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Public health training in climate change: What are prospective employers thinking?

(Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health) Researchers found that 92 percent of employers who responded to a survey on climate change and public health reported need for public health professionals with training in climate change will very likely increase in the next 5 to 10 years. While graduates of public health programs who focus on climate change are in demand in the current job market, these positions appear to be just a small proportion of the total number of jobs available in public health.




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A hydrological model leads to advances in the creation of a world water map

(University of Córdoba) The University of Cordoba participated in the first shaping of a hydrological model on a basin scale as a global model to advance in world hydrological predictions.




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Long-term developments of energy pricing and consumption in industry

(Paul Scherrer Institute) Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have collaborated with British economists to study how energy consumption by Swiss industry develops depending on energy pricing. To this end, they examined in particular the prices and consumption of both electricity and natural gas over the past decades. One result: For the most part, price increases have only long-term effects on energy consumption.




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Yellow-legged gull adapts its annual lifecycle to human activities to get food

(University of Barcelona) The yellow-legged gull has a high ability to adapt to human activities and benefit from these as a food resource during all year. This is stated in a scientific article published in the journal Ecology and Evolution whose first author is the researcher Francisco Ramírez, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona.




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Simulations forecast nationwide increase in human exposure to extreme climate events

(DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Using ORNL's now-decommissioned Titan supercomputer, a team of researchers estimated the combined consequences of many different extreme climate events at the county level, a unique approach that provided unprecedented regional and national climate projections that identified the areas most likely to face climate-related challenges.




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New book shows how ancient Greek writing helps us understand today's environmental crises

(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau) University of Illinois classics professor Clara Bosak-Schroeder writes about how the ancient Greeks thought about natural resources and how it is relevant to responding to climate change today.




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Considering how many firms can meet pollutant standards can spur green tech development

(Carnegie Mellon University) A new study developed a model of regulation in which the probability of a stricter standard being enacted increased with the proportion of firms in an industry that could meet the standard. The study found that regulations that consider the proportion of firms that can meet the new standard can motivate the development of a new green technology more effectively than regulations that do not consider this factor.




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NIH clinical trial tests remdesivir plus anti-inflammatory drug baricitinib for COVID-19

(NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) A randomized, controlled clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of a treatment regimen of the investigational antiviral remdesivir plus the anti-inflammatory drug baricitinib for COVID-19 has begun. The trial is now enrolling hospitalized adults with COVID-19 in the United States. The trial is expected to open at approximately 100 US and international sites. Investigators currently anticipate enrolling more than 1,000 participants. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is sponsoring the trial.




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CT scan database of 1000 sets was created for teaching AI to diagnose COVID-19

(Moscow Research and Practical Clinical Center for Diagnostics and Telemedicine Technologies) Researchers of the Moscow Diagnostics and Telemedicine Center collected a dataset that includes more than a thousand sets of chest CT scans of patients with imaging finding of COVID-19. As of today, it is the largest completely anonymized database of CT studies, which has no analogues in Russia or in the world. It is available for download and can be used for developing services based on artificial intelligence technologies.




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An Astronaut & a Rock Star Walk into VentureCrush: Commander Mark Kelly & Laura Marling Discuss Leadership, Creativity & Science

Thursday, July 11, 2019 - 20:00




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How to Find the Perfect Office, According to a Founder Who's Moved His Startup 5 Times

Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - 21:15




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Meet the Most Disruptive MBA Startups of 2019 Poets and Quants – 10/28/2019

Monday, October 28, 2019 - 12:15




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The Best MBA Programs for Venture-Backed Startups

Monday, March 30, 2020 - 12:00




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NJIT physics team provides novel swab design, free of charge, to augment COVID-19 testing

(New Jersey Institute of Technology) A team of NJIT physicists has developed a novel test swab that can be 3D printed using inexpensive, widely available materials and speedily assembled in a range of fabrication settings. To augment the nation's testing capabilities, the inventors are making the swab's design publicly available, free of licensing fees, during the COVID-19 emergency.




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COVID-19 baby boom? This new study suggests perhaps not

(Taylor & Francis Group) Over 80% of people surveyed in a study do not plan to conceive during the COVID-19 crisis, perhaps putting to rest suggestions that the lockdown could lead to rise in birth numbers.




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St. Jude awarded federal grant for Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation

(St. Jude Children's Research Hospital) Funding will help expand collaboration across engineering and physical sciences to expand tools for studying pediatric diseases.




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George Mason University researchers and World Bank launch web portal for hospitals

(George Mason University) The team's work supports evidence-based decision making, informed by models, to rethink and facilitate hospital operations during the pandemic.




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UIowa and UCLA studying ways to reduce risk of COVID-19 infection in emergency room staff

(University of Iowa Health Care) A $3.7 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been awarded to the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA to study ways to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection among frontline health care workers in hospital emergency departments.




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A new way to accurately estimate COVID-19 death toll

(Rutgers University) A Rutgers engineer has created a mathematical model that accurately estimates the death toll linked to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and could be used around the world.




