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Category: Science/mathematics

Doctors find ‘antibody signature’ for patients most at risk for long Covid

Doctors find ‘antibody signature’ for patients most at risk for long Covid

The Guardian reports: Doctors have discovered an “antibody signature” that can help identify patients most at risk of developing long Covid, a condition where debilitating symptoms of the disease can persist for many months. Researchers at University hospital Zurich analysed blood from Covid patients and found that low levels of certain antibodies were more common in those who developed long Covid than in patients who swiftly recovered. When combined with the patient’s age, details of their Covid symptoms and whether…

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Covid will continue but the end of the pandemic is near

Covid will continue but the end of the pandemic is near

Christopher J L Murray writes: The world is experiencing a huge wave of infection with the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Estimates based on Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) models suggest that on around Jan 17, 2022 there were 125 million omicron infections a day in the world, which is more than ten times the peak of the delta wave in April, 2021. The omicron wave is inexorably reaching every continent with only a few countries in eastern Europe,…

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Scientists target PR and ad firms they accuse of spreading disinformation on climate change

Scientists target PR and ad firms they accuse of spreading disinformation on climate change

Reuters reports: More than 450 scientists on Wednesday called on the executives of major advertising and public relations firms to drop their fossil fuel clients and stop what the scientists said was their spread of disinformation around climate change. They sent a letter to the executives of major global public relations and advertising firms, including conglomerate WPP, Edelman and IPG, as well as the CEOs of their clients who tout sustainability goals including Unilever, Amazon and Microsoft. “As scientists who…

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Omicron has changed the shape of the pandemic. Will it end it for good?

Omicron has changed the shape of the pandemic. Will it end it for good?

CNN reports: The world feared the worst when a worrying new coronavirus variant emerged in late November and ripped through South Africa at a pace not seen before in the pandemic. But two months later, with Omicron dominant across much of the globe, the narrative has shifted for some. “Levels of concern about Omicron tend to be lower than with previous variants,” Simon Williams, a researcher in public attitudes and behaviors towards Covid-19 at Swansea University, told CNN. For many,…

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Applying machine learning to cosmology

Applying machine learning to cosmology

Charlie Wood writes: A group of scientists may have stumbled upon a radical new way to do cosmology. Cosmologists usually determine the composition of the universe by observing as much of it as possible. But these researchers have found that a machine learning algorithm can scrutinize a single simulated galaxy and predict the overall makeup of the digital universe in which it exists — a feat analogous to analyzing a random grain of sand under a microscope and working out…

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Weaving Indigenous knowledge into the scientific method

Weaving Indigenous knowledge into the scientific method

Nature reports: Many scientists rely on Indigenous people to guide their work — by helping them to find wildlife, navigate rugged terrain or understand changing weather trends, for example. But these relationships have often felt colonial, extractive and unequal. Researchers drop into communities, gather data and leave — never contacting the locals again, and excluding them from the publication process. Today, many scientists acknowledge the troubling attitudes that have long plagued research projects in Indigenous communities. But finding a path…

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Two decades of soldiers’ medical records implicate common virus in multiple sclerosis

Two decades of soldiers’ medical records implicate common virus in multiple sclerosis

Science reports: One hundred and fifty years after a French neurologist first recognized a case of multiple sclerosis (MS) in a young woman with an unusual tremor, the cause of this devastating disease remains elusive. Now, a study that combed data from regular blood tests of 10 million U.S. soldiers has found the strongest evidence yet that infection with a common virus, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), dramatically increases a person’s chances of developing the rare disease. The work leaves many questions,…

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Evolution ‘landscapes’ predict what’s next for Covid virus

Evolution ‘landscapes’ predict what’s next for Covid virus

Carrie Arnold writes: In the fall of 2019, the world began one of the largest evolutionary biology experiments in modern history. Somewhere near the city of Wuhan in eastern China, a coronavirus acquired the ability to live inside humans rather than the bats and other mammals that had been its hosts. It adapted further to become efficient at spreading from one person to the next, even before the body’s defenses could rise against it. But the evolutionary chess game didn’t…

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Are we witnessing the dawn of post-theory science?

