MetaFilter posts tagged with science

For those of us who find eating ASMR videos horrifying

not_the_water — Wed, 26 May 2021 15:59:47 -0800

Research reveals why some find the sound of others eating so irritating: Scans show some brains have a stronger link between the part that processes sound and that which controls the mouth and throat (The Guardian): "What we are suggesting is that in misophonia the trigger sound activates the motor area even though the person is only listening to the sound," said Dr Sukhbinder Kumar, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University. "It makes them feel like the sounds are intruding into them." Study abstract (JNeurosci): The motor basis for misophonia Previously: a feeling of wanting to punch people when I heard them eating, The Hatred of Sound

TikTok teen points to inside elbow, bites lip: "Heeeeeeeesch"

cortex — Wed, 26 May 2021 07:55:05 -0800

A shape's Heesch number is, roughly, the number of times it can be surrounded by copies of itself. 0 is boring: it just can't. Infinity is boring: it tiles the plane. Positive but finite? Now that's the good stuff. Craig S. Kaplan has been looking for specimens and has turned up a bunch of new examples recently. This is his follow-up on a four part series about Heesch numbers from a few years ago, which does a good job of explaining both the idea itself and his and others' processes for searching for specimens that show that interesting positive-but-finite behavior: part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.

How Washington Got Hooked on Flying Saucers

infinite intimation — Mon, 24 May 2021 12:23:50 -0800

The threat narrative was a brilliant bit of framing, turning a story of poltergeist hunters battling a cabal of demon-believers into a national security issue. But the real story isn't disclosure, and it's stranger than any UFO sighting. Behind the creamy pages of high-end magazines and the marble columns of the Capitol, the media elite and Congress are being played by a small, loosely connected group of people with bizarre ideas about science. It's easy to dismiss UFOs as a fantasy or a fad, but the money, the connections, and the power wielded by a group of UFO believers—embedded in the defense industry and bent on supplanting material science with a pseudoscientific mysticism straight from the History Channel's Ancient Aliens—poses a danger to America more real than a flying saucer.

Surveillance Capitalism in the Library and Lab

zenzenobia — Sun, 23 May 2021 08:17:18 -0800

"For some time now, the major academic publishers have been fundamentally changing their business model with significant implications for research: aggregation and the reuse or resale of user traces have become relevant aspects of their business. Some publishers now explicitly regard themselves as information analysis specialists. Their business model is shifting from content provision to data analytics. This involves the tracking –i.e. recording and storage –of the usage data generated by researchers (i.e. personalised profiles, access and usage data, time spent using information sources, etc.) when they utilise information services such as when carrying out literature searches." In the meantime, academic publishers get bigger through mergers and acquisitions. Clarivate is acquiring ProQuest which potentially makes library systems party to yet another research-support-and-data-gobbling "integrated enterprise research platform" to rival to other data-devouring behemoths. It also is likely to create more silly brand names haunting academia and the sciences, like Esploro, Symplectic, and Converis.

I promise this story about microwaves is interesting.

Sokka shot first — Mon, 17 May 2021 12:17:40 -0800

I found an article that said "The microwave was invented to heat hamsters humanely in 1950s experiments." And I thought, no it wasn't. ...was it?

A body without a plan

They sucked his brains out! — Mon, 17 May 2021 11:08:47 -0800

From Its Myriad Tips: the LRB reviews Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life, exploring the worlds of mushrooms, lichen, and yeasts — and our relationships with them

squidgy

not_the_water — Wed, 12 May 2021 09:56:43 -0800

New, incredibly detailed videos capture how the brain jiggles inside the skull as blood and other fluids flow through the squidgy organ (LiveScience): gif, Youtube. "Really, it's a very small motion," typically between about 0.002 inches and 0.015 inches (50 to 400 micrometers) at most, in terms of how far the tissue deforms [...] Making the movements appear about 25 times larger allowed the researchers to assess that motion in greater detail, tracking its direction and amplitude with precision." "Stunning" Brain Movement Detail Possible with 3D Amplified MRI (Diagnostic Imaging)

There's no such thing as a tree

curious nu — Sun, 09 May 2021 16:45:16 -0800

Why do trees keep happening?

