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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2021 at 11:47am

Scientists Invent a Machine That Generates Mathematics We've Never Seen Before

His name was Srinivasa Ramanujan, and he had a unique gift for dreaming up mathematics of a kind few, if any, had ever contemplated.

Attributing his skills to a divine goddess, the Indian mathematician introduced thousands of mathematical ideas and equations to the world, and was especially known for devising conjectures: mathematical propositions not yet proven to be true (in which case they become classified as theorems).

Such an ability – crafting mathematical statements that are both informed and yet uncertain – is rare, and relatively few mathematicians make their name on the basis of such output, let alone theorists with little in the way of formal training.

But now, a new algorithmic invention developed by researchers in Israel could help us automate the discovery of mathematical conjectures like those Ramanujan once pioneered.

Named after Ramanujan – who died in India at the age of 32 – the 'Ramanujan Machine' is a computerised system capable of self-generating conjectures involving mathematical constants: strange numbers like π and e that seem to crop up all over the place, even if entirely by coincidence.

"Fundamental mathematical constants such as e and π are ubiquitous in diverse fields of science, from abstract mathematics and geometry to physics, biology and chemistry," researchers from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology explain in a newly published study detailing the system.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03229-4

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-invented-a-machine-that-gen...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2021 at 11:30am

 Facebook Just Banned More COVID-19 Anti-Vax Content

In a significant move, Facebook has announced it will remove any misleading claims and misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines from both Facebook and Instagram. It's part of a broader move to help combat fake news about the pandemic. Since December, the platform has been removing claims about the coronavirus that have been debunked by health experts.

But on Monday, the company expanded this policy and are now specifically targeting common anti-vax claims.

This includes claims such as:

• COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured
• Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease they are meant to protect against
• It's safer to get the disease than to get the vaccine
• Vaccines are toxic, dangerous or cause autism 

Facebook will also be removing fictitious claims that the vaccine will change people's DNA or make them infertile, as well as false claims about where the vaccines are made or their efficacy.

I hope more social networks will follow suit.

https://www.sciencealert.com/big-news-facebook-just-banned-anti-vax...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2021 at 11:25am

Hormone levels are being used to discriminate against female athletes

Despite slim evidence, testosterone is keeping some women off the field

Hormone Levels Are Being Used to Discriminate against Female Athletes

Despite slim evidence, testosterone is keeping some women off the field

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hormone-levels-are-being...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2021 at 10:29am

The birth of a lightning bolt was caught on video

Behold: the split-second collision of electric currents that creates a flash of lightning. A current reaches down from a cloud. It meets another reaching up from the ground. When a single tenuous thread of electricity bridges the gap between them, lightning flashes.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2021 at 10:25am

Fossil mimics may be more common in ancient rocks than actual fossils

Abiotic objects that resemble microbes are much hardier than their biological brethren

Actual microbial life-forms are much less likely to become safely fossilized in rocks compared with nonbiological structures that happen to mimic their shapes, new research finds. The finding suggests that Earth’s earliest rocks may contain abundant tiny fakers — minuscule objects masquerading as fossilized evidence of early life — researchers report online January 28 in Geology..

But an even more pernicious and contentious problem is that  tiny filaments or spheres may not be biological in origin at all. Increasingly, scientists have found that nonbiological chemical processes can create similar shapes, suggesting the possibility of “false positives” in the biological record.

https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G4...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fake-fossil-biomorphs-more-comm...

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“biomorphs,” spheres and filaments made of tiny crystals but shaped like bacteria.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2021 at 10:21am

Human eye beats machine in archaeological color identification test

 A ruler and scale can tell archaeologists the size and weight of a fragment of pottery - but identifying its precise color can depend on individual perception. So, when a handheld color-matching gadget came on the market, scientists hoped it offered a consistent way of determining color, free of human bias.

But a new study by archaeologists at the Florida Museum of Natural History found that the tool, known as the X-Rite Capsure, often misread colors readily distinguished by the human eye.

When tested against a book of color chips, the machine failed to produce correct color scores in 37.5% of cases, even though its software system included the same set of chips. In an analysis of fired clay bricks, the Capsure matched archaeologists' color scores only 35% of the time, dropping to about 5% matching scores when reading sediment colors in the field. Researchers also found the machine was prone to reading color chips as more yellow than they were and sediment and clay as too red.

