Asymptomatic coronavirus cases seem very common – but those people might only be contagious for half as long, new research suggests
businessinsider.com – Asymptomatic patients may only shed the virus for eight days, on average. Symptomatic patients could shed for up to 24 days.
Source: Melissa M. Arons, et al. Presymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infections and Transmission in a Skilled Nursing Facility. New England Journal of Medicine, 2020.
Dinosaur asteroid's trajectory was 'perfect storm'
bbc.com – The angle at which a life-destroying space rock hit Earth 66 million years ago was particularly lethal.
Source: Mattia Serra, et al. Search and rescue at sea aided by hidden flow structures. Nature Communications, 2020.
Researchers incorporate computer vision and uncertainty into AI for robotic prosthetics
eurekalert.org – Researchers have developed new software that can be integrated with existing hardware to enable people using robotic prosthetics or exoskeletons to walk in a safer, more natural manner on different types of terrain. The new framework incorporates computer vision into prosthetic leg control, and includes robust artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that allow the software to better account for uncertainty.
Source: Boxuan Zhong, Rafael Luiz da Silva, Minhan Li, He Huang, Edgar Lobaton. Environmental Context Prediction for Lower Limb Prostheses With Uncertainty Quantification. IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 2020.
Brain scans reveal the source of stress in the brain
futurity.org – The discovery of the neural "home" for stress could be helpful to people struggling with the major fear and anxiety that it causes.
Source: Elizabeth V. Goldfarb, Monica D. Rosenberg, Dongju Seo, R. Todd Constable, Rajita Sinha. Hippocampal seed connectome-based modeling predicts the feeling of stress. Nature Communications, 2020.
New Hybrid? Scientists Create a Mouse Embryo That is 4% Human
hngn.com – Scientists have created a hybrid, which is part human and part mouse. The experiment is now undergoing ethical debates but it can help in growing organs for transplants.
Source: Zhixing Hu, et al. Transient inhibition of mTOR in human pluripotent stem cells enables robust formation of mouse-human chimeric embryos. Science Advances, 2020.
Coronavirus 'silent spreaders' become a bigger risk as California reopens
latimes.com – There’s increasing concern that people infected with COVID-19 who show no signs of illness are playing a large role in the transmission of COVID-19.
Source: Roman Wölfel, et al. Virological assessment of hospitalized patients with COVID-2019. Nature, 2020.
R5519 And The Cosmic Ring Of Fire From 11 Billion BC
science20.com – The galaxy, named R5519, is 11 billion light-years from our Solar System and it is making stars at a rate 50 times greater than the Milky Way. The hole at its centre is truly massive, with a diameter two billion times longer than the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
Source: Tiantian Yuan, et al. A giant galaxy in the young Universe with a massive ring. Nature Astronomy, 2020.
What Do COVID-19 Antibody Tests Show — and Can the Results Be Trusted?
discovermagazine.com – The tests are crucial to understanding the full scope of the COVID-19 pandemic. But right now, the results aren’t reliable.
Source: Abishek Chandrashekar, et al. SARS-CoV-2 infection protects against rechallenge in rhesus macaques. Science, 2020.
Native Americans Were Siberians First
science20.com – Isotope analysis, ancient pathogen genomics, plus a dash of human population genetics have revealed the deeper connection to date between the early peoples of Siberia and the Americas. During the Early Bronze Age, people were expanding.
Source: He Yu, et al. Paleolithic to Bronze Age Siberians Reveal Connections with First Americans and across Eurasia. Cell, 2020.
Researchers Develop Bionic Eye Called ElectroChemical EYE as Sensitive as a Human Retina
techtimes.com – This device can also be used to provide vision for robots.
Source: Leilei Gu, et al. A biomimetic eye with a hemispherical perovskite nanowire array retina. Nature, 2020.
