183 articles from FRIDAY 24.7.2020

US and Russia to hold talks on regulating militarisation of space

US claims Russia tested satellite-launched weapon this monthNegotiators to meet in Vienna on MondayUS and Russian officials will meet in Vienna on Monday to discuss whether and how to regulate the militarisation of space, in the wake of an alleged Russian satellite-launched missile test.The two governments agreed to hold a “space security exchange” in January, but the meeting was put off as a...

NASA animation tracks Tropical Storm Hanna's progression

NASA's Aqua satellite obtained visible imagery as Tropical Storm Hanna formed in the Gulf of Mexico and continued to organize. A new animation from NASA shows how Hanna developed and intensified as it heads toward landfall in Texas this weekend.

Study: Black entrepreneurship in the United States

A steady stream of media reports detailing the deaths of unarmed Black Americans at the hands of police. False 911 calls aimed at bringing harm to African Americans engaged in innocuous, everyday activities. Street protests calling for an end to discrimination and police brutality.

Portland State University releases nationwide guidance on bike share equity programs

Last year, Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) released a 130 page evaluation comparing equity-oriented programs from over 70 U.S. bike share systems across the U.S. Bike share being a relative newcomer to the transportation system, the research team was not surprised to find that approaches to equity programs ranged widely. In the latest installment,...

Machine learning reveals recipe for building artificial proteins

Proteins are essential to the life of cells, carrying out complex tasks and catalyzing chemical reactions. Scientists and engineers have long sought to harness this power by designing artificial proteins that can perform new tasks, like treat disease, capture carbon, or harvest energy, but many of the processes designed to create such proteins are slow and complex, with a high failure rate.

NASA's tracking Hawaii-bound Major Hurricane Douglas

Hurricane Douglas is a major hurricane tracking through the Central Pacific Ocean on a forecast track to Hawaii. NASA's Aqua satellite used infrared light to identify strongest storms and coldest cloud top temperatures and found them surrounding the eyewall of the powerful hurricane. In addition, images from NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite were used to generate an animated track of Douglas'...

An origin story for a family of oddball meteorites

Most meteorites that have landed on Earth are fragments of planetesimals, the very earliest protoplanetary bodies in the solar system. Scientists have thought that these primordial bodies either completely melted early in their history or remained as piles of unmelted rubble. But a family of meteorites has befuddled researchers since its discovery in the 1960s. The diverse fragments, found all...

Antiviral method against herpes paves the way for combating incurable viral infections

Researchers have discovered a new method to treat human herpes viruses. The new broad-spectrum method targets physical properties in the genome of the virus rather than viral proteins, which have previously been targeted. The treatment consists of new molecules that penetrate the protein shell of the virus and prevent genes from leaving the virus to infect the cell. It does not lead to resistance...

Big brains and dexterous hands

Primates with large brains can master more complex hand movements than those with smaller brains. However, fine motor skills such as using tools can take time to learn, and humans take the longest of all. Large-brained species such as humans and great apes do not actually learn more slowly than other primates but instead start later, researchers have shown.

How COVID-19 causes smell loss

Loss of smell, or anosmia, is one of the earliest and most commonly reported symptoms of COVID-19. A new study identifies the olfactory cell types most vulnerable to infection by the novel coronavirus. Surprisingly, sensory neurons involved in smell are not among the vulnerable cell types.

Neurons are genetically programmed to have long lives

Most neurons are created during embryonic development and have no ''backup'' after birth. Researchers have generally believed that their survival is determined nearly extrinsically, or by outside forces, such as the tissues and cells that neurons supply with nerve cells. Scientists have challenged this notion and reports the continuous survival of neurons is also intrinsically programmed during...

An origin story for a family of oddball meteorites

Most meteorites that have landed on Earth are fragments of planetesimals, the very earliest protoplanetary bodies in the solar system. Scientists have thought that these primordial bodies either completely melted early in their history or remained as piles of unmelted rubble.

An AI hiring firm promising to be bias-free wants to predict job-hopping

Since the onset of the pandemic, a growing number of companies have turned to AI to assist with their hiring. The most common involve using face-scanning algorithms, games, questions, or other evaluations to help companies determine which candidates to give an interview.  While activists and scholars warn that these screening tools can perpetuate discrimination, the makers themselves argue...

The Guardian view on singing and Covid-19: science needed for art to survive | Editorial

Facts and data are desperately required so that musicians can get back to entertaining the worldWhile the tentative resumption of the performing arts is officially allowed in England, singing, along with the playing of woodwind and brass instruments, is deemed a special case. Some serious early outbreaks of Covid-19 were associated with choirs and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and...

What Modern Sustainability Could Learn From a 200-Year-Old American Tradition

This article is excerpted from TIME: SUSTAINABILITY, available at retailers and on Amazon. In his book Walden, the American essayist Henry David Thoreau famously documented his attempts to live simply and “deliberately” on the edge of a lake in the woods of Massachusetts. While many today think of Thoreau’s memoir as a paean to a solitary existence, those who study and teach...

Project creates more powerful, versatile ultrafast laser pulse

Researchers describe a new device, the ''stretched-pulse soliton Kerr resonator,'' that creates an ultrafast laser pulse that is freed from the physical limits endemic to sources of laser light and the limits of the sources' wavelengths. Applications include spectroscopy, frequency synthesis, distance ranging, and pulse generation.

'Major' breakthrough in Covid-19 drug makes UK professors millionaires

Synairgen’s share price rises 540% on morning of news of successful drugs trialCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThree professors at the University of Southampton school of medicine have this week made a “major breakthrough” in the treatment of coronavirus patients and become paper millionaires at the same time.Almost two decades ago professors Ratko Djukanovic,...

Phage therapy shows potential for treating prosthetic joint infections

Bacteriophages, or phages, may play a significant role in treating complex bacterial infections in prosthetic joints, according to new Mayo Clinic research. The findings suggest phage therapy could provide a potential treatment for managing such infections, including those involving antibiotic-resistant microbes.

Wildfires Rage in Arctic Circle and Sea Ice Melts Amid Siberian Heatwave

(GENEVA) — The U.N. weather agency warned Friday that average temperatures in Siberia were 10 degrees Celsius (18 Fahrenheit) above average last month, a spate of exceptional heat that has fanned devastating fires in the Arctic Circle and contributed to a rapid depletion in ice sea off Russia’s Arctic coast. “The Arctic is heating more than twice as fast as the global average,...