Sci-News Roundup September 04 - September 10 2021
General Interest  Cosmos   Innovation   Health  Nature  Environment  Climate

SftPublic programs are presently zoom-recorded, broadcast and distributed by Belmont Media Center Community TV. The videos are also uploaded to WGBH Forum Network and to the SftPublic website.and online channels.




STAT, September 02, 2021
Is it semantics? Does it make any material or practical difference what we call it?

New York Times, September 03, 2021
If you’re vaccinated, you should think about a number of variables, including your overall health, where you live and the risks you take.

Axios, September 07, 2021
Two-thirds of the world isn't fully vaccinated. To return to some semblance of "normal," health authorities need to emphasize how the vaccines aren't failing and drastically increase global vaccine production.

Nature, September 02, 2021
The ZyCoV-D vaccine heralds a wave of DNA vaccines for various diseases that are undergoing clinical trials around the world.


GENERAL INTEREST

Cosmos, September 06, 2021
Listen to recordings of a duck that picked up some choice phrases from its keepers.

Science, September 01, 2021
Stone tools in ancient lakebeds show sequential expansions of different cultures

Phys.Org, September 07, 2021
In fact, there's a lot of physics preventing the coffee from spilling over.

Quanta, September 01, 2021
Genomes hold immense quantities of noncoding DNA. Some of it is essential for life, some seems useless, and some has its own agenda.

Mental Floss, September 03, 2021
Pickle sellers like Amerigo Vespucci indispensable during the golden age of exploration. Vespucci even supplied Christopher Columbus’s later voyages across the Atlantic with his briny goods.

COSMOS

Symmetry, September 07,2021
Even experiments that aren’t looking for dark matter directly could give us hints about the mysterious substance that permeates our universe.

Cosmos, September 03, 2021
From Newton to Einstein, how has our understanding of gravity changed over the centuries? 

Intelligencer, September 06, 2021
The problem of so-called “space junk” has been building ever since Sputnik was launched into orbit in 1957. Since then, earthlings have clogged the space around the planet with derelict rocket bodies, dead spacecraft, and 6,000 mostly defunct satellites.  

Science Daily, August 30, 2021
The Bernese theoretical astrophysicist Kevin Heng has achieved a rare feat: On paper, he has derived novel solutions to an old mathematical problem needed to calculate light reflections from planets and moons.

Ars Technica, September 08, 2021
The telescope is ready. So is the rocket. It's time.


INNOVATION

Inside Climate Change, September 07, 2021
Small-scale farmers know how to reduce agriculture’s carbon emissions, curb water and air pollution and boost biodiversity. But current economic incentives and policies still favor large industrial farms that rely on chemicals and fossil fuels and raise only a few types of livestock or crops.

Grist, September 03, 2021
Hurricane Ida exposed the grid's weaknesses. It didn't have to be that way.

The Guardian, September 08, 2021
Operators say the Orca plant can suck 4,000 tons of CO2 out of the air every year and inject it deep into the ground to be mineralized.

TechXplore, September 06, 2021
As Congress advances legislation to invest $550 billion in new funding for national infrastructure projects, the specific priorities in each industry category remain undefined.

Scientific American, September 02, 2021
New technology delivers power to electronic devices in a test space.


HEALTH

Washington Post, September 08, 2021
Here are some outside-the-box but science-based strategies that can help us calm down quickly, so we can keep functioning and doing what needs to be done.

Medical News Today, September 05, 2021
Many people avoid gluten in their diet, but why is gluten an issue? Does gluten sensitivity exist? And if it does, what is the difference between celiac disease and gluten sensitivity? In this edition of Honest Nutrition, we examine the details.

Healthline, September 01, 2021
If you want to have better focus, improve your memory, and boost mental performance, you can take several steps to nurture your cognitive health.

New York Times, September 07, 2021
A flurry of litigation by advocacy groups seeks to combat what they say is a rise in deceptive marketing by food giants.
NOTE: Two prize-winning films, Food, Inc, and The Poison Squad provide the backstory, excellent information; DVDs are available in public libraries.

Live Science, September 04, 2021
For some people, it can cause real problems, such as headaches, jaw pain and damaged teeth.

Mental Floss, September 03, 2021
Your body is always trying to maintain your internal temperature—and when you’re surrounded by heat, that requires significantly more effort.


NATURE

Audubon, August 25, 2021
From holding their own funerals to their penchant for maintaining grudges, this is one fascinating corvid.

Treehugger, September 07, 2021
The birth might be the first documented case of parthenogenesis, a form of asexual reproduction where an egg can develop into an embryo without fertilization by sperm.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., no date
The sand found on a specific beach is created by its surroundings. It’s unique to that beach—like a fingerprint.

BBC Future, July 03, 2021
A billion years have vanished from the geological record – and over 152 years after this was first discovered, scientists can't agree on why.

Cosmos, September 09, 2021
Scan reveals huge seafloor channels carved by ancient ice sheets.

EOS, July 15, 2021
Reports of ghostly spheres of light are often too qualitative. These scientists want your detailed accounts.

ENVIRONMENT

The Guardian, September 07, 2021
Livestock companies with large emissions receive billions of dollars in funding, campaigners say.

E&E Greenwire, September 07, 2021
With national parks across the country reporting record attendance this summer, Sen. Angus King says there’s one solution Congress could embrace: Create more parks.

Cosmos, September 08, 2021
Researchers question why Australia is still pursuing fracking despite risks to human health and the environment.

NPR, September 03, 2021
As the global push for electric transportation grows, these metals have converted a remote underwater plain into a battleground over the hard decisions required to address climate change

Reuters, September 07, 2021
Hurricane Ida's 150 mile-per-hour (240 kph) winds wreaked havoc on offshore oil production platforms and onshore oil and gas processing plants.


CLIMATE

Common Dreams, September 06, 2021
"The greatest threat to global public health is the continued failure of world leaders to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C and to restore nature," warn journals in unprecedented joint editorial.

Nature, September 08, 2021
Governments have failed to slow climate change quickly enough, so activists are using courts to compel countries and companies to act — increasingly with help from forefront science.

New York Times, February 22, 2021
Many big businesses have not set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Others have weak goals.

The Conversation, September 02, 2021
The jet stream flows from west to east, but that’s not the only direction in which atmospheric waves can move – they can also move up and down over large distances, and that can link the weather and climate in one region, like the Arctic, with regions elsewhere, like Texas.

The Guardian, September 09, 2021 (G. Monbiot)
Climate policies commit us to a calamitous 2.9C of global heating, but catastrophic changes can occur at even 1.5C or 2C