Mass extinctions of land-dwelling animals occur in 27-million-year cycle

Mass extinctions of land-dwelling animals—including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds—follow a cycle of about 27 million years, coinciding with previously reported mass extinctions of ocean life, according to a new analysis published in the journal Historical Biology.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-mass-extinctions-land-dwelling-animals-million-year.html

EU leaders struggle to break deadlock on climate deal

European Union leaders were still looking Friday for an agreement to cut the bloc's net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by the end of the decade compared to 1990 levels following a night of intense discussions.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-eu-leaders-struggle-deadlock-climate.html

Window opens for Virgin Galactic test flight from spaceport

The window opens Friday for Virgin Galactic's first rocket-powered test flight from Spaceport America in southern New Mexico as the company prepares for commercial flights next year.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-window-virgin-galactic-flight-spaceport.html

Disney unveils plans to stream a galaxy of new series, films

The Walt Disney Co.'s streaming plans shifted into hyper speed Thursday, as the studio unveiled a galaxy's worth of new streaming offerings including plans for 10 "Star Wars" series spinoffs and 10 Marvel series that will debut on Disney+.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-disney-unveils-stream-galaxy-series.html

COVID lockdown causes record drop in CO2 emissions for 2020

The global COVID-19 lockdowns caused fossil carbon dioxide emissions to decline by an estimated 2.4 billion tonnes in 2020—a record drop according to researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA), University of Exeter and the Global Carbon Project.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-covid-lockdown-co2-emissions.html

COVID lockdown causes record drop in CO2 emissions for 2020

The global COVID-19 lockdowns caused fossil carbon dioxide emissions to decline by an estimated 2.4 billion tonnes in 2020—a record drop according to researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA), University of Exeter and the Global Carbon Project.

Patient death rates higher on surgeons' birthdays

Patients who undergo surgery on the surgeon's birthday experience higher mortality compared with patients who undergo surgery on other days of the year, finds a US study in the Christmas issue of The BMJ.

Soothing words and music during surgery might reduce postoperative pain

Listening to soothing words and music during surgery appears to reduce pain levels and the need for pain relieving drugs after surgery, finds a trial published in the Christmas issue of The BMJ.

Who is the girl behind the face of CPR?

She is the face that many have kissed during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training and she has saved millions of lives, but who is she and what is her story?

Dogs and their owners share a risk of developing diabetes

Owners of a dog with diabetes are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes themselves than owners of a dog without diabetes, finds a study published in the Christmas issue of The BMJ.

New treatment could spare early-stage rectal cancer patients life-altering side effects

A new and less invasive treatment developed by Cancer Research UK researchers is safer than standard major surgery for early-stage rectal cancer, giving patients a better quality of life with fewer life-altering side effects, results from a pilot study show.

Is George's 'Marvellous Medicine' medically useful, dangerous, or both?

Increased time at home during the COVID-19 pandemic may inspire budding scientists to search for a cure, but researchers in the Christmas issue of The BMJ warn of the potential toxicity of homemade potions.

Study details first artificial intelligence tool to help labs rule-out COVID-19

Hospital-based laboratories and doctors at the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic might soon add artificial intelligence to their testing toolkit. A recent study conducted with collaborators from the University of Vermont and Cedars-Sinai describes the performance of Biocogniv's new AI-COVID software. The team found high accuracy in predicting the probability of COVID-19 infection using routine blood tests, which can help hospitals reduce the number of patients referred for scarce PCR testing.

Scientists look to meteorites for inspiration to achieve critical element-free magnet

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Critical Materials Institute has developed a low-cost, high performance permanent magnet by drawing inspiration from an out-of-this-world source: iron-nickel alloys in meteorites. The magnet rivals widely used "Alnico" magnets in magnetic strength and has the potential to fill a strong demand for rare-earth- and cobalt-free magnets in the market.

COVID-19 may also invade the central nervous system, cause neurological illnesses

COVID-19 is known primarily as a respiratory disease, with symptoms that include cough, shortness of breath, and, in severe cases, acute respiratory distress syndrome and pneumonia. Now, researchers from Cleveland Clinic's Department of Biomedical Engineering note in a recent review that infection with the coronavirus may also affect the central nervous system and cause corresponding neurological disorders, including ischemic stroke, encephalitis, encephalopathy and epileptic seizures.

Antiepileptic drug reduces motor neuron excitability in ALS

The antiepileptic drug ezogabine reduced pathologic excitability of cortical and spinal motor neuron cells that are early signs of clinical dysfunction in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), according to a study conducted by the Neurological Clinical Research Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). In addition to providing a clearer understanding of motor neuron excitability as an important disease pathway for ALS, the multi-site study, published in JAMA Neurology, involves the first clinical investigation of ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) using a drug identified through an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) model.

Restorative justice preferred among the Enga in Papua New Guinea

All human groups create systems for regulating cultural norms to maintain cooperation in society. Most large-scale populations employ a punitive judicial system where a third party doles out punishment. Yet, there's little evidence that this system achieves cooperation in a community. Advocates have long called for a more restorative justice system that repairs harm done to victims and reintegrates wrongdoers back into society. From an evolutionary perspective, humans have developed capacities to resolve disputes through restoration such as language, empathy and causal reasoning, and theory of mind to understand others and their perspectives.

Which product categories and industries benefit most from social advertising

New research from a team of scientists at four leading universities has shed new light on the effectiveness of social advertising in specific product categories to learn which product categories tend to benefit more from social advertising, and which may not.