Scientists aren't infallible: airborne transmission of Covid

russilwvong — Fri, 07 May 2021 22:20:15 -0800

Airborne transmission is driving Covid, not droplet transmission, which means that certain precautions (avoiding indoor spaces, wearing a mask, ventilation) matter much more than others (staying six feet apart, cleaning surfaces). The WHO and CDC just updated their websites this week to reflect the importance of airborne transmission. Zeynep Tufekci: Why did it take so long for scientists to accept that Covid is airborne? Twitter thread. One part of the answer: in 1910, Dr. Charles Chapin attributed the efficacy of social distancing to droplet transmission. This became the conventional wisdom. And there's often "a higher standard of proof for theories that challenge conventional wisdom than for those that support it." Lancet paper on airborne transmission of Covid, April 2021. Radio interview with David Fisman, one of the co-authors - in February 2020 he had wrongly believed it wasn't airborne. El Pais illustrates airborne transmission in indoor spaces, October 2020. On Twitter, Jose-Luis Jiminez explains Chapin's attribution of the efficacy of social distancing to droplet transmission, September 2020. Erin Bromage on Covid risks, including aerosol transmission, May 2020. Bonus: fecal aerosol transmission, September 2020.

Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer

kliuless — Tue, 04 May 2021 08:54:09 -0800

How Humanity Gave Itself an Extra Life [ungated link] - "Between 1920 and 2020, the average human life span doubled. How did we do it? Science mattered — but so did activism." (NYT, PBS)

The best estimates suggest that as many as 100 million people died from the Great Influenza outbreak that eventually circled the globe. To put that in comparison, roughly three million people have died from Covid-19 over the past year, on a planet with four times as many people. There was another key difference between these two pandemics. The H1N1 outbreak of 1918-19 was unusually lethal among young adults. [W]hat followed was a century of unexpected life... How did this great doubling of the human life span happen? When the history textbooks do touch on the subject of improving health, they often nod to three critical breakthroughs, all of them presented as triumphs of the scientific method: vaccines, germ theory and antibiotics. But the real story is far more complicated. Those breakthroughs might have been initiated by scientists, but it took the work of activists and public intellectuals and legal reformers to bring their benefits to everyday people. From this perspective, the doubling of human life span is an achievement that is closer to something like universal suffrage or the abolition of slavery: progress that required new social movements, new forms of persuasion and new kinds of public institutions to take root. And it required lifestyle changes that ran throughout all echelons of society: washing hands, quitting smoking, getting vaccinated, wearing masks during a pandemic.

also btw...

How Covid Upended a Century of Patterns in U.S. Deaths [ungated link] - "The U.S. death rate in 2020 was the highest above normal ever recorded in the country — even surpassing the calamity of the 1918 flu pandemic." (NYT)

Malaria vaccine trial raises hopes of beating disease

Sugar not so sweet in COVID.

daksya — Tue, 04 May 2021 05:37:17 -0800

Sugar in COVID-19 (YT) from the Blue Brain Project at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland Referenced in Elevated Blood Glucose Levels as a Primary Risk Factor for the Severity of COVID-19 We developed machine learning models to mine 240,000 scientific papers openly accessible in the CORD-19 database, and constructed knowledge graphs to synthesize the extracted information and navigate the collective knowledge in an attempt to search for a potential common underlying reason for disease severity. Excerpts: The evidence that patients with elevated blood glucose or IGT are more prone to severe primary infection and COVID-19 complications and death in the literature is overwhelming. Elevated glucose can not only explain much of the variance in COVID-19 severity as a correlative biomarker, but because virtually every action of glucose in biochemical, metabolic and homeostatic pathways seems to serve only to facilitate the infection, it could also be a primary determining factor in the severity of the disease. Controlling glucose levels could therefore reduce the severity of the disease and consequently also the mortality rate. The model suggests that the viral replication rate for low viral loads in the hyperglycemic case is equivalent to the rate of replication induced by high viral loads in the normoglycemic condition. It also suggests that the hyperglycemic condition can further amplify the replication rates induced by any viral load by three to four times compare to normal condition. Even at a late stage of the pandemic, approaches to detect and manage abnormal glucose metabolism and administer appropriate glucose-lowering drugs or diets, are indicated to help weaken the infection. Metformin, an old, safe and FDA approved drug, is an interesting glucose management drug that also has multiple other effects that could be beneficial in the management of COVID-19. Metformin not only reduces blood glucose levels and clearance following a bolus of glucose, but also has anti-inflammatory properties as well as cardio-vascular protective effects (i.e. anti-thrombotic).