Identifying subtle differences in color can help archaeologists compare the composition of soil and the origins of artifacts, such as pottery and beads, to understand how people lived and interacted in the past. Color can also reveal whether materials have been exposed to fire, indicating how communities used surrounding natural resources.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/fmon-heb020921.php

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2021 at 10:16am

Why We Need a Volcanic Eruption of Data

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2021 at 7:22am

The invisible killer lurking in our consumer products

Consumer products such as food, cosmetics and clothes might be filled with nanomaterials, unbeknownst to us. The use of nanomaterials remains unregulated and they do not show up in lists of ingredients. This is a cause of concern since nanomaterials can be more dangerous than COVID-19 in the long term if no safety action is taken: They are tricky to measure, they enter the food chain, and most alarmingly, they can penetrate cells and accumulate in organs.

Thanks to applications of nanotechnology, many diseases could soon be eradicated; additionally, engineers are developing materials that are 100 times stronger than steel, batteries that last 10 times longer than before, solar panels that yield twice as much energy than old ones, advanced skin care products, and self-cleaning cars, windows and clothes.

Nanotechnology has the potential to become the next industrial revolution. The global market for nanomaterials is growing.

Yet, nanomaterials and their use in consumer products can be problematic. A new study published in Nature Communications recently sheds light on possible harms and what happens to them when they enter an organism. An international team of researchers developed a sensitive method to find and trace nanomaterials in blood and tissues, and traced nanomaterials across an aquatic food chain, from microorganisms to fish, a major source of food in many countries. This method can open new horizons for taking safety actions.

nanomaterials bind strongly to microorganisms, which are a source of food for other organisms, and this is the way they can enter our food chain. Once inside an organism, nanomaterials can change their shape and size and turn into a more dangerous material that can easily penetrate cells and spread to other organs. When looking at different organs of an organism, it was found that nanomaterials tend to accumulate especially in the brain.

According to the researchers, nanomaterials are also difficult to measure: Their levels in an organism cannot be measured only by using their mass, which is the standard method for measuring other chemicals for regulations. The findings emphasize the importance of assessing the risk of nanomaterials before they are introduced to consumer products in large amounts. A better understanding of nanomaterials and their risks can help policy makers to introduce stricter rules on their use and on the way they are listed in product ingredient labels.

It could be that you are already using nanomaterials in your food, clothes, cosmetic products, etc., but you still don't see any mention of them in the ingredient list. Why? Because they are still unregulated and because they are so small that we simply can't measure them once they're in products.

Particle number-based trophic transfer of gold nanomaterials in an aquatic food chain. Nature Communications (2021). doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21164-w

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-invisible-killer-lurking-consumer-pro...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2021 at 7:08am

Biologists uncover forests' unexpected role in climate change

New research from West Virginia University biologists shows that trees around the world are consuming more carbon dioxide than previously reported, making forests even more important in regulating the Earth's atmosphere and forever shift how we think about climate change.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Professor Richard Thomas and alumnus Justin Mathias (BS Biology, '13 and Ph.D. Biology, '20) synthesized published tree ring studies. They found that increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past century have caused an uptick in trees' water-use efficiency, the ratio of carbon dioxide taken up by photosynthesis to the water lost by transpiration—the act of trees "breathing out" water vapor.

We think of forests as providing ecosystem services. Those services can be a lot of different things—recreation, timber, industry. We demonstrate how forests perform another important service: acting as sinks for carbon dioxide. Our research shows that forests consume large amounts of carbon dioxide globally. Without that, more carbon dioxide would go into the air and build up in the atmosphere even more than it already is, which could exacerbate climate change. Our work shows yet another important reason to preserve and maintain our forests and keep them healthy."

Justin M. Mathias et al. Global tree intrinsic water use efficiency is enhanced by increased atmospheric CO2 and modulated by climate and plant functional types, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2014286118

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-biologists-uncover-forests-unexpected...

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2021 at 7:01am

How virally derived transposons are domesticated to evolve new forms of life

About half of our genome is made up of transposable elements (TEs), also known as transposons. These 'jumping genes' are short stretches of DNA that have the unique ability to duplicate themselves and change their position within our code. While these philanderings play an essential role in the evolution of the species, if unchecked, transposons can wreak havoc on the genome.

Although the transcription and proliferation of TEs is usually constrained by DNA methylation or other repressive chromatin amendments, TEs sometimes escape these countermeasures. For example, at certain periods of germ cell gametogenesis and early embryonic development, many epigenetic controls are wiped clean during scheduled system-wide reboots. Fortunately, cells have a backup mechanism known as the PIWI/piRNA pathway which can repress TEs. A recent paper in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology investigates the many ways in which piRNAs can silence TEs, and defines new mechanisms by which they might also control gene expression.

Pei-Hsuan Wu et al. Defining the functions of PIWI-interacting RNAs, Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41580-021-00336-y

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-virally-derived-transposons-domestica...

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