.
Cane toads produce toxins that make them poisonous to most predators in Australia. But those same toxins, when emitted by fresh hatchlings, seems to propel older tadpoles to gobble up their helpless younger kin, the study says.
"It is exactly like a feeding frenzy," lead author Jayna DeVore, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sydney, told As It Happens guest host Gillian Findlay.
"They're these tiny little things when they first hatch, kind of like a little grain of rice. They're just laying there on the ground and they can't defend themselves in any way. And that's the moment when these cannibals can really smell them … and that's when they strike."
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappen...ave-evolved-into-ravenous-cannibals-1.6392505
Scientists say the invasive species may have adapted to regulate its own population
The same toxins that protect Australian cane toads from predators are turning their babies into insatiable little cannibals, new research has found.
Cane toads produce toxins that make them poisonous to most predators in Australia. But those same toxins, when emitted by fresh hatchlings, seems to propel older tadpoles to gobble up their helpless younger kin, the study says.
"It is exactly like a feeding frenzy," lead author Jayna DeVore, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sydney, told As It Happens guest host Gillian Findlay.
"They're these tiny little things when they first hatch, kind of like a little grain of rice. They're just laying there on the ground and they can't defend themselves in any way. And that's the moment when these cannibals can really smell them … and that's when they strike."
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappen...ave-evolved-into-ravenous-cannibals-1.6392505
Get ready guys!
Male contraceptive pill is safe and effective in tests in mice
A daily pill drastically reduced sperm counts in mice with no side effects, but many male contraceptives have previously failed in human trials
A non-hormonal male contraceptive pill is 99 per cent effective at preventing pregnancy in mice with no observed side effects. Human trials are being planned, but some researchers warn that safety concerns could yet prevent the drug from reaching the market. Despite many attempts at making an effective and safe male contraceptive, no treatment has passed human clinical trials. Most have been based on hormones, but non-hormonal contraceptives tend to have fewer side effects, says Md Abdullah al Noman at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
“Safety is very important for birth control pills because people are not taking it for a disease, so they are less tolerant of side effects,” says Noman. He and his colleagues gave male mice a daily dose of a molecule called YCT529 over a four-week period, and found that their sperm count plummeted. Between four and six weeks after the mice stopped receiving the treatment, they could reproduce normally again with no observable side effects. “When we went to even 100 times higher dose than the effective dose, the compound didn’t show any toxicity,” says Noman, who presented the results today at the American Chemical Society Spring 2022 conference in San Diego, California.
The team tested more than 100 molecules to identify a drug candidate that targets a protein called retinoic acid receptor alpha (RAR-α). Inhibiting this protein blocks the effects of retinoic acid, a derivative of vitamin A that plays an important role in cell development and sperm formation. Previous research has shown that mice that were genetically edited so they lacked the RAR-α gene experienced no side effects apart from the inability to produce sperm.
Noman and his colleagues have now licensed their drug to a private company, YourChoice Therapeutics, which is aiming to carry out human trials in the US later this year. While Noman and his team didn’t observe any side effects in mice, this doesn’t guarantee that the drug will be safe in humans, says Richard Anderson at the University of Edinburgh, UK. “If you were developing a drug that’s targeting a completely novel pathway, I think it would be appropriate to be cautious about safety when there isn’t a track record in that field.”
The vitamin A signalling system plays a number of important roles in bodily systems. “It seems to me inherently unlikely that a compound with such activity would be free of side effects,” says Richard Sharpe, also at the University of Edinburgh.
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...-and-effective-in-tests-in-mice/?NSDAY_240322
Male contraceptive pill is safe and effective in tests in mice
A daily pill drastically reduced sperm counts in mice with no side effects, but many male contraceptives have previously failed in human trials
A non-hormonal male contraceptive pill is 99 per cent effective at preventing pregnancy in mice with no observed side effects. Human trials are being planned, but some researchers warn that safety concerns could yet prevent the drug from reaching the market. Despite many attempts at making an effective and safe male contraceptive, no treatment has passed human clinical trials. Most have been based on hormones, but non-hormonal contraceptives tend to have fewer side effects, says Md Abdullah al Noman at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
“Safety is very important for birth control pills because people are not taking it for a disease, so they are less tolerant of side effects,” says Noman. He and his colleagues gave male mice a daily dose of a molecule called YCT529 over a four-week period, and found that their sperm count plummeted. Between four and six weeks after the mice stopped receiving the treatment, they could reproduce normally again with no observable side effects. “When we went to even 100 times higher dose than the effective dose, the compound didn’t show any toxicity,” says Noman, who presented the results today at the American Chemical Society Spring 2022 conference in San Diego, California.
The team tested more than 100 molecules to identify a drug candidate that targets a protein called retinoic acid receptor alpha (RAR-α). Inhibiting this protein blocks the effects of retinoic acid, a derivative of vitamin A that plays an important role in cell development and sperm formation. Previous research has shown that mice that were genetically edited so they lacked the RAR-α gene experienced no side effects apart from the inability to produce sperm.
Noman and his colleagues have now licensed their drug to a private company, YourChoice Therapeutics, which is aiming to carry out human trials in the US later this year. While Noman and his team didn’t observe any side effects in mice, this doesn’t guarantee that the drug will be safe in humans, says Richard Anderson at the University of Edinburgh, UK. “If you were developing a drug that’s targeting a completely novel pathway, I think it would be appropriate to be cautious about safety when there isn’t a track record in that field.”
The vitamin A signalling system plays a number of important roles in bodily systems. “It seems to me inherently unlikely that a compound with such activity would be free of side effects,” says Richard Sharpe, also at the University of Edinburgh.
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...-and-effective-in-tests-in-mice/?NSDAY_240322
I saw that, and I cannot figure out what they mean by 99% effective. I have only skimmed it, and I can see no sign that they actually did tests that would see if baby mice were made, so I assume it means reduces sperm levels by 99% which is not what most people would expect it to mean.
Estebonrober
Deity
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NASA releases first image from an in-focus Webb telescope | Ars Technica
"At no point in that process did we have any technical issues with the telescope—the biggest [surprise] is just how closely it matched the models and predictions from the ground," Perrin said. "Honestly, the team was giddy at times looking at this data."
"At no point in that process did we have any technical issues with the telescope—the biggest [surprise] is just how closely it matched the models and predictions from the ground," Perrin said. "Honestly, the team was giddy at times looking at this data."
Article said:
I think this would indicate they did some testing, and that no baby mice were produced during this time.