The Hidden Science Making Batteries Better, Cheaper and Everywhere

kliuless — Mon, 03 May 2021 08:42:11 -0800

How Batteries Work: Inside The Batteries Powering Your Car, Phone and More - "From electric vehicles to your cell phone, lithium ion batteries have evolved quickly over the past few years. Bloomberg Green charted the evolution of their makeup and how they work." (Bloomberg: The Next Generation of Batteries | How a New Generation of Batteries Will Change the World) Lex in depth: a solid case for the next generation of batteries - "Solid state batteries are safer and use fewer raw materials. Are they the answer to technology's power problem and a threat to Tesla's dominance?" (FT) Inside QuantumScape's Secret Battery Lab and Its $20 Billion Breakthrough - "QuantumScape says its technology is ready to move from the lab to VW's dealerships. But this secretive startup is very familiar with failure." (Bloomberg) Elon Musk's Comments Show How QuantumScape Might Never Succeed - "Assuming that the final QuantumScape cell uses 50 layers, and 2,500 are needed to power a single-vehicle (Tesla's Model 3 has 3,700 cells with 50 to 100 layers), then per vehicle, QuantumScape will have to manufacture 125,000 layers of the separator." Ex-Tesla CTO JB Straubel's Redwood Materials tackles battery recycling - "Former Tesla CTO and the mastermind behind many of Tesla's core technologies, JB Straubel, started Redwood Materials in 2017 to help address the need for more raw materials and to solve the problem of e-waste. The company recycles end-of-life batteries and then supplies battery makers and auto companies with raw materials in short supply as EV production surges around the world." World's largest compressed air grid 'batteries' will store up to 10GWh - "California is set to be home to two new compressed-air energy storage facilities – each claiming the crown for the world's largest non-hydro energy storage system. Developed by Hydrostor, the facilities will have an output of 500 MW and be capable of storing 4 GWh of energy."

Artificial atoms: quasiparticle designer matter

kliuless — Sat, 01 May 2021 08:26:47 -0800

The Joy of Condensed Matter - "Hard times in fundamental physics got you down? Let's talk excitons."[1]

We are living in the golden age of condensed matter physics. But first, what is "fundamental" physics? It's a tricky term. You might think any truly revolutionary development in physics counts as fundamental. But in fact physicists use this term in a more precise, narrowly delimited way. One of the goals of physics is to figure out some laws that, at least in principle, we could use to predict everything that can be predicted about the physical universe. The search for these laws is fundamental physics... Unfortunately, progress on these questions has been very slow since the 1990s. Luckily fundamental physics is not all of physics, and today it is no longer the most exciting part of physics. There is still plenty of mind-blowing new physics being done. And a lot of it—though by no means all—is condensed matter physics.

also btw...

See World's First Video of a Space-Time Crystal - "In 2012, the Nobel Prize winner in physics Frank Wilczek discovered the symmetry of matter in time. He is considered the discoverer of these so-called time crystals, although as a theorist he predicted them only hypothetically. Since then, several scientists have searched for materials in which the phenomenon is observed."
What is Reality? - "Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek investigates the ideas that form our understanding of the universe: time, space, matter, energy, complexity, and complementarity."
Physicists Just Found 4 New Subatomic Particles That May Test The Laws of Nature - "The LHC has now discovered 59 new hadrons. These include the tetraquarks most recently discovered, but also new mesons and baryons. All these new particles contain heavy quarks such as 'charm' and 'bottom'. These hadrons are interesting to study. They tell us what nature considers acceptable as a bound combination of quarks, even if only for very short times."[2]
How to Rewrite the Laws of Physics in the Language of Impossibility - "Chiara Marletto is trying to build a master theory — a set of ideas so fundamental that all other theories would spring from it. Her first step: Invoke the impossible."

