Science Magazine – June 3, 2022: A 10th-century Maya structure at Chichen Itza, Mexico, is often called the Observatory for its expansive view of the sky and a design seemingly guided by key positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets. The historic Maya anchored their calendars and rituals to celestial events, and their astronomical knowledge is now coming into sharper focus thanks to new analyses of archaeological relics and insights from today’s Maya.
Category Archives: Science
Preview: New Scientist Magazine – June 4, 2022
Cover Preview: Nature Magazine – June 2, 2022
With six sets of chromosomes, the hexaploid cultivated oat (Avena sativa L.) has a complex evolutionary history. In this week’s issue, Nick Sirijovski and his colleagues present a high-quality reference genome for A. sativa alongside those for its close relatives the diploid Avena longiglumis and the tetraploid Avena insularis. By examining the three genomes, the researchers were able to trace genomic reorganizations in the crop’s evolution. They were also able to map the genes for important agronomic traits, highlighting gene families linked to human health and nutrition. With health and sustainability high on global agendas, the team hopes this new resource will bolster genomics-assisted breeding and trait studies to address these challenges and more.
Cover Preview: Nature Magazine – May 26, 2022
Fluid dynamics
Cilia are characterized by slender, threadlike projections, which are used by biological organisms to control fluid flows at the microscale. Attempts to mimic these structures and engineer cilia-like systems to have broad applications have proved problematic. In this week’s issue, Wei Wang and colleagues present electronically controlled artificial cilia that can be used to create flow patterns in near-surface liquids. The researchers use surface-mounted platinum strips, each about 50 micrometres long, 5 micrometres wide and 10 nanometres thick, and capped on one side with titanium. Applying an oscillating potential with an amplitude of around 1 volt to the cilia drives ions on to and off of the exposed platinum surface. These ions create asymmetric forces that generate a beating pattern that can be used to pump surface liquids in various flow geometries. The cover shows an artist’s impression of the artificial cilia in action.
Science & Medicine: What Are Risks Of Monkeypox?
The sudden surge of monkeypox cases outside Africa has alarmed public health authorities around the world. In Europe and North America it’s the first time community transmission has been recorded among people with no links to west or central Africa. So what is happening?
Ian Sample talks to virologist Oyewale Tomori about why monkeypox is flaring up, whether we should fear it, and what we can learn from countries such as Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which have been tackling this virus for decades.
Preview: New Scientist Magazine – May 28, 2022
Science: Fossil Mystery Solved, A Silk Mother Of Pearl, Bolivian Amazon
The puzzle of Palaeospondylus – Over a hundred years ago, archaeologists discovered fossils of the aquatic animal Palaeospondylus. But since then researchers have been unable to place where this animal sits on the tree of life. Now, new analysis of Palaeospondylus’s anatomy might help to solve this mystery.
08:18 Research Highlights
A strong, silk-based version of mother of pearl, and the parrots that use their heads when climbing.
Research Highlight: Silk imitates mother of pearl for a tough, eco-friendly material
Research Highlight: A ‘forbidden’ body type? These parrots flout the rules
10:51 How lasers revealed an ancient Amazonian civilization
Archaeologists have used LiDAR to uncover evidence of an ancient civilization buried in the Bolivian Amazon. The team’s work suggests that this area was not as sparsely populated in pre-Hispanic times as previously thought.
Research article: Prümers et al.
News and Views: Large-scale early urban settlements in Amazonia
Nature Video: Lost beneath the leaves: Lasers reveal an ancient Amazonian civilisation
16:21 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, the debate surrounding the first transplant of pig kidneys into humans, and the plants grown in lunar soil.
Nature News: First pig kidneys transplanted into people: what scientists think
Reviews: Top New Science Books (Nature Magazine)
Beyond the Hype
Fiona Fox Elliott & Thompson (2022)
It is 20 years since journalist Fiona Fox set up the influential Science Media Centre in London, to persuade more scientists to engage with the media. This absorbing, detailed book is her memoir of that period — not, as she makes clear, an “objective record”. Separate chapters deal with controversies such as “Climategate”, “Frankenfoods”, the politicization of science, sexism in research and how the current pandemic epitomizes an “age-old dichotomy” between the need for simple public messaging and the messy complexity of science.
Bitch
Lucy Cooke Doubleday (2022)
“Try explaining the need to be passive” to a female spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), writes zoologist and author Lucy Cooke, “and she’ll laugh in your face, after she’s bitten it off”. She is dominant in rough play, scent‑marking and territorial defence. By analysing numerous animals, this sparkling attack on scientific sexism draws on many scientists — of multiple genders — to correct stereotypes of the active male versus passive female. Many such concepts were initiated by Charles Darwin, who is nevertheless Cooke’s “scientific idol”.
Beyond Coding
Marina Umaschi Bers MIT Press (2022)
Early-childhood technologist Marina Bers developed the KIBO robot, which young children can program with coloured, barcoded wooden blocks to learn computer coding. It is the chief character in her engaging book, which presents four key ways to consider coding for kids: as a “playground”; “another language”; a “palette of virtues”; and a “bridge”. The palette includes infusing ethics and moral education into programming. The bridge involves finding points of connection between diverse cultural, ethnic and religious groups.
Nuclear Bodies
Robert A. Jacobs Yale Univ. Press (2022)
The Japanese word hibakusha originally described the victims of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. Since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power-plant disaster, the term has been widely extended to denote worldwide victims of radiation exposure. Yet it does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary: evidence that “these ‘global hibakusha’ have been largely invisible to us”, because of their relative political insignificance, notes Hiroshima-based historian Robert Jacobs in this grimly important analysis of the cold war.
Travels with Trilobites
Andy Secher Columbia Univ. Press (2022)
The fascinating marine invertebrate known as a trilobite belongs to the beginning of complex animal life. It appeared some 521 million years ago, and endured for more than 250 million years, evolving more than 25,000 recognized species. Palaeontologist Andy Secher coedits the trilobite website for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He owns more than 4,000 trilobite fossils, many of which are pictured in this paean to “the omnipresent monarchs of the world’s ancient se
Boomers Daily 