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upstart writes:

Ebola vaccine regimen generates strong immune response in children and adults in a clinical trial in Sierra Leone:

Results support the use of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine regimen for Ebola virus disease prevention

Johnson & Johnson's two-dose Ebola vaccine regimen is safe, well tolerated and produces a strong immune response in people over the age of one, according to two new papers published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The EBOVAC-Salone study provides important further evidence for the potential of the regimen using the Ad26.ZEBOV and MVA-BN-Filo vaccines to be used as a protective measure against Ebola virus disease for both children and adults.

Conducted in Sierra Leone, the study is the first to assess the safety and tolerability of this vaccine regimen in a region affected by the 2014-2016 West African Ebola outbreak, which was the worst on record. It is also the first study reporting the evaluation of this vaccine regimen in children.

[...] The authors found that the vaccine regimen was well tolerated and induced antibody responses to Zaire ebolavirus 21 days after the second dose in 98% of participants, with the immune responses persisting in adults for at least two years.

During the 2014-16 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, 28,652 cases and 11,325 deaths from Ebola were reported. Approximately 20% of cases were in children under 15 years, and children younger than five years are at a higher risk of death than adults.

owl writes:

https://www.zmescience.com/other/fahrenheit-vs-celsius-did-the-u-s-get-it-right-after-all/

At face value, measuring the temperature using Celsius instead of Fahrenheit seems to make a lot of face sense. After all, the freezing point of water is a perfect 0 degrees Celsius — not the inexplicable 32 degrees in Fahrenheit. Also, the boiling point of water in Celsius is right at 100 degrees (Okay, 99.98, but what's a couple hundredths of a degree among friends?) — instead of the awkward 212 degrees Fahrenheit.

Celsius is also part of the much-praised metric system. It seems as though every developed country in the world has adopted the metric system except for the United States, which still clings to tge [sic] older, more traditional measurements. Finally, scientists prefer to use Celsius (when they're not using Kelvin, which is arguably the most awkward unit of measurement for temperature). If it's good enough for scientists, it should be good enough for everybody else, right?

Not necessarily. Fahrenheit may be the best way to measure temperature after all. Why? Because most of us only care about air temperature, not water temperature.

[...] Fahrenheit is also more precise. The ambient temperature on most of the inhabited world ranges from -20 degrees Fahrenheit to 110 degrees Fahrenheit — a 130-degree range. On the Celsius scale, that range is from -28.8 degrees to 43.3 degrees — a 72.1-degree range. This means that you can get a more exact measurement of the air temperature using Fahrenheit because it uses almost twice the scale.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Prehistoric humans rarely mated with their cousins:

At present-day, more than ten percent of all global marriages occur among first or second cousins. While cousin-marriages are common practice in some societies, unions between close relatives are discouraged in others. In a new study, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Chicago investigated how common close parental relatedness was in our ancestors.

The researchers re-analyzed previously published DNA data from ancient humans that lived during the last 45,000 years to find out how closely related their parents were. The results were surprising: Ancient humans rarely chose their cousins as mates. In a global dataset of 1,785 individuals only 54, that is, about three percent, show the typical signs of their parents being cousins. Those 54 did not cluster in space or time, showing that cousin matings were sporadic events in the studied ancient populations. Notably, even for hunter-gatherers who lived more than 10,000 years ago, unions between cousins were the exception.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/leaked-documents-reveal-the-special-rules-facebook-uses-for-5-8m-vips/

Facebook had a problem on its hands. People were making posts that got caught in the company's automated moderation system or were taken down by its human moderators. The problem wasn't that the moderators, human or otherwise, were wrong to take down the posts. No, the problem was that the people behind the posts were famous or noteworthy, and the company didn't want a PR mess on its hands.

So Facebook came up with a program called XCheck, or cross check, which in many instances became a de facto whitelist. Over the years, XCheck has allowed celebrities, politicians, athletes, activists, journalists, and even the owners of "animal influencers" like "Doug the Pug" to post whatever they want, with few to no consequences for violating the company's rules.

"For a select few members of our community, we are not enforcing our policies and standards," reads an internal Facebook report published as part of a Wall Street Journal investigation. "Unlike the rest of our community, these people can violate our standards without any consequences."

"Few" must be a relative term at Facebook, as at least 5.8 million people were enrolled in the program as of last year, many of them with significant followings. That means a large number of influential people are allowed to post largely unchecked on Facebook and Instagram.

