Researchers reported last month that an inexpensive, widely available pill substantially reduced hospitalizations and deaths in a large study of individuals with mild COVID symptoms who were at high risk for complications. It is the only existing oral medication with promising peer-reviewed data from multiple randomized COVID trials—and it is already used by millions of… Continue reading Investigating Antidepressants’ Surprising Effect on COVID Deaths
Category: Quantum Stuff
The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel With Other Sounds
Because opportunities to monitor those areas are so hard to come by, their recordings were “super precious data, and exciting,” Boebinger said. The researchers had hoped to be able to fill in details about how the brain transforms the low-level sound representations in the primary auditory cortex into more complex representations of speech sounds in… Continue reading The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel With Other Sounds
Military Operations Will be Strained by Climate Change
Militaries around the world could be overstretched as they respond to more intense and frequent climate-driven crises and threats to their own installations. That means faster action is needed to address climate risks in security practices, according to a report by the International Military Council on Climate and Security, a group of officers and experts.… Continue reading Military Operations Will be Strained by Climate Change
See Iridescent Jellyfish and Glowing Wonders of the Sea in World Oceans Day Photos
After about 15 years of diving at the White Sea Biological Station in Russia, marine biologist Alexander Semenov has learned more than most about which jellyfish stings are the worst. If you touch the egg-yolk jellyfish by accident, for example, it is not too bad, he says. And though you should try and stay out… Continue reading See Iridescent Jellyfish and Glowing Wonders of the Sea in World Oceans Day Photos
An Ultra-Precise Clock Shows How to Link the Quantum World With Gravity
The infamous twin paradox sends the astronaut Alice on a blazing-fast space voyage. When she returns to reunite with her twin, Bob, she finds that he has aged much faster than she has. It’s a well-known but perplexing result: Time slows if you’re moving fast. Gravity does the same thing. Earth — or any massive… Continue reading An Ultra-Precise Clock Shows How to Link the Quantum World With Gravity
Landmark Alzheimer’s Drug Approval Confounds Research Community
The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval yesterday of the first new drug for Alzheimer’s disease in 18 years was welcomed by some patients looking for hope against an intractable condition. But for many researchers it came as a surprise — and a disappointment. Aducanumab — developed by biotechnology company Biogen in Cambridge, Massachusetts… Continue reading Landmark Alzheimer’s Drug Approval Confounds Research Community
The Disneyfication of Atomic Power – Issue 107: The Edge
John Jay Hopkins’s visit to Japan in 1955, as an informal emissary of “Atoms for Peace,” must have seemed surreal to everyone involved. Hopkins was the head of an old American shipbuilding firm based out of Groton, Connecticut. Electric Boat Company had struggled in the 1920s and 1930s with its reputation as a “merchant of… Continue reading The Disneyfication of Atomic Power – Issue 107: The Edge
Moving silicon atoms in graphene with atomic precision — Mostly Physics
The road from finding to publication is rarely entirely straightforward. As often is the case – but rather too rarely talked about in public – the road from a finding to a publication is rarely entirely straightforward. This was the case for us as well. From the beginning, we felt we had very beautiful results, and furthermore, the agreement that emerged between our detailed simulations and the… Continue reading Moving silicon atoms in graphene with atomic precision — Mostly Physics
Covid, Quickly: A Pop-Up Podcast
COVID, Quickly, Episode 15: Booster Shot Approvals–plus Vaccines for Kids? Today, we’re going to bust through the confusion about booster vaccines: who can get them and who can’t, and we’ll talk about one group that hasn’t even gotten first shots yet: kids under 12. We’ll discuss when that could finally happen. Air date: September 24,… Continue reading Covid, Quickly: A Pop-Up Podcast
How Tadayuki Watanabe Disproved a Major Conjecture About Spheres
In a burst of work, mathematicians have moved closer to understanding just how many ways there are of contorting a simple sphere so that, in the end, it still resembles itself. Much of the progress comes from results by Tadayuki Watanabe at Kyoto University. Over the last several years, he has figured out how to… Continue reading How Tadayuki Watanabe Disproved a Major Conjecture About Spheres