Category Archives: Science

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – July 6, 2023

July 5, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

nature Magazine -July 6, 2023 issue: Shape shifters – DNA origami allows useful supramolecular structures to be created from templates. But the process has its limitations, with most structures confined to two configurations: folded or unfolded.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/05xMUBHwffsMOYP95KpCUQ

Fungi bacon and insect burgers: a guide to the proteins of the future

Stylised illustration showing a shop display of alternative protein products with signs saying 'New' and 'Try today'.

Humanity needs to eat less meat. Here are seven alternatives.

Would you eat a burger enriched with mealworms? Fake bacon sliced from a mass of fermented fungi? Milk proteins extruded by microbes? Maybe you already have. Dozens of companies are now banking on these alternatives to animal protein becoming a regular part of your diet.

Mini-antibodies given mighty powers can stave off influenza

Complexes formed from ‘nanobodies’ and an antiviral drug halt infection in its tracks.

A dynamic duo comprising an antiviral drug joined to an antibody fragment provides strong protection against the two main types of influenza that infect humans, according to research in mice.

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Science Magazine – June 30, 2023

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Science Magazine – June 30, 2023 issue: Vapor from liquid nitrogen wafts over a rat kidney awaiting a groundbreaking preservation method at the University of Minnesota. Scientists there have learned how to cool the organ to –150°C and rewarm it while minimizing freezing damage, enabling it to work after being transplanted.

Long-sought hum of gravitational waves from giant black holes heard for first time

illustration of pulsar on gravitational waves from supermassive black holes.

Subtle shifts in stellar signals reveal pervasive waves from mergers of giant black ho

Frozen in time

Scientists are learning how to cryopreserve living tissues, organs, and even whole organisms, then bring them back to life

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – June 29, 2023

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nature Magazine -June 29, 2023 issue: RNA molecules can adopt complex 3D structures, but whether DNA can self-assemble into similar 3D folded structures has been less clear. In this week’s issue, Luiz Passalacqua and his colleagues use a DNA mimic of green fluorescent protein (GFP) to investigate this question.

Underwater volcano triggered the most intense lightning ever recorded

The huge eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai volcano generated more than 2,600 lightning flashes per minute.

Open-source AI chatbots are booming — what does this mean for researchers?

A green unlocked padlock symbol is pictured amongst a binary code sequence on a computer screen.

Freely accessible large language models have accelerated the pace of innovation, computer scientists say.

The craze for generative artificial intelligence (AI) that began with the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT shows no sign of abating. But while large technology companies such as OpenAI and Google have captured the attention of the wider public — and are finding ways to monetize their AI tools — a quieter revolution is being waged by researchers and software engineers at smaller organizations.

Books, Magazines, Reviews, Science

Nature Reviews: Top New Science Books – June 2023

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nature Magazine Science Book Reviews – June 23, 2023: The ocean’s engine, the science of reading, the mystery of moths… Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.

Blue Machine

By Helen Czerski (2023)

Few scientific subjects are so vast, and yet oceans “often seem invisible”, remarks physicist and broadcaster Helen Czerski; the workings of the seas got no mention in her physics training. Her profound, sparkling global ocean voyage mingles history and culture, natural history, geography, animals and people, to understand the “blue machine”: the ocean engine powered by sunlight that shunts energy from Equator to poles.

The Science of Reading

By Adrian Johns (2023)

Starting in the 1880s with US psychologist James Cattell, the experimental study of reading dealt in extremes, notes information historian Adrian Johns in his intriguing analysis. Researchers devised mechanical ways to measure quantities that were nearly imperceptible, such as pauses in motion as an eye scans prose. Today, scanners can measure brain activity, but the reading process remains mostly imponderable.

