Sci-News Roundup February 13 - February 19, 2021
General Interest  Cosmos   Innovation   Health  Nature  Environment  Climate

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Scientific American, February 11, 2021
States are coordinating the actual administration of vaccines on their own. “We’ve got 50 states and 50 different plans. We do not have a single coordinated policy in terms of how this should be done optimally, so it’s the left to the states."

Science, February 16, 2021
Still unclear is what percentage of a population needs to be vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 before herd immunity kicks in.

STAT, February 17, 2021
The concern isn’t just that people will get picky about which vaccine they want, slowing down the task of inoculating enough of the population to blunt the impact of Covid-19.

Science News, February 05, 2021
New variants could bring more reinfections, but fewer cases of severe COVID-19.

BBC News, February 15, 2021
Informative comparisons in graphs.


GENERAL INTEREST

Phys.Org, February 14, 2021
A high-production brewery believed to be more than 5,000 years old has been uncovered by a team of archaeologists at a funerary site in southern Egypt.

The Guardian, February 12, 2021
Find backs theory that bluestones first stood at Waun Mawn before being dragged 140 miles to Wiltshire.

PBS/Nova, February 11, 2021
Discover capsaicin, the active ingredient in chile peppers. (If you can take the heat.)

The Conversation, July 02, 2019
The father of our country suffered horribly with dental pain. Today, the dental profession has many ways to relieve dental pain and to replace missing teeth so that they look and feel like natural ones.

+Plus, January 21, 2021
The logistic map is famous for two reasons: it gives a way of predicting how a population of animals will grow or shrink over time, and it illustrates the fascinating phenomenon of mathematical chaos.

COSMOS

PBS, February 17, 2021
Perseverance, NASA’s latest Mars rover, will begin its descent to the planet’s Jezero Crater on Thursday, nearly seven months after it first launched from Cape Canaveral.

Smithsonian, February 15, 2021
A new model explains a possible route for the extraterrestrial rock before it blasted Earth

Science, February 15, 2021
The orbits of a handful of distant lumps of rock are not bunched together by the gravity of Planet Nine, as its proponents believe, but only seem clustered because that’s where telescopes happened to be looking.

New York Times, February 12, 2021
NASA’s sole means of sending commands to the distant space probe, launched 44 years ago, is being restored on Friday.

Quanta, February 11, 2021
A new study shows that extreme black holes could break the famous “no-hair” theorem, and in a way that we could detect.  

INNOVATION

Elemental, February 15, 2021
A century ago, few Americans had any idea how much they weighed. Here’s why that changed so dramatically.

BBC News, February 12, 2021
Coca-Cola is to test a paper bottle as part of a longer-term bid to eliminate plastic from its packaging entirely.

Universe Today, February 14, 2021
A key aspect of this is the Lunar Gateway, an orbiting habitat that will allow astronauts to make regular trips to and from the lunar surface.

New Yorker, February 18, 2021 (Bill McKibben)
This so-called solar geoengineering is the ultimate, break-the-glass response to the climate crisis.

Treehugger, February 11, 2021
Sun Cable is developing the world's largest solar energy infrastructure network.


HEALTH

New York Times, February 17, 2021
The more you do, the better, but even mild exercise like walking produces benefits for cardiovascular health, a large new study found.

Environmental Health News, July 14, 2020
The tests also found glyphosate in other kinds of dry and canned beans, dry lentils and garbanzo flour.

EurekAlert!, February 12, 2021
A study of the direct interaction between p53 and the green tea compound, EGCG, points to a new target for cancer drug discovery.

Washington Post, February 13, 2021
Winter activities are some of the best ways to get fit, and as counterintuitive as it might sound, exercise can sometimes be even more pleasant in the cold.

The Guardian, February 14, 2021
Fears of illness over nitrites used in US but currently banned in Britain and EU.


NATURE

Cosmos, February 16, 2021
The Antarctic delivers surprising insights into life and survival.

Treehugger, February 12, 2021
The animals who inspired the unicorn legend exist in real life, and they are completely fascinating.

Deutsche Welle, February 15, 2021
The Pacific Ring of Fire is aptly named. It's a string of volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean, and the region is prone to earthquakes. In fact, most earthquakes strike within the ring. Here's five facts.

Science, February 11, 2021
What is it about DNA that makes the human brain “human?”

Phys.Org, February 11, 2021
One persistent theory about the origin of life on Earth is that life began in the deep ocean with hot, acidic vents known as black smokers.


ENVIRONMENT 

New York Times, February 17, 2021
The state’s widespread electricity failure was largely caused by freezing natural gas pipelines. That didn’t stop advocates for fossil fuels from trying to shift blame.

Science Alert, February 16, 2021
Cities don't just have sea level rises to worry about – they're also slowly sinking under the weight of their own development.

Mother Jones, February 11, 2021
And why they’re scared we might break up with their favorite appliance.

Environmental Health News, February 14, 2021
The American environmental movement, and environmental politics in general, are in middle age.

The Guardian, February 16, 2021
Internal government emails show actions similar to those by Bayer and lobbyists to kill a proposed ban in Thailand in 2019.

CLIMATE

Washington Post, February 16, 2021
How ingredients came together for an onslaught of bone-chilling temperatures and a barrage of storms.

MIT Technology Review, February 14, 2021
The Microsoft co-founder discusses his new book, the limits of his optimism, the tech breakthroughs and energy policies we need—and how his thinking on climate change has evolved.

Common Dreams, February 16, 2021
"If we continue with large ongoing emissions as we are at present, we will commit the world to meters of sea level rise over coming centuries."

Phys.Org, February 16, 2021
Icebergs are melting faster than current models describe.

EcoWatch, February 15, 2021
As the climate warms, this historic river poses a flooding risk to nearby landmarks.