153 articles from FRIDAY 19.6.2020

Our knowledge of Covid-19 changes every day. Hindsight is misleading when it comes to science | Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz

It’s tempting to look back and say ‘if only we had known’ – but that ignores the realitiesThe results of a Covid-19 study have been announced. Unlike most of the previous results, this study seems immediately to be a game-changer – rather than minor benefits from an expensive drug, or spurious nonsense from a dubious trial, these results show that a cheap and common medication,...

Teaching physics to neural networks removes 'chaos blindness'

Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered that teaching physics to neural networks enables those networks to better adapt to chaos within their environment. The work has implications for improved artificial intelligence (AI) applications ranging from medical diagnostics to automated drone piloting.

A new social role for echolocation in bats that hunt together

Searching for food at night can be tricky. To find prey in the dark, bats use echolocation, their "sixth sense." But to find food faster, some species, like Molossus molossus, may search within hearing distance of their echolocating group members, sharing information about where food patches are located. Social information encoded in their echolocation calls may facilitate this foraging strategy,...

The UK’s contact tracing app fiasco is a master class in mismanagement

There are advantages to being one of the world’s largest single-payer health-care systems. For the UK’s National Health Service, the NHS, big data is increasingly one of them.  Its Recovery Trial, launched early in the coronavirus outbreak to collect information from across the system, has led to the discovery of dexamethasone as one of the most promising life-saving treatments for the...

Ancient societies hold lessons for modern cities

Today's modern cities, from Denver to Dubai, could learn a thing or two from the ancient Pueblo communities that once stretched across the southwestern United States. For starters, the more people live together, the better the living standards.

A new social role for echolocation in bats that hunt together

To find prey in the dark, bats use echolocation. Some species, like Molossus molossus, may also search within hearing distance of their echolocating group members, sharing information about where food patches are located. Social information encoded in their echolocation calls may facilitate this foraging strategy that allows them to find food faster.

Simulating wind farm development

Engineers have devised a model to describe how, in the process of establishing wind farms, interactions between developers and landowners affect energy production costs.

Ancient societies hold lessons for modern cities

Today's modern cities, from Denver to Dubai, could learn a thing or two from the ancient Pueblo communities that once stretched across the southwestern United States. For starters, the more people live together, the better the living standards.

'Abnormally large dust cloud' making 5,000-mile trek across Atlantic

Crimson sunrises and sunsets will paint the eastern Texas sky next week, most likely not as any ill omen for the remaining months of 2020, but from dust.An "abnormally large dust cloud" from the Sahara is making about a 5,000-mile trek across the Atlantic, heralding the chance of red sunrises and sunsets across the Gulf Coast and suppressing tropical development in the Atlantic Basin....

Fantastic muscle proteins and where to find them

Setting out to identify all proteins that make up the sarcomere, the basic contractile unit of muscle cells, resulted in an unexpected revelation, providing experimental evidence that helps explain a fundamental mystery about how muscles work.

Polymers can fine-tune attractions between suspended nanocubes

Colloids are complex mixtures in which microscopic particles of one substance are suspended evenly throughout another. They can be prepared in many different ways, but to achieve desirable properties in the final mixture, researchers must maintain a delicate control over the interactions which take place between the particles. In new research published in The European Physical Journal E, a team...