I am not throwin' away my shot

They sucked his brains out! — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 11:17:48 -0800

How Pfizer makes its Covid-19 vaccine

Now on to negative probabilities :P

kliuless — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 03:11:11 -0800

Physicists Prove That the Imaginary Part of Quantum Mechanics Really Exists! - "A Polish-Chinese-Canadian research team has proven that the imaginary part of quantum mechanics can be observed in action in the real world."

Using a device with lasers and crystals, the game master binds two photons into one of two quantum states, absolutely requiring the use of complex numbers to distinguish between them. Then, one photon is sent to Alice and the other to Bob. Each of them measures their photon and then communicates with the other to establish any existing correlations.

also btw...

Bacteria know how to exploit quantum mechanics, study finds - "A group of scientists at the University of Chicago discovered that certain bacteria deliberately use the rules of quantum mechanics to save their photosynthetic equipment from damage by oxygen."[*]
New Research Reveals That Quantum Physics Causes Mutations in Our DNA - "The research team found that atoms of hydrogen, which are very light, provide the bonds that hold the two strands of the DNA's double helix together and can, under certain conditions, behave like spread-out waves that can exist in multiple locations at once, thanks to proton tunneling."
Do quantum effects play a role in consciousness? - "The role of biophotons in the brain is a growing area of research in neurobiology – and where there are photons there might be quantum mechanics."

Long time till spring

clew — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 14:29:31 -0800

A seedbank-testing experiment that started in 1879 has decades to run. It's a simple experiment, but the simple things are hard: neither losing the seeds nor digging them up too early. From the point of view of the *seeds* the simple thing -- don't germinate until you can grow -- is also getting pretty hard. The article mentions two more long (but not *as* long) experiments, and the Pitch Drop is still dripping. The Pitch and the underground seeds are noticeable for being cheap to set up and fairly cheap to run, unlike free air CO2 enrichment, but having little chance of publication for the first researcher.

"Does your cat's butthole really touch all the surfaces in your home?"

mpark — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 07:03:22 -0800

A 6th-grader tackles the age-old question. With lipstick.

minimal cells

kliuless — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 05:43:08 -0800

Scientists Create Simple Synthetic Cell That Grows and Divides Normally - "New findings shed light on mechanisms controlling the most basic processes of life."[1]

Five years ago, scientists created a single-celled synthetic organism that, with only 473 genes, was the simplest living cell ever known. However, this bacteria-like organism behaved strangely when growing and dividing, producing cells with wildly different shapes and sizes.[2] Now, scientists have identified seven genes that can be added to tame the cells' unruly nature, causing them to neatly divide into uniform orbs... Identifying these genes is an important step toward engineering synthetic cells that do useful things. Such cells could act as small factories that produce drugs, foods and fuels; detect disease and produce drugs to treat it while living inside the body; and function as tiny computers.

also btw...

An on-off switch for gene editing - "New, reversible CRISPR method can control gene expression while leaving underlying DNA sequence unchanged."[3]
The incredible bacterial 'homing missiles' that scientists want to harness - "A Berkeley Lab-led team is digging into the bizarre bacteria-produced nanomachines that could fast-track microbiome science."[4]
Kati Kariko Helped Shield the World From the Coronavirus - "Collaborating with devoted colleagues, Dr. Kariko laid the groundwork for the mRNA vaccines turning the tide of the pandemic."[5]