Are we witnessing the dawn of post-theory science?

Laura Spinney writes: Isaac Newton apocryphally discovered his second law – the one about gravity – after an apple fell on his head. Much experimentation and data analysis later, he realised there was a fundamental relationship between force, mass and acceleration. He formulated a theory to describe that relationship – one that could be expressed as an equation, F=ma – and used it to predict the behaviour of objects other than apples. His predictions turned out to be right (if…

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Human behavior in bulk is far more predictable than we like to imagine

Human behavior in bulk is far more predictable than we like to imagine

Ian Stewart writes: In Isaac Asimov’s novel Foundation (1951), the mathematician Hari Seldon forecasts the collapse of the Galactic Empire using psychohistory: a calculus of the patterns that occur in the reaction of the mass of humanity to social and economic events. Initially put on trial for treason, on the grounds that his prediction encourages said collapse, Seldon is permitted to set up a research group on a secluded planet. There, he investigates how to minimise the destruction and reduce…

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The forgotten role of religion in science writing

The forgotten role of religion in science writing

Adam Shapiro writes: It’s been nearly 30 years—a generation!—since professional science communication as a field began to seriously push back against what’s been called the knowledge deficit model (sometimes just called the “deficit model.”) (See “The Trust Fallacy,” July–August 2021.) That model describes a way of thinking about people’s understanding and acceptance of scientific knowledge, supposing that the greatest barrier to scientific literacy was a lack—or deficit—of information about a topic. If only people better understood evolution, the thinking went,…

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Omicron doesn’t infect the lungs very well, animal studies find

Omicron doesn’t infect the lungs very well, animal studies find

The New York Times reports: A spate of new studies on lab animals and human tissues are providing the first indication of why the Omicron variant causes milder disease than previous versions of the coronavirus. In studies on mice and hamsters, Omicron produced less damaging infections, often limited largely to the upper airway: the nose, throat and windpipe. The variant did much less harm to the lungs, where previous variants would often cause scarring and serious breathing difficulty. “It’s fair…

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Beyond case counts: What Omicron is teaching us

Beyond case counts: What Omicron is teaching us

STAT reports: The Omicron wave in the United States is upon us. If you were fortunate enough to tune out from Covid-19 news over the holidays, you’re coming back to startling reports about record high case counts and, in some places, increases in hospitalizations. The wave will crest, of course; the question is when. For now, experts say, the country still has a ways to go to get through the Omicron surge. Below, STAT outlines what Omicron is already teaching…

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Is fluvoxamine the Covid drug we’ve been waiting for?

Is fluvoxamine the Covid drug we’ve been waiting for?

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Food and Drug Administration last week authorized two oral antiviral medicines for the early treatment of Covid-19. But don’t get too excited. The U.S. will still have a meager treatment arsenal this winter. The U.S. has been relying on monoclonal-antibody treatments, but most don’t hold up against the Omicron variant. One, by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology, does better at neutralizing the variant, but supply is limited. Pfizer’s newly authorized antiviral pack Paxlovid will also…

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How will our warming climate stabilize? Scientists look to the distant past

How will our warming climate stabilize? Scientists look to the distant past

Ars Technica reports: Thanks to unbridled greenhouse gas emissions, our planet is stitching together a climate version of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. We still have ice from the warmer parts of the Pleistocene even as our temperature approaches the warmer Pliocene levels of 3 million years ago. Meanwhile, our CO2 level is between the Pliocene and the Miocene of 10 million years ago, and we risk an Eocene hothouse not seen in 40 million years. At some point, this unnatural fusion…

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Will we always need Covid-19 boosters? Experts have theories

Will we always need Covid-19 boosters? Experts have theories

STAT reports: With the world facing the latest in a seemingly endless stream of coronavirus variants — and with bullish talk from manufacturers about a need for even more vaccine shots — you wouldn’t be alone if you were wondering: Are Covid boosters always going to be a fixture in our future? The simple truth is that, at this point, there’s no definitive answer to that question. But virologists, immunologists, and vaccinologists have opinions that are anchored in an understanding…

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