Phys.org December 29, 2022 The conditions for the emergence of a leading regional scientific environment are poorly understood. The existence of a critical mass of scientists is often assumed. An international team of researchers (Austria, the Netherlands, South Africa, USA – Santa Fe Institute) used a unique dataset of global scientific activity and researcher mobility over several decades to show empirical evidence in three scientific areas (semiconductor research, embryonic stem cells, and Internet research) that the process of scientific knowledge accumulation was remarkably general and applied to practically all regions. Scale-free growth patterns suggested that regions that move early into […]
Tag Archives: Science without border
What You Learned About Zoonotic Disease Spillover Risk During COVID-19
SciTech Daily September 17, 2022 According to an international team of researchers (Japan, USA – Santa Clara University, University of Colorado, UK) media messaging throughout the pandemic consistently described direct causality between zoonotic disease spread and land use change. This was even though only 53% of the surveyed peer-reviewed literature made this association. The complexity of pathogen responses to land change cannot be reduced to one-size-fits-all proclamations. They discovered that as the literature moves from primary research to review articles and commentaries, and finally to webpages, the “overstating of the evidence” continually increases. In fact, 78% of secondary papers imply […]
‘Killer Lake’ in Africa Looks Like Paradise, But It’s Hiding a Deadly Secret
Science Alert January 27, 2022 Lake Kivu one of Africa’s great Rift lakes lies between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thousands of years of volcanic activity has caused a massive accumulation of methane and carbon dioxide to dissolve in the depths of Kivu. If triggered, a so-called limnic eruption would cause “a huge explosion of gas from deep waters to the surface” resulting in large waves and a poisonous gas cloud that would put the lives of millions at risk. A company called KivuWatty pumps water saturated with carbon dioxide and methane from around 350 meters (1,150 feet) […]
How to figure out what you don’t know
TechXplore October 26, 2020 Machine learning optimizes flexible models to predict data. In scientific applications, there is a rising interest in interpreting these flexible models to derive hypotheses from data. Researchers from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory tested this connection using a flexible, yet intrinsically interpretable framework for modelling neural dynamics. Many models discovered during optimization predict data equally well, yet they fail to match the correct hypothesis. They developed an alternative approach that identifies models with correct interpretation by comparing model features across data samples to separate true features from noise. Their results reveal that good predictions cannot substitute for […]
Volcanic activity and changes in Earth’s mantle were key to rise of atmospheric oxygen
Science Daily June 9, 2020 A team of researchers in the US (University of Washington, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Maryland, Arizona State University) combined data with evidence from ancient sedimentary rocks to show a tipping point sometime after 2.5 billion years ago, when oxygen produced by microbes overcame its loss to volcanic gases and began to accumulate in the atmosphere during the Great Oxidation Event. The data demonstrates that an evolution of the mantle of the Earth could control an evolution of the atmosphere of the Earth, and possibly an evolution of life as multicellular life needs a […]
How many jobs do robots really replace?
MIT News May 4, 2020 In this three part series, a team of researchers in the US (MIT, Boston University) shows theoretically that robots may reduce employment and wages and that their local impacts can be estimated using variation in exposure to robots—defined from industry-level advances in robotics and local industry employment. They estimate robust negative effects of robots on employment and wages across commuting zones. According to the researchers the areas most exposed to robots after 1990 do not exhibit any differential trends before then, and robots’ impact is distinct from other capital and technologies. One more robot per […]
In pursuit of open science, open access is not enough
Science Magazine May 7, 2020 Despite uncertainty about the long-term sustainability of OA models, many publishers who had been reluctant to abandon the subscription business model are showing openness to OA The healthy functioning of the academic community, including fair terms and conditions from commercial partners, requires that the global marketplace for data analytics and knowledge infrastructure be kept open to real competition. The dominance of a limited number of social networks, shopping services, and search engines shows us how internet platforms based on data and analytics can tend toward monopoly. In the research information space, contracts are being negotiated, […]
Black hole bends light back on itself
Phys.org April 8,2020 An international team of researchers (USA – Caltech, MIT, industry, Columbia University, UC Berkeley) observed light coming from very close to the black hole that is trying to escape, but instead is pulled right back by the black hole like a boomerang. This is something that was predicted in the 1970s but hadn’t been shown until now. By looking closely at the X-ray light coming from the disk, as the light spirals toward the black hole, the team found imprints indicating that the light had been bent back toward the disk and reflected off. The new results […]
Scientists Warn Multiple Overlapping Crises Could Trigger ‘Global Systemic Collapse’
Science Alert February 5, 2020 Climate change, extreme weather events from hurricanes to heatwaves, the decline of life-sustaining ecosystems, food security and dwindling stores of fresh water – each poses a monumental challenge to humanity in the 21st century. Out of 30 global-scale risks, these five topped the list both in terms of likelihood and impact, according to scientists surveyed by Future Earth https://futureearth.org/ , an international research organisation. Recent research has shown that some parts of the world may soon be coping with up to six extreme weather events at once, ranging from heat waves and wildfires to diluvian […]
Reducing risk, empowering resilience to disruptive global change
MIT News January 23, 2020 The MIT Joint Program on the Science of Global Change launched in 2019 its Adaptation-at-Scale initiative (AS-MIT) seeks evidence-based solutions to global change-driven risks. Using its Integrated Global System Modeling (IGSM) framework, as well as a suite of resource and infrastructure assessment models, AS-MIT targets, diagnoses, and projects changing risks to life-sustaining resources under impending societal and environmental stressors, and evaluates the effectiveness of potential risk-reduction measures. At an MIT Joint Program workshop aimed at providing decision-makers with actionable information on key global change concerns, the conference covered risks and resilience strategies for food, energy, […]