Science 2.0

While traveling around the Sea of Galilee, visiting Tiberias, Magdala, Capernaum and Kursia in 725 A.D., a Bavarian bishop named Willibald passed through a place called Bethsaida where he saw a church built over the house of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, two brothers who were numbered among the first disciples of Jesus.

The New Testament said they, along with Philip, came from the village of Bethsaida, which in the first century was located on the lakeshore and today is in the Buteiha Valley Nature Reserve. It recounted that Jesus cured a blind man there.

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The Research!America Civic Engagement Microgrant Program supports activities developed by students to connect directly with public officials and community leaders regarding the importance of scientific discovery and research.

The group is funding graduate student groups’ nonpartisan activities of their design focusing on civic engagement and elevating the importance of scientific research, innovation, and public health. These programs encourage dialogue between young scientists and local leaders about the roles science and research play in issues important to their communities. Groups are also encouraged to expand their efforts through partnerships with social science and communications students as part of the new Science Meets Science Microgrant Program.

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If you want to find a nexus of conspiracy theories about science (it's a vast corporate conspiracy among the anti-GMO, anti-vaccine and anti-nuclear crowd, and a deep state conspiracy among the chemtrails crowd) YouTube is a good way to go, shows a new study (open access.)

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Last week saw the release of the rebooted The Lion King, an attempt to capitalize on the billion-dollar success of the 1994 original. With a star-studded cast, the reboot closely follows the plot of the first movie (spoilers to follow, obviously).

Mufasa, king of the lions (and of every other creature in his territory), raises his son Simba to follow in his footsteps. But Mufasa is murdered by his jealous brother Scar, and his young heir is chased into the desert. Years pass, and eventually Simba reclaims his rightful place as the ruler of Pride Rock.

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Ethiopia has just planted 353 million trees in 12 hours. It is part of the national “green legacy” initiative to encourage all its citizens to plant 40 seedlings each for a total of 4 billion trees over this summer.

Here is one of the photos Amir Aman, MD tweeted during the day:

And another:

Dr Getahun Mekuria, their minister of technology and innovation tweeted estimates through the day:

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China is currently targeting a 20% non fossil share by 2030, and there were reports that it is expected to target 35% of electricity from renewables by 2030 according to drafts for its next plan, the “Renewable Portfolio Standard”.

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If you go to Facebook or Twitter, you may find a few scientists or doctors pushing supplements or organic food as cure-alls, maybe even a New York University journalist or two, but for the most part the social media strategy for those companies, and most mainstream companies as well, is an intern auto-scheduling content and executives soliciting attention of individual influencers, who are placed under the vaguely sexist umbrella term "mommy bloggers."

It must work, advertising is a trillion dollar a year industry.

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Responding to chemical changes is a crucial function of biological cells. For example, cells can respond to chemicals by creating certain proteins, boosting energy production, or self-destructing. Chemicals are also used by cells to communicate with each other and coordinate a response or send a signal, such as a pain impulse.

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This is a new study that makes the dramatic claim that as the ice melts in summer in the Arctic, then because ice reflects away more sunlight than water, this will have a dramatic warming effect on the whole planet, equivalent to 25 years of anthropogenic emissions. It's been scaring many people but there is nothing here to worry about. Short summary: The study did not take account of the way the melting ice causes cloud to increase (because of all the extra water vapour it puts into the atmosphere). They assumed constant cover. But the paper they cite for that only found constant cloud cover as the ice melts in mid summer. Minimum sea ice extent is in September.

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In the early part of the 19th century, volcanoes had such a dramatic impact people worried the climate was irrevocably changed. The "year without a summer" saw cooler temperatures and there was concern Tambora in Indonesia and four other large eruptions were going to be the norm.

They caused longer droughts in Africa and contributed to the last advance of Alpine glaciers during the Little Ice Age. A new study used computer models to analyze the effects of the series of eruptions on the oceans and thus on atmospheric circulation. But some caution is warranted. It is still a computer model and tens of thousands of variables can resolve differently in the real world.

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Our current understanding of the Universe includes the rather unsettling notion that most of its matter is not luminous - it does not clump into stars, that is. Nobody has a clue of what this Dark Matter (DM) really is, and hypotheses on what it could be made of are sold at a dime a dozen. 
On the other hand, we clearly see the gravitational effects of DM on galaxies and clusters of galaxies, so the consensus of the scientific community is that one of those cheap theories must be true. What make this very close to a dream situation for an experimental scientist is the fact that we do have instruments capable of detecting, or ruling out, dark matter behaving according to most of the majority of those possibilities. 

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The Morrison government has introduced new legislation responding to recent protests by animal rights activists in Australia. The bill –named The Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Bill 2019 – will tighten up existing laws, creating harsher penalties for those who incite others to trespass on farms.

Minister for Agriculture Bridget McKenzie and Attorney-General Christian Porter have said this legislation will deliver on the government’s

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