220 articles from TUESDAY 5.1.2021

Hotels that promote women perceived as fairer, less discriminatory

Hotel managers have something in common beyond their reputations for charming dispositions and excellent listening skills—they're predominantly men, despite women making up the majority of the accommodations workforce. New research led by the University of Houston Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management suggests hotel companies that promote a woman over an equally qualified...

Identifying Canada's key conservation hot spots highlights problem

To stop biodiversity loss, Canada recently committed to protecting 30% of its land and sea by 2030. But making conservation decisions about where to locate new protected areas is complicated. It depends on data both about biodiversity and about a range of benefits (e.g. freshwater, climate regulation, recreation) that people get from nature. Surprisingly, despite the size of the country, new...

Some English bulldogs thought to have cancer may have newly identified syndrome

Some English bulldogs diagnosed with a common cancer may instead have a newly described, non-cancerous syndrome called polyclonal B‐cell lymphocytosis. The discovery was made by Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers at Colorado State University during a study to better understand B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (BCLL). The team published their findings in the Journal of Veterinary...

Two months at sea to explore the Southern Ocean's contribution to climate regulation

A team coordinated by two CNRS researchers and involving colleagues from Sorbonne University, Toulouse III–Paul Sabatier University, the University of Western Brittany and Aix-Marseille University, will traverse the Southern Ocean from January 11 to March 8, 2021, aboard the Marion Dufresne II research vessel chartered by the French Oceanographic Fleet. Their goal is to better understand the...

China blocks entry to WHO team studying Covid's origins

Officials say visas not yet approved for World Health Organization delegation due to visit WuhanCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageChina has blocked the arrival of a team from the World Health Organization investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, claiming that their visas had not yet been approved even as some members of the group were on their way.The...

UK Covid jab rollout may not hit target pace for two weeks, say officials

News narrows chances of hitting goal of protecting more than 13 million of most vulnerable people by 15 FebruaryCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageHealth officials have warned that supply “delays” mean the Covid vaccination programme is only set to hit its target pace in the second half of this month, narrowing the chances of hitting the goal of protecting more than...

The Guardian view on Boris Johnson's mutant virus plan: needs more than PR | Editorial

The prime minister aims to be credible rather than accountable in a time of Covid. That’s a mistakeIt was during the Vietnam war that the euphemism “credibility gap” was coined to describe the Lyndon Johnson administration. The phrase was used instead of saying what everyone thought – that the US government was systematically lying. The president’s team reasoned that to restore...

This avocado armchair could be the future of AI

With GPT-3, OpenAI showed that a single deep-learning model could be trained to use language in a variety of ways simply by throwing it vast amounts of text. It then showed that by swapping text for pixels, the same approach could be used to train an AI to complete half-finished images. GPT-3 mimics how humans use words; Image GPT-3 predicts what we see.     Now OpenAI has...

Routine eye scans may give clues to cognitive decline in diabetes

As they age, people with diabetes are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and other cognitive disorders than are people without diabetes. Scientists now have shown that routine eye imaging can identify changes in the retina that may be associated with cognitive disorders in older people with type 1 diabetes. These results may open up a relatively easy method for early detection of cognitive...

Identifying Canada's key conservation hot spots highlights problem

To stop biodiversity loss, Canada recently committed to protecting 30% of its land and sea by 2030. But making conservation decisions about where to locate new protected areas is complicated. It depends on data both about biodiversity and about a range of benefits (e.g. freshwater, climate regulation, recreation) that people get from nature. Despite the size of the country, new mapping suggests...

Climate change caused mangrove collapse in Oman

Most of the mangrove forests on the coasts of Oman disappeared about 6,000 years ago. Until now, the reason for this was not entirely clear. A current study of the University of Bonn (Germany) now sheds light on this: It indicates that the collapse of coastal ecosystems was caused by climatic changes. In contrast, falling sea level or overuse by humans are not likely to be the reasons. The speed...

Climate change caused mangrove collapse in Oman

Most of the mangrove forests on the coasts of Oman disappeared about 6,000 years ago. Until now, the reason for this was not entirely clear. A current study now sheds light on this: It indicates that the collapse of coastal ecosystems was caused by climatic changes.