Mind the Gap, Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin, Update

Iris Gambol — Fri, 16 Apr 2021 11:50:40 -0800

Mind the Gap, a handbook of clinical signs and symptoms in black and brown skin, is available to be downloaded online at no cost. Designed as part of a student-staff partnership project, Mind the Gap was created by medical student, Malone Mukwende, Senior Lecturer in Diversity and Medical Education, Margot Turner, and Clinical Lecturer in Clinical Skills, Dr Peter Tamony. The booklet can now be downloaded as an ebook on the Black and Brown Skin website, created separately by Malone. (St George's, University of London) WE NEED YOU! If you think there is something missing from this handbook and would like to see more conditions included then we are are always looking for contributors. In particular we would welcome clinical signs for the chest, abdomen, and lower limbs (vascular). (BlackandBrownSkin) It's more than just a handbook. It's a movement for change. - Malone Mukwende, Founder, BlackandBrownSkin. Mind the Gap, last year on MetaFilter.

Advanced training for the dance your PhD contest

eotvos — Sat, 10 Apr 2021 13:50:24 -0800

Professor André K. Isaacs' lab members spend most of their time solving problems in organic chemistry. They also make short dance videos and sometimes make other short films. There's also a recent short text interview.

WIRED offering non-journalists a residency program

Bella Donna — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 09:02:57 -0800

"Between a pandemic, climate change, and advances in technology that continue to reshape almost every way of life, the past year has been a bellwether for work in the US. At WIRED, we believe some of the people best situated to cover this rapid evolution—from growing pains to genius pivots and everything in between—are the people who know those industries from the inside. That's why we're launching a new program called the WIRED Resilience Residency." Last month Wired magazine announced that it is "looking for new voices to provide an insider perspective on rapidly changing industries." "Geared toward professionals whose own careers have been upended by these forces, the Resilience Residency offers a unique opportunity for non-journalists to report powerful stories from their changing fields and start new conversations about the future. Over six months, beginning in June, residents will collaborate with WIRED's award-winning editorial team on ambitious storytelling projects about their industries. An artist could report on how performers are reinventing theater, dance, and live music. An urban planner could explore how cities are actually changing as a result of the pandemic. These projects can take many forms, including written features, photo essays, data visualizations, podcasts, videos, social media experiments, and beyond." Will this be a form of citizen journalism? Dunno. The publication will publish residents' work on its channels and residents "will become well versed in WIRED's reporting and editorial standards, receive feedback on their work, and work with experienced members of our staff." The deadline to submit materials for the program is 11:59 pm PST on May 16, 2021. Individuals from underrepresented communities, as well as from industries not covered regularly by the magazine are encouraged to apply. Microsoft is bankrolling the effort, which will be editorially independent, according to the announcement. Those accepted into the program, which will be remote, will be treated as freelance contributors and paid a flat fee of $24,000. The program wants candidates who have experienced how technology and science are changing their industries, who have something to say about it, and who have worked in their specific industry for at least a few years. Previously: Blog people, Wikinewsies, and other citizen journalists (from 2005)

Opioid Industry Documents Archive Launched

Bella Donna — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 10:47:58 -0800

