Culture
Current research and applications in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) include several key challenges. These include: (a) A priori estimation of the required dataset size to achieve a desired test accuracy. For example, how many handwritten digits does a machine have to learn before being able to predict a new one with a success rate of 99%? Similarly, how many specific types of circumstances does an autonomous vehicle have to learn before its reaction will not lead to an accident?
People of Black ethnicity are twice as likely to be infected with COVID-19 compared to those of White ethnicity, according to researchers at the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham, supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre. The findings are published in EClinical Medicine by The Lancet today (Thursday 12 November 2020).
People from Asian backgrounds are also 1.5 times more likely to become infected with the virus compared to White individuals.
After six years of research, a team of scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz has developed a cost-effective new aquaculture feed that eliminates conventional fish meal and fish oil ingredients while also providing better fish weight gain and higher nutritional value in the filet for humans. The new fish-free feed is the first to demonstrate across-the-board gains in sustainability, performance, economic viability, and human health.
A survey of over 5,000 people in Chinese cities affected by COVID-19 in early 2020 suggests that people who quarantined for a longer period of time generally experienced poorer well-being--but that experiencing the mental state of flow reduced or eliminated that link. Kate Sweeny and colleagues at the University of California, Riverside, U.S., Central China Normal University, China and Nanjing University, China and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on November 11, 2020.
The environment provided by the mother during embryo development has major consequences on later-life health and lifespan. This can arise through effects on cellular ageing which is often estimated with the length of telomeres. Telomeres are the protective end caps of chromosomes and their length is a marker of 'biological age'.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Gold foil, ornate labels and an intriguing backstory are product characteristics highly desired by premium chocolate consumers, according to research conducted by food scientists in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.
The study is one of the first to thoroughly research what American premium chocolate consumers find to be desirable attributes in their chocolate bars. An additional focus was on these consumers' perceptions of craft chocolate, which is made from scratch -- bean to bar -- by small companies using fine flavor cocoa beans.
