31 Jan Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Situation Summary (by CDC)

CDC is closely monitoring an outbreak of respiratory illness caused by a novel (new) coronavirus (named “2019-nCoV”) that was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China and which continues to expand. Chinese health officials have reported thousands of infections with 2019-nCoV in China, with the virus reportedly spreading from person-to-person in many parts of that country. Infections with 2019-nCoV, most of them associated with travel from Wuhan, also are being reported in a growing number of international locations, including the United States. The United States reported the first confirmed instance of person-to-person spread with this virus on January 30, 2020.

Coronaviruses are a large family of RNA viruses that are common in many different species of animals, including camels, cattle, cats, and bats. Rarely, animal coronaviruses can infect people and then spread between people such as with MERS and SARS.

Laboratory testing of human suspected cases of novel coronavirus (nCoV) infection (PDF)

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.cdc.gov

30 Jan A quantum breakthrough brings a technique from astronomy to the nano-scale

Researchers at Columbia University and University of California, San Diego, have introduced a novel "multi-messenger" approach to quantum physics that signifies a technological leap in how scientists can explore quantum materials.

The findings appear in a recent article published in Nature Materials, led by A. S. McLeod, postdoctoral researcher, Columbia Nano Initiative, with co-authors Dmitri Basov and A. J. Millis at Columbia and R.A. Averitt at UC San Diego. "We have brought a technique from the inter-galactic scale down to the realm of the ultra-small," said Basov, Higgins Professor of Physics and Director of the Energy Frontier Research Center at Columbia. Equipped with multi-modal nanoscience tools we can now routinely go places no one thought would be possible as recently as five years ago."

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.eurekalert.org

30 Jan You Don’t Need To Modify Gravity To Explain Dark Energy

One of the greatest unsolved puzzles in all of science is dark energy. The Universe isn’t just expanding, but the expansion rate that we infer for distant galaxies is accelerating: their recession velocity speeds up from our perspective as time goes on. This was a surprise when it was discovered empirically in the 1990s, and more than two decades later, we still don’t understand where this mysterious form of energy, the most abundant in all the Universe, comes from.

While you can explain dark energy in the context of General Relativity, it’s recently become fashionable to attempt to explain dark energy by modifying gravity instead. Recently, the award-winning theoretical work of Dr. Claudia de Rham has come into focus, leading The Guardian to ask, "Has physicist’s gravity theory solved ‘impossible’ dark energy riddle?" It’s a fascinating possibility, but one that demands an appropriate level of skepticism.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.forbes.com

30 Jan Artificial intelligence helps experts forecast icebergs

This year will see a relatively low number of icebergs drifting into busy shipping regions in the north-west Atlantic, according to a combination of control systems and artificial intelligence forecasting models developed by experts at the University of Sheffield.

A recently published control systems model has been used to predict that between 479 and 1,015 icebergs will reach waters south of 48°N—the area of greatest risk to shipping traveling between Europe and north-east North America—in 2020, compared with 1,515 observed there last year.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: phys.org

17 Jan Cancer death rates are falling continuously – Advances in lung cancer treatment are playing a major role.

Deaths from lung cancer dropped by 51 percent among men since the early 1990s and by 26 percent among women since the early 2000s. The report also credits drops in lung cancer mortality for a 2.2 percent dip from 2016 to 2017 — the largest decline of cancer deaths in a single year ever reported. Doctors attribute the success in part to lower smoking rates but also to significant advances in treatment.

Major medical advances are continuing

"The years we have been investing in basic science of cancer therapeutics [are] now starting to pay off," said Dr. Patrick Hwu, division head of cancer medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Hwu, who was not involved with the new report, credited targeted therapies, which are drugs that work to eliminate the circuitry that turns on cancer cells.

Another of the biggest advances, experts said, has been the development of immunotherapies such as Keytruda, also known as pembrolizumab. It uses the body’s immune system to fight tumors, and it is approved for lung cancer and melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer.

The American Cancer Society report also found rapid declines in melanoma death rates, up to 7 percent a year from 2013 to 2017 among adults, also attributable to new treatments. The Food and Drug Administration approved two key drugs to treat melanoma: ipilimumab and vemurafenib.

"We’re actually seeing the effect of those drugs reflected in the overall melanoma death rate," said Rebecca Siegel, scientific director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and an author of the new report. "That’s really exciting." Physicians are seeing it in practice, as well.

"In the past decade, how we treat invasive melanoma has evolved so unbelievably rapidly that it is, for some, becoming more of a chronic disease than a death sentence," said Dr. Adam Friedman, a professor of dermatology at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, D.C.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.nbcnews.com

17 Jan Genetically engineered mosquitoes resist spreading any form of dengue fever

Recover from dengue once, and you’re not necessarily free and clear. The mosquito-borne disease marked by fever, rash, and debilitating pain results from any of four genetically distinct versions of the dengue virus. Previously infected people who get hit with a second of these “serotypes” can face more severe, even life-threatening symptoms.

Now, by endowing a line of mosquitoes with an antibody against the virus, researchers have for the first time made insects that—at least in lab tests—appear unable to spread any form of the disease. In theory, these mosquitoes could be released into the wild to suppress the circulation of the virus. “This is right on the money,” says Alexander Franz, a biologist at the University of Missouri, Columbia, who studies insect-borne viruses. “This is what you need to do if you really want to have a strong effect on dengue prevalence.”

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.sciencemag.org

10 Jan Australia fires: A visual guide to the bushfire crisis

How Australia has been battling bushfires during a devastating fire season.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.bbc.com

10 Jan Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon up by more than double

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon in November surged by 104 percent compared to the same month in 2018, according to official data. The 563 square kilometers (217 square miles) deforested that month is also the highest number for any November since 2015, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which provides official data on deforestation.

That is considered a significant increase, particularly during the rainy season, when deforestation generally slows.

For the first 11 months of the year—also the first months in office of Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right leader who has eased restrictions on exploiting the Amazon’s vast riches—deforestation totaled 8,974.3 square kilometers. That is nearly twice the 4,878.7 square kilometers reported for the first 11 months of 2018.

The data was collected by the satellite-based DETER system, which monitors deforestation in real time. Another satellite-based system used by the INPE known as PRODES, considered more reliable but slower to compile data, reported in late November that in the 12 months beginning August 2018, deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon had passed the 10,000 square kilometer threshold for the first time since 2008. That represented a 43 percent increase from the preceding 12-month period.

Deforestation in indigenous areas rose even faster, by 74.5 percent from the preceding period, INPE reported.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: phys.org