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Understanding the diversity of cancer evolution based on computational simulation

(The Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo) Understanding the principles of cancer evolution is important in designing a therapeutic strategy. A research group at The Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo (IMSUT) announced a new simulation model that describes various modes of cancer evolution in a unified manner.




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Army project explores ways to encourage protective COVID-19 behaviors

(U.S. Army Research Laboratory) A US Army-funded project is identifying how officials at different levels of government can work together to encourage protective behaviors to prevent the spread of COVID-19.




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Civil engineering Professor Sharon Di wins NSF CAREER Award

(Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science) Sharon Di, assistant professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics, has won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for her work in the nascent field of autonomous vehicles and shared mobility transportation, areas rapidly being transformed by emerging communications and sensing technologies.




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Timing of immune response to COVID-19 may contribute to disease severity

(Keck School of Medicine of USC) A new USC study suggests that temporarily suppressing the body's immune system during the early stages of COVID-19 could help a patient avoid severe symptoms. That's because the research shows that an interaction between the body's two main lines of defense may be causing the immune system to go into overdrive in some patients.




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AI tool speeds up search for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines

(Northwestern University) Northwestern University researchers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up the search for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. The AI-powered tool makes it possible to prioritize resources for the most promising studies -- and ignore research that is unlikely to yield benefits.




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Effects of recommender systems in e-commerce vary by product attributes and review ratings

(Carnegie Mellon University) A new study sought to determine how the impact of recommender systems (also called recommenders) is affected by factors such as product type, attributes, and other sources of information about products on retailers' websites. The study found that recommenders increased the number of consumer views of product pages as well as the number of products consumers consider, but that the increase was moderated by product attributes and review ratings.




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SFU epidemiologist awarded Genome B.C. grant to develop COVID-19 statistical tool

(Simon Fraser University) SFU professor Caroline Colijn’s research and data modelling to map the spread of COVID-19 in British Columbia has helped her procure funding from Genome B.C., a non-profit research organization that leads genomics innovation on Canada’s West Coast.




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Gravitational waves could prove the existence of the quark-gluon plasma

(Goethe University Frankfurt) According to modern particle physics, matter produced when neutron stars merge is so dense that it could exist in a state of dissolved elementary particles. This state of matter, called quark-gluon plasma, might produce a specific signature in gravitational waves. Physicists at Goethe University Frankfurt and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies have now calculated this process using supercomputers.




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NASA's Webb Telescope to unravel riddles of a stellar nursery

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) A bustling stellar nursery in the picturesque Orion Nebula will be a subject of study for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2021. A team led by Mark McCaughrean, the Webb Interdisciplinary Scientist for Star Formation, will survey an inner region of the nebula called the Trapezium Cluster. This cluster is home to a thousand or so young stars, all crammed into a space only 4 light-years across -- about the distance from our Sun to Alpha Centauri.




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Researcher developing cutting-edge solution for wind energy

(University of Massachusetts Lowell) A UMass Lowell researcher investigating how to identify damage in wind turbines before they fail has received $1.4 million to develop a solution.




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Research reveals possibly active tectonic system on the moon

(Brown University) Strange spots scattered across the moon's nearside where bedrock is conspicuously exposed are evidence of seismic activity set in motion 4.3 billion years ago that could be ongoing today, the researchers say.




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£1.2 million awarded to improve our understanding of the Sun

(Northumbria University ) Researchers from Northumbria University have been awarded £1.2m to help advance our understanding of the Sun and its impact on the planets within our solar system.




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Study reveals how spaceflight affects risk of blood clots in female astronauts

(King's College London) A study of female astronauts has assessed the risk of blood clots associated with spaceflight.The study, published in Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance, in collaboration with King's College London, the Centre for Space Medicine Baylor College of Medicine, NASA Johnson Space Centre and the International Space University, examines the potential risk factors for developing a blood clot (venous thromboembolism) in space.




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Effect of face-aging app on skin cancer protection behavior

(JAMA Network) This randomized clinical trial looked at the effect of a face-aging mobile app on daily sunscreen use and other skin protection among teens in Brazil. Selfies of students were altered to show UV effects on their future faces and shown to their class, accompanied by information about sun protection. Reducing UV exposure in children and adolescents is important because of the increased risk of skin cancer with cumulative UV exposure and sunburns early in life.




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Lars Hernquist and Volker Springel receive $500,000 Gruber Cosmology Prize

(Yale University) The 2020 Gruber Cosmology Prize recognizes Lars Hernquist, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and Volker Springel, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, for their defining contributions to cosmological simulations, a method that tests existing theories of, and inspires new investigations into, the formation of structures at every scale from stars to galaxies to the universe itself.




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Graphene sets sail in microgravity

(SCALE Nanotech) ESA-backed researchers demonstrate the laser-propulsion of graphene sails in microgravity. The light sails use a scalable micro-membrane design that minimizes their mass and hence increases their thrust upon light irradiation. To demonstrate the new sail concept, the scientists gained access to ZARM Drop Tower. There, the sail prototypes were set in vacuum and microgravity, and 1W-lasers caused their acceleration up to 1 m/s2.