Meetings with Moths

By Katty Baird (2023)

Ecologist Katty Baird’s fly-specialist friend grumbles that butterflies should be renamed ‘butter-moths’. Butterflies and moths belong to one order, and are not always easy to tell apart. However, most butterflies rest with wings shut, whereas resting moths display theirs. The garden tiger moth (Arctia caja), for example, has “forewings a mosaic of darkest brown and white which conceal shocking scarlet underwings spotted with denim blue”.

A History of Ancient Egypt, Volume 3

By John Romer (2023)

This deeply informed history by Egyptologist John Romer focuses on the New Kingdom, 1550–1185 bc, including rulers Nefertiti, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II: crucial figures in popular perception. Calling it the “most fantasized period in all of ancient history”, Romer criticizes much scholarship on the era for being “firmly stuck” in the nineteenth-century European vision of ancient Egypt, launched by Jean-François Champollion in the 1820s.

In the Herbarium

By Maura C. Flannery (2023)

London’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew are open to all. Not so Kew’s Herbarium, a collection of more than seven million plant specimens reserved for academic visitors. Access to most herbaria is restricted: biologist Maura Flannery knew “almost nothing” about them until 2010, when a US curator took her behind the scenes at one and she fell in love with them.

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Science Magazine – June 23, 2023

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Science Magazine – June 23, 2023 issue:

Human stem cells turned into detailed lab replicas of embryos

Mock embryos created by multiple groups recapitulate developmental events beyond implantation

Into the dark

A European space telescope sets off to discover the nature of dark energy—the biggest ingredient in the universe

Could chatbots help devise the next pandemic virus?

An MIT class exercise suggests AI tools can be used to order a bioweapon, but some are skeptical

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – June 22, 2023

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nature Magazine -June 22, 2023 issue: 00:45 Why losing the Y chromosome makes bladder cancer more aggressive; How pollution particles ferry influenza virus deep into the lungs, and why artificial lights could dazzle glow worms into extinction.

Laos cave fossils prompt rethink of
human migration map

A skull fragment and shin bone suggest that early modern humans might have passed through southeast Asia earlier than thought.

Researchers laboriously sifted through clay, bucket by bucket, using their fingers to hunt for bone fragments

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Science Magazine – June 16, 2023

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Science Magazine – June 16, 2023 issue: A wild little penguin (Eudyptula minor) stands silhouetted against the city of Melbourne, Australia. Increasing levels of light pollution are having adverse effects on humans and the natural world.

Losing the darkness

For most of history, the only lights made by humans were naked flames. Daily life was governed by the times of sunrise and sunset, outdoor nighttime activities depended on the phase of the Moon, and viewing the stars was a common and culturally important activity. Today, the widespread deployment of outdoor electric lighting means that the night is no longer dark for most people—few can see the Milky Way from their homes. Outdoor lighting has many legitimate uses that have benefited society. However, it often leads to illumination at times and locations that are unnecessary, excessive, intrusive, or harmful: light pollution.

Potential for recovery of declining reef sharks

Data on shark populations in coral reefs raise concern and hope for recovery

Sharks and their relatives are some of the most threatened vertebrates on Earth, with approximately one-third estimated or assessed as threatened with extinction (1). This is a major problem because as predators that help keep the food web in balance, these animals play a variety of vitally important ecological roles (2) and in doing so help to keep healthy many ecosystems that humans depend on. Coral reefs provide homes for countless fish species that are vital for fisheries and are therefore an especially important ecosystem for humans—and one where the decline of shark populations seems to be especially acute

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – June 15, 2023

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nature Magazine – June 15, 2023 issue: In this week’s issue, Abhinav Kandala and his colleagues show that it is still possible for a quantum computer to outperform a classical computer, by mitigating, rather than correcting, the errors.

DeepMind AI creates algorithms that sort data faster than those built by people

A replica of a game between 'Go' player Lee Se-Dol and a Google-developed super-computer, in Seoul, Korea, 2016.

The technology developed by DeepMind that plays Go and chess can also help to write code.