Original Submission

takyon and looorg write:

Firm raises $15m to bring back woolly mammoth from extinction

Ten thousand years after woolly mammoths vanished from the face of the Earth, scientists are embarking on an ambitious project to bring the beasts back to the Arctic tundra. The prospect of recreating mammoths and returning them to the wild has been discussed – seriously at times – for more than a decade, but on Monday researchers announced fresh funding they believe could make their dream a reality.

The boost comes in the form of $15m (£11m) raised by the bioscience and genetics company Colossal, co-founded by Ben Lamm, a tech and software entrepreneur, and George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School who has pioneered new approaches to gene editing.

The scientists have set their initial sights on creating an elephant-mammoth hybrid by making embryos in the laboratory that carry mammoth DNA. The starting point for the project involves taking skin cells from Asian elephants, which are threatened with extinction, and reprogramming them into more versatile stem cells that carry mammoth DNA. The particular genes that are responsible for mammoth hair, insulating fat layers and other cold climate adaptions are identified by comparing mammoth genomes extracted from animals recovered from the permafrost with those from the related Asian elephants. These embryos would then be carried to term in a surrogate mother or potentially in an artificial womb. If all goes to plan – and the hurdles are far from trivial – the researchers hope to have their first set of calves in six years.

[...] The project is framed as an effort to help conserve Asian elephants by equipping them with traits that allow them to thrive in vast stretches of the Arctic known as the mammoth steppe. But the scientists also believe introducing herds of elephant-mammoth hybrids to the Arctic tundra may help restore the degraded habitat and combat some of the impacts of the climate crisis. For example, by knocking down trees, the beasts might help to restore the former Arctic grasslands.

Pleistocene Park.

Also at NYT and CNBC.

Previously: Woolly Mammoth Genome Sequenced
Resurrection of the Woolly Mammoth Could Begin in Two Years
Analysis Supports Conservation of Existing Species Rather Than De-Extinction of Mammoths
Mammoth DNA Activates Briefly in Mouse Eggs

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Apple can no longer force developers to use in-app purchasing, judge rules:

A U.S. judge on Friday issued a ruling in "Fortnite" creator Epic Games' antitrust lawsuit against Apple's App Store, striking down some of Apple's restrictions on how developers can collect payments in apps.

The ruling says that Apple cannot bar developers from providing buttons or links in their apps that direct customers to other ways to pay outside of Apple's own in-app purchase system, which charges developers commissions of up to 30 percent. The ruling also said that Apple cannot ban developers from communicating with customers via contact information that the developers obtained when customers signed up within the app.

The ruling comes after a three-week trial in May before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Apple shares moved down about 2.5 percent on news of the decision.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Stanford scientists solve mystery of icy plumes that may foretell deadly supercell storms:

Stanford scientists solve mystery of icy plumes that may foretell deadly supercell storms

The most devastating tornadoes are often preceded by a cloudy plume of ice and water vapor billowing above a severe thunderstorm. New research reveals the mechanism for these plumes could be tied to "hydraulic jumps" – a phenomenon Leonardo Da Vinci observed more than 500 years ago.

When a cloudy plume of ice and water vapor billows up above the top of a severe thunderstorm, there's a good chance a violent tornado, high winds or hailstones bigger than golf balls will soon pelt the Earth below.

A new Stanford University-led study, published Sept. 10 in Science, reveals the physical mechanism for these plumes, which form above most of the world's most damaging tornadoes.

[...] Understanding how and why plumes take shape above powerful thunderstorms could help forecasters recognize similar impending dangers and issue more accurate warnings without relying on Doppler radar systems, which can be knocked out by wind and hail – and have blind spots even on good days. In many parts of the world, Doppler radar coverage is nonexistent.

"If there's going to be a terrible hurricane, we can see it from space. We can't see tornadoes because they're hidden below thunderstorm tops. We need to understand the tops better," said O'Neill, who is an assistant professor of Earth system science at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth).