Qualcomm aims to jumpstart smart cities tech with new plug and play subscription suite

In a bid to jumpstart smart cities technologies, Qualcomm has launched a new Internet of Things Services Suite to help municipalities, schools, ports, hospitals and construction firms deploy digital tools without huge upfront costs.

EPA move creates hurdles for future air, climate rules

The Environmental Protection Agency announced final rule changes Wednesday that would make it harder for the incoming Biden administration to make new rules to protect the environment and public health by limiting the consideration of their costs and benefits.

US experts debate Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in live event

Britain and Canada have already approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine—will the United States be next?

Can I stop wearing a mask after getting a COVID-19 vaccine?

Can I stop wearing a mask after getting a COVID-19 vaccine?

Researchers say new species of beaked whale found off Mexico

Researchers looking for an elusive species of beaked whale said Wednesday they think they have found another new, previously unknown species off Mexico's western Pacific coast.

SpaceX launches Starship on highest test flight, crash-lands

SpaceX launched its shiny, bullet-shaped, straight-out-of-science fiction Starship several miles into the air from a remote corner of Texas on Wednesday, but the 6 1/2-minute test flight ended in an explosive fireball at touchdown.

First woman, next man on moon will come from these NASA 18

NASA has named the 18 astronauts—half of them women—who will train for its Artemis moon-landing program.

Cataloging nature's hidden arsenal: Viruses that infect bacteria

Scientists are continually searching for new and improved ways to deal with bacteria, be it to eliminate disease-causing strains or to modify potentially beneficial strains. And despite the numerous clever drugs and genetic engineering tools humans have invented for these tasks, those approaches can seem clumsy when compared to the finely tuned attacks waged by phages—the viruses that infect bacteria.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-nature-hidden-arsenal-viruses-infect.html

Toxic pollutants can impact wildlife disease spread

Exposure to toxic pollutants associated with human activities may be influencing the spread of infectious diseases in wildlife, according to a new study from the University of Georgia. The findings, just published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, have implications for both human health and wildlife conservation.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-toxic-pollutants-impact-wildlife-disease.html

Ecologists study how soil fungi respond to wildfire

In the wake of the 2017 North Bay fires, the golden hills of Santa Rosa, California, were unrecognizable. Smoky, seared and buried under ash, the landscape appeared desolate, save for some ghostly, blackened—but still alive—oak trees. For Stanford University graduate student, Gabriel Smith, whose family lives in Santa Rosa, the devastation was heartbreaking, but it also offered a unique scientific opportunity: a natural experiment on the effects of wildfires on the microbes that live in soil, which Smith studies in the form of fungi.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-ecologists-soil-fungi-wildfire.html

The role of platform protection insurance in the sharing economy

Researchers from Temple University, Tsinghua University, and Fudan University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that explores the business impact of PPI on buyers' purchase behaviors and sellers' sales activities.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-role-platform-economy.html

Johns Hopkins: Census records show founder owned slaves

Johns Hopkins University, whose researchers have been at the forefront of the global response to COVID-19, announced on Wednesday that its founder owned slaves during the 19th century, a revelation for the Baltimore-based school that had taken pride in the man purportedly being a staunch abolitionist.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-johns-hopkins-census-founder-slaves.html

Delta asks more workers to take leave as travel slump widens

Delta Air Lines has managed to avoid furloughs but is now asking more employees to take unpaid leaves of absence, a sign of the deepening slump in air travel as coronavirus cases increase across the United States.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-delta-workers-slump-widens.html

Airbnb, resilient in pandemic, goes forward with IPO

Airbnb proved its resilience in a year that has upended global travel. Now it needs to prove to investors that it sees more growth ahead.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-airbnb-resilient-pandemic-ipo.html

Google CEO says company will review AI scholar's abrupt exit

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has apologized for how a prominent artificial intelligence researcher's abrupt departure last week has "seeded doubts" in the company.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-google-ceo-company-ai-scholar.html

Researchers say new species of beaked whale found off Mexico

Researchers looking for an elusive species of beaked whale said Wednesday they think they have found another new, previously unknown species off Mexico's western Pacific coast.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-species-beaked-whale-mexico.html

SpaceX launches Starship on highest test flight, crash-lands

SpaceX launched its shiny, bullet-shaped, straight-out-of-science fiction Starship several miles into the air from a remote corner of Texas on Wednesday, but the 6 1/2-minute test flight ended in an explosive fireball at touchdown.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-spacex-starship-highest-flight-crash-lands.html

First woman, next man on moon will come from these NASA 18

NASA has named the 18 astronauts—half of them women—who will train for its Artemis moon-landing program.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-woman-moon-nasa.html

France imposes 135 mn euros in fines on Google, Amazon

France's CNIL data privacy watchdog said Thursday it had fined two Google units a total of 100 million euros and an Amazon subsidiary 35 million euros over advertising cookies.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-france-imposes-mn-euros-fines.html

Delta asks more workers to take leave as travel slump widens

Delta Air Lines has managed to avoid furloughs but is now asking more employees to take unpaid leaves of absence, a sign of the deepening slump in air travel as coronavirus cases increase across the United States.

Airbnb, resilient in pandemic, goes forward with IPO

Airbnb proved its resilience in a year that has upended global travel. Now it needs to prove to investors that it sees more growth ahead.

Google CEO says company will review AI scholar's abrupt exit

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has apologized for how a prominent artificial intelligence researcher's abrupt departure last week has "seeded doubts" in the company.

France imposes 135 mn euros in fines on Google, Amazon

France's CNIL data privacy watchdog said Thursday it had fined two Google units a total of 100 million euros and an Amazon subsidiary 35 million euros over advertising cookies.