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Hayabusa2's touchdown on Ryugu reveals its surface in stunning detail

(American Association for the Advancement of Science) High-resolution images and video were taken by the Japanese space agency's Hayabusa2 spacecraft as it briefly landed to collect samples from Ryugu -- a nearby asteroid that orbits mostly between Earth and Mars -- allowing researchers to get an up-close look at its rocky surface, according to a new report.




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NASA CubeSat mission to gather vital space weather data

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) NASA has selected a new pathfinding CubeSat mission to gather data not collected since the agency flew the Dynamics Explorer in the early 1980s.




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World's X-ray facilities team up to battle COVID-19

(DOE/Argonne National Laboratory) A group of the world's best X-ray science facilities has developed a strategy for cooperatively combating COVID-19.




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Virgin birth has scientists buzzing

(University of Sydney) In a study published today in Current Biology, researchers from University of Sydney have identified the single gene that determines how Cape honey bees reproduce without ever having sex. One gene, GB45239 on chromosome 11, is responsible for virgin births.




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Coronavirus drugs: Where are we, and what's next? (video)

(American Chemical Society) Antiviral drugs could help us fight the new coronavirus, but currently, we don't have a highly potent, effective antiviral that cures COVID-19. Why not? We called a few virologists to find out: https://youtu.be/AIpeZDR9i3E.




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Carbon footprint hotspots: Mapping China's export-driven emissions

(University of Michigan) The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted just how reliant the United States and other countries are on Chinese manufacturing, with widespread shortages of protective medical gear produced there.




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Archaeologists verify Florida's Mound Key as location of elusive Spanish fort

(Florida Museum of Natural History) Florida and Georgia archaeologists have discovered the location of Fort San Antón de Carlos, home of one of the first Jesuit missions in North America. The Spanish fort was built in 1566 in the capital of the Calusa, the most powerful Native American tribe in the region, on present-day Mound Key in the center of Estero Bay on Florida's Gulf Coast.




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Diverse livelihoods helped resilient Levänluhta people survive a climate disaster

(University of Helsinki) A multidisciplinary research group coordinated by the University of Helsinki dated the bones of dozens of Iron Age residents of the Levänluhta site in Finland, and studied the carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios. The results provide an overview of the dietary habits based on terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems, as well as of sources of livelihoods throughout the Levänluhta era.




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Study reveals rich genetic diversity of Vietnam

(Molecular Biology and Evolution (Oxford University Press)) In a new paper, Dang Liu, Mark Stoneking and colleagues have analyzed newly generated genome-wide SNP data for the Kinh and 21 additional ethnic groups in Vietnam, encompassing all five major language families in MSEA, along with previously published data from nearby populations and ancient samples.




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X-ray analysis sheds light on construction and conservation of artefacts from Henry VIII's warship

(University of Warwick) 21st century X-ray technology has allowed University of Warwick scientists to peer back through time at the production of the armour worn by the crew of Henry VIII's favoured warship, the Mary Rose.




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Deformed skulls in an ancient cemetery reveal a multicultural community in transition

(PLOS) The ancient cemetery of Mözs-Icsei d?l? in present-day Hungary holds clues to a unique community formation during the beginnings of Europe's Migration Period, according to a study published April 29, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Corina Knipper from the Curt-Engelhorn-Center for Archaeometry, Germany, István Koncz, Tivadar Vida from the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary and colleagues.




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Evidence of Late Pleistocene human colonization of isolated islands beyond Wallace's Line

(Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) What makes our species unique compared to other hominins? High profile genetic, fossil and material culture discoveries present scientists working in the Late Pleistocene with an ever-more complex picture of interactions between early hominin populations. One distinctive characteristic of Homo sapiens, however, appears to be its global distribution. Exploring how Homo sapiens colonized most of the world's continents in a relatively short period could reveal the exceptional capacities of humans relative to other hominins.




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The story of three African slaves during Spanish colonialism, as told by their bones

(Cell Press) In a study appearing April 30 in the journal Current Biology, scientists tell the story of three 16th century African slaves identified from a mass burial site in Mexico City. Using a combination of genetic, osteological, and isotope analyses, the scientists determined from where in Africa they were likely captured, the physical hardships they experienced as slaves, and what novel pathogens they may have carried with them across the Atlantic.




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African skeletons from early colonial Mexico tell the story of first-generation slaves

(Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) Three 16th-century skeletons from a mass burial in Mexico City highlight the role of the transatlantic slave trade in introducing and disseminating new pathogens to the Americas. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico analyzed skeletal features, genetic data and isotopes to explore the life history of three enslaved Africans and explore the wide-ranging impacts of massive forced migration.




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Cultivating cooperation through kinship

(University of Chicago Press Journals) Extensive cooperation among biologically unrelated individuals is uniquely human. It would be surprising if this uniqueness were not related to other uniquely human characteristics, yet current theories of human cooperation tend to ignore the human aspects of human behavior. This paper presents a theory of cooperation that draws on social, cultural, and psychological aspects of human uniqueness for which current theories have little or no explanation.