An artificial intelligence (AI) system based on Google DeepMind’s AlphaZero AI created algorithms that, when translated into the standard programming language C++, can sort data up to three times as fast as human-generated versions.

“We were a bit shocked,” said Daniel Mankowitz, a computer scientist at DeepMind who led the work. “We didn’t believe it at first.”

Ukraine dam collapse: what scientists are watching

Maxar satellite imagery of the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power facility. — Large sections of the Kakhovka dam have collapsed, unleashing catastrophic floods. Credit: Satellite image (c) 2023 Maxar Technologies via Getty

Extensive flooding could have severe consequences for farming, health and the environment.

The 66-year-old Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River in south Ukraine collapsed on the morning of 6 June after a suspected explosion, triggering a catastrophic humanitarian and environmental crisis.

Magazines, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Science Review: Scientific American – July 2023 Issue

June 13, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Scientific American – July 2023 Issue: Smart, adaptable and loud, parrots are thriving in cities far outside their native ranges.

Parrots Are Taking Over the World

By Ryan F. Mandelbaum

At Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery the living get as much attention as the dead. Groundskeepers maintain the 478-acre historic landmark as an arboretum and habitat for more than 200 breeding and migratory bird species. But many visiting wildlife lovers aren’t interested in those native birds. They’re at the entryway, their binoculars trained on the spire atop its Gothic Revival arches. They’ve come to see the parrots.

Extreme Heat Is Deadlier Than Hurricanes, Floods and Tornadoes Combined

When dangerous heat waves hit cities, better risk communication could save lives

By Terri Adams-Fuller

Exposure to extreme heat can damage the central nervous system, the brain and other vital organs, and the effects can set in with terrifying speed, resulting in heat exhaustion, heat cramps or heatstroke. It also exacerbates existing medical conditions such as hypertension and heart disease and is especially perilous for people who suffer from chronic diseases. The older population is at high risk, and children, who may not be able to regulate their body temperatures as effectively as adults in extreme conditions, are also vulnerable.

Brain Waves Synchronize when People Interact

The minds of social species are strikingly resonant

By Lydia Denworth

Birds, Books, Reviews, Science, Wildlife

Book Reviews: ‘What An Owl Knows’ By Jennifer Ackerman (June 2023)

June 11, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

With their unnerving stare and eerie ways, it is small wonder that owls provoke superstition—and flights of fancy, as in the owl who sails with the pussycat in Edward Lear’s poem. In myths, stories and art, “owls speak of wisdom and luck, of misfortune and malevolence”, the author writes. They were associated with Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom.

The Economist (June 11, 2023) – With a face as round as the first letter of its name and a stance as upright as the last—along with human-like features and a haunting cry—the owl has a mystical, mythical perch in the imagination. Difficult to spot because of their mostly nocturnal habits, and sporting cryptic plumage that helps them melt into landscapes, owls, writes Jennifer Ackerman, are the most enigmatic of birds.

Ms Ackerman is a natural-history writer who specialises in the avian world. In “What an Owl Knows” she offers an absorbing ear-tuft-to-tail appreciation of the raptor that Mary Oliver, a poet, called a “god of plunge and blood”. Owls, it seems, know a lot. Ms Ackerman draws on recent research to explain what and how.

To begin with, she stresses, there is no generic owl, but rather a diversity of some 260 species found on every continent bar Antarctica. They stretch from the fire-hydrant-sized Blakiston’s Fish Owl to the Elf Owl, which could fit in your palm. Most, but not all, are nocturnal.

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Jennifer Ackerman has been writing about science and nature for almost three decades. Her most recent book, What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds, explores recent findings on the biology, behavior, and conservation of owls. Her previous book, The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think, was a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Her New York Times bestselling book, The Genius of Birds, has been translated into twenty-five languages and was named one of the best nonfiction books of 2016 by The Wall Street Journal, a Best Science Book by NPR’s Science Friday, and a Nature Book of the Year by The Sunday Times.