Journal Reference:
1.) Morgan E O’Neill, Leigh Orf, Gerald M. Heymsfield, et al. Hydraulic jump dynamics above supercell thunderstorms, Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.abh3857)
2.) Ivan Marusic, Susan Broomhall. Leonardo da Vinci and Fluid Mechanics [open], Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics (DOI: 10.1146/annurev-fluid-022620-122816)

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Mammals Carry A Graveyard Of Viruses In Our Dna, And It Could Have A Crucial Purpose:

Huge swaths of our DNA library are made up of non-coding genes that were long regarded as "junk DNA". Recent findings, however, have shown these bits of DNA actually have many purposes in mammals.

Some help form the structure in our DNA molecules so they can be packaged neatly within our cell nuclei while others are involved in gene regulation. Now, researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia have discovered another potential purpose for these non-coding instructions, within the genomes of marsupials.

Some of the gene sequences once considered "junk" are actually fragments of viruses left buried in our DNA from an infection in a long-forgotten ancestor.

Whenever a virus infects you, there's a chance it will leave behind a piece of itself within your DNA, and if this happens in an egg or sperm cell, it will then be passed on through the generations. These are known as endogenous viral elements (EVEs).

In humans, fragments of viral DNA make up around 8 percent of our genome. They can provide a record of viral infections through our evolutionary history, like genetic memory.

"These viral fragments have been retained for a reason," said paleovirologist Emma Harding. "Over millions of years of evolution, we would expect all DNA to change, however, these fossils are preserved and kept intact."

Journal Reference:
Emma F Harding, Grace JH Yan, Peter A White. Viral fossils in marsupial genomes: secret cellular guardians [open], Microbiology Australia (DOI: 10.1071/MA21036)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Toyota, Honda oppose U.S. House electric vehicle tax plan:

Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) and Honda Motor Co (7267.T) on Saturday sharply criticized a proposal by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives to give union-made electric vehicles in the United States an additional $4,500 tax incentive.

Toyota said in a statement that the plan unveiled late Friday discriminates "against American autoworkers based on their choice not to unionize."

The bill, set to be voted on Tuesday by the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee as part of a proposed $3.5 trillion spending bill, would benefit Detroit's Big Three automakers, which have union-represented auto plants. read more

The proposal, estimated to cost $33 billion to $34 billion over 10 years, would boost to up to $12,500 the maximum tax credit for electric vehicles, up from the current $7,500. The $12,500 figure includes a $500 credit for using U.S.-produced batteries.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

TAU Team Reverses Early Signs of Alzheimer's:

Approximately 50 million people worldwide live with Alzheimer's or other related forms of dementia. Alzheimer's disease leads to memory loss and impairment in cognitive function, and is the most common cause of dementia among older adults. While certain treatments can help reduce symptoms and sometimes reduce disease progression, there is currently no way to prevent or cure Alzheimer's.

[...] Using hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), in which subjects breathe 100% oxygen in a special chamber of high atmospheric pressure, the researchers were able to reverse brain damages associated with the biological hallmarks of Alzheimer's.

"By treating the root problem that causes cognitive deterioration with age, we are in fact mapping out the way to prevention," says co-lead researcher Prof. Shai Efrati.

[...] "After a series of hyperbaric treatments, elderly patients who were already suffering from memory loss showed an improvement of blood flow to the brain as well as a real improvement in cognitive performance," said co-lead investigator Prof. Uri Ashery.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Google.com dark mode is rolling out to everyone:

It's finally happening: Google.com is getting a dark mode. What was once the domain of janky site-theming browser extensions can now be enabled right from the Google home page. An official post from the support forums says that dark mode in desktop Google Search is rolling out starting today and will reach every user "over the next few weeks."

After turning on dark mode, you'll get a quick theme switcher in the gear button, allowing you to easily jump between dark and light modes. The dark setting seems to work on all the Google.com sections, like news, shopping, books, images, etc.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Physicists discover black holes exert a pressure in serendipitous scientific first:

The University of Sussex scientists have shown that [black holes] are in fact even more complex thermodynamic systems, with not only a temperature but also a pressure.

The serendipitous discovery was made by Professor Xavier Calmet and Folkert Kuipers in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sussex, and is published today in Physical Review D.

Calmet and Kuipers were perplexed by an extra figure that was presenting in equations that they were running on quantum gravitational corrections to the entropy of a black hole.

[...] Xavier Calmet, Professor of Physics at the University of Sussex, said: "Our finding that Schwarzschild black holes have a pressure as well as a temperature is even more exciting given that it was a total surprise. I'm delighted that the research that we are undertaking at the University of Sussex into quantum gravity has furthered the scientific communities' wider understanding of the nature of black holes.

