Wednesday, April 15, 2020

science news 15.4.2020

Today's selection of science news. Links are normally to press releases on EurekAlert (at the bottom end I may also add a couple of newspaper stories). I include quotes from the summary in italics in cases where the title alone doesn't reveal what the story is about. My own thoughts appear without italics if I have any.


astrobiology

Beacon in space: BRITE Constellation observes complete nova eruption for the first time


earth

'A bad time to be alive': Study links ocean deoxygenation to ancient die-off

Volcanic CO2 emissions helped trigger Triassic climate change


ecology

Flamingos form firm friendships



Flamingo friends
Credit: Paul Rose/WWT Slimbridge


Study points to evidence of stray dogs as possible origin of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic


conservation

A new species of black endemic iguanas in Caribbean is proposed for urgent conservation


nanoworld

Study reveals unique physical, chemical properties of cicada wings


humans

Arduous farm labor in the past means longer working hours today
A new study in The Economic Journal finds that societies with a history of farming crops heavily reliant on labor effort prefer harder work and longer hours.

Autism in males linked to defect in brain immune cells, microglia



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From the news media:

How about some self-isolating animal pictures.

As the current science advisor to the UK govt. has obviously been brainwashed by Dominic Cummings, it is nice to hear from a previous holder of that post, David King.

Also, the Financial Times is still keeping up the good work at the data front.

Speaking of data, I am beginning to get suspicious of the UK death (in hospitals) stats apparently levelling off at around 750 per day. My back of the envelope calculation: if testing capacity = 20k a day (per the David King article above), say 15k are positive, 5% off the positives die (high mortality as only ill ppl get tested), that gives us 750 deaths per day. So are the figures of the last few days capped by test availability? In other words, the daily deaths may very well go on rising, and we'll never know as we don't have the tests available? If that is the case, the excess deaths over long-term average will be the only metric left to assess what's going on.

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