On March 24, UC San Francisco and Johns Hopkins University announced the launch of "the Opioid Industry Documents Archive, a digital repository of publicly disclosed documents from recent judgments, settlements, and ongoing lawsuits concerning the opioid crisis. The documents come from government litigation against pharmaceutical companies, including opioid manufacturers and distributors related to their contributions to the deadly epidemic, as well as litigation taking place in federal court on behalf of thousands of cities and counties in the United States." As the home page for the Opioid Industry Documents Archive states, "The opioid epidemic is the worst drug epidemic in our nation's history, and nothing is more important to those who have been impacted than the truth–full transparency regarding how the epidemic occurred and how further harms can be abated." The archive currently consists of 3,300 documents, including emails, memos, presentations, sales reports, budgets, audit reports, Drug Enforcement Administration briefings, meeting agendas and minutes, expert witness reports, and depositions of drug company executives. The archive's ultimate goal is to consolidate all opioid litigation documents–and potentially additional information from sources such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, professional societies, and individuals and family members directly impacted by the epidemic–into a universally accessible and easy-to-use digital archive. The archive includes documents that referring to consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which recently agreed to pay $573 million to settle investigations into its role in the opioid crisis. That these documents have been made public may be the result of work by a group of medical historians. In 2019, "35 historians from universities including Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins and Yale said in a Sept. 12 filing with U.S. District (sic) Dan Aaron Polster in Ohio that the documents are necessary to perform 'impactful research into the origins and ramifications of this defining crisis in the recent history of our nation.' " Of course, that crisis is not over. It appears that 2020 was the worst year for opioid overdoses the US has ever seen, according to Michael Barnett, M.D., assistant professor of health policy and management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "What I'm worried about is the lack of a robust treatment infrastructure for substance use disorder. It was already strained before the pandemic, and now we need to provide even more comprehensive services for this population, but we won't have the capacity to take care of them unless there are really drastic policy changes. ... "The pandemic is in many ways a perfect storm for anyone who is struggling with substance use disorder. People have lost their jobs. Social and family interactions have been limited. And the pandemic itself is depressing and anxiety provoking. These are all stimuli that can stress the psyche and the finances of someone who has an addiction. In some cases, it could push a person who was getting their addiction under control back toward substance use." Yeah, no kidding. Here's something upbeat, however distantly: the Scripps Research laboratory of chemist Kim Janda, PhD, has been working on new therapeutic interventions that may (someday) be able to prevent the bulk of deaths from opioid overdose, according to ScienceDaily. In mice, an experimental vaccine blunted the deadliest of synthetic opioids and was able to diminish fatal respiratory effects of fentanyl and carfentanil. Again, in mice. But with luck and hard work, maybe eventually in people.

But how badly will it kill you?

Thella — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 17:23:44 -0800

Do you have a young nature nerd in your life? Would they like to watch an enthusiastic older nature nerd, Dr Ann Jones, react to viral videos of Australia's cute and deadly critters? Would they like to hear scientific tidbits about the animals we love, and those we love to fear? Then you've come to the right place. You've come to How Deadly | Australia. Some highlights include... Need to talk about the birds and the bees? What about the birds and the bears? Koalas are loud angry lovers, but are they dangerous? "Low sounds have big long waves and travel a looooong distance so when he's calling out like that he's telling everyone in earshot that he's The Bear." Skip this one if you don't like spiders and it's a doozy if you do. Why you should NEVER touch this Australian spider "Their venom is the most complex chemical arsenal in the entire natural world" Don't read Catcher in the Rye to a wombat. Wombats are cute, but what about when they attack? "When they're little baby wombatlets they're super cute and they follow you around like a puppy, and they're really adorable. But then they hit puberty and they begin to question life itself and they get angry." They don't make good babysitters. How dangerous are Australia's dingoes, really? "The difference between play and prey is ... nothing." Emoo Emu Emew How dangerous are emus, really? "That's why we have the emus of today. Tall as a man, and very silly." For more videos featuring Dr Ann Jones reacting to videos of deadly critters, there's also How Deadly | World.

LEGO knows where you live

Iris Gambol — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 13:03:35 -0800

The LEGO Group Joins Forces with Former Astronaut Dr. Kathy Sullivan to Launch New LEGO® NASA Space Shuttle Discovery Set (LEGO press release, March 21, 2021). The LEGO Group announces new LEGO® NASA Space Shuttle Discovery set – aimed at adults; Officially revealed by former NASA Astronaut Dr Kathy Sullivan who was part of the original NASA STS-31 mission, over 30 years ago, which launched the Hubble Telescope - capturing images of our universe, to help us understand more about the great beyond. Availability is expected to start on April 1, 2021, with a $200 price tag. (Gizmodo, March 22, 2021)

Making it easier for published scientists to change their names

brainwane — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 13:14:31 -0800

Science said last month: "Today we are pleased to announce a seamless, discreet procedure that authors can follow to change their names in previously published papers across the Science family of journals. We join multiple other publishers that have adopted similar initiatives, including the American Chemical Society, Public Library of Science, Royal Society of Chemistry, and Wiley. Authors may have occasion to change their names for various reasons, but recent outreach by, and on behalf of, transgender scientists has impressed upon us the importance of respecting authors' privacy and autonomy in correcting the scientific record."