"Hawking's landmark intuition that black holes are not black but have a radiation spectrum that is very similar to that of a black body makes black holes an ideal laboratory to investigate the interplay between quantum mechanics, gravity and thermodynamics.

"If you consider black holes within only general relativity, one can show that they have a singularity in their centres where the laws of physics as we know them must breakdown. It is hoped that when quantum field theory is incorporated into general relativity, we might be able to find a new description of black holes.

Journal Reference:
Xavier Calmet, Folkert Kuipers. Quantum gravitational corrections to the entropy of a Schwarzschild black hole, Physical Review D (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.104.066012)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Illinois researchers demonstrate extreme heat exchanger with additive manufacturing:

Used in most major industries – including energy, water, manufacturing, transportation, construction, electronic, chemical, petrochemical, agriculture and aerospace – heat exchangers transfer thermal energy from one medium to another.

For decades, heat exchanger designs have remained relatively unchanged. Recent advancements in 3D printing allow the production of three-dimensional exchanger designs previously thought impossible. These new and innovative designs operate significantly more effectively and efficiently but require specific software tools and design methods to manufacture the high-performance devices.

[...] "We developed shape optimization software to design a high-performance heat exchanger," said William King, professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering and co-study leader. "The software allows us to identity 3D designs that are significantly different and better than conventional designs."

The team started by studying a type of exchanger known as a tube-in-tube heat exchanger – where one tube is nested inside another tube. Tube-in-tube heat exchangers are commonly used in drinking water and building energy systems. Using a combination of the shape optimization software and additive manufacturing, the researchers designed fins (only made possible using metal 3D printing) internal to the tubes.

"We designed, fabricated and tested an optimized tube-in-tube heat exchanger," said Nenad Miljkovic, associate professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering and co-study leader. "Our optimized heat exchanger has about 20 times higher volumetric power density than a current state-of-the-art commercial tube-in-tube device."

Journal Reference:
Hyunkyu Moon, Davis J. McGregor, Nenad Miljkovic, et al. Ultra-power-dense heat exchanger development through genetic algorithm design and additive manufacturing (DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2021.08.004)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A spoonful of sugar opens a path to longer lasting lithium sulfur batteries:

The Monash team, assisted by CSIRO, report in today's edition of Nature Communications that using a glucose-based additive on the positive electrode they have managed to stabilise lithium-sulfur battery technology, long touted as the basis for the next generation of batteries.

"In less than a decade, this technology could lead to vehicles including electric buses and trucks that can travel from Melbourne to Sydney without recharging. It could also enable innovation in delivery and agricultural drones where light weight is paramount," says lead author Professor Mainak Majumder, from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Associate Director of the Monash Energy Institute.

In theory, lithium-sulfur batteries could store two to five times more energy than lithium-ion batteries of the same weight. The problem has been that, in use the electrodes deteriorated rapidly, and the batteries broke down. There were two reasons for this - the positive sulfur electrode suffered from substantial expansion and contraction weakening it and making it inaccessible to lithium, and the negative lithium electrode became contaminated by sulfur compounds.

upstart writes:

Groundbreaking technique yields important new details on possible 'fifth force':

A group of researchers have used a groundbreaking new technique to reveal previously unrecognized properties of technologically crucial silicon crystals and uncovered new information about an important subatomic particle and a long-theorized fifth force of nature.

The research was an international collaboration conducted at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Dmitry Pushin, a member of the University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing and a faculty member in Waterloo's Department of Physics and Astronomy, was the only Canadian researcher involved in the study. Pushin was interested in producing high-quality quantum sensors out of perfect crystals.

By aiming subatomic particles known as neutrons at silicon crystals and monitoring the outcome with exquisite sensitivity, researchers were able to obtain three extraordinary results: the first measurement of a key neutron property in 20 years using a unique method; the highest-precision measurements of the effects of heat-related vibrations in a silicon crystal; and limits on the strength of a possible "fifth force" beyond standard physics theories.

[...] The Standard Model describes three fundamental forces in nature: electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear force. Each force operates through the action of "carrier particles." For example, the photon is the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. But the Standard Model has yet to incorporate gravity in its description of nature. Furthermore, some experiments and theories suggest the possible presence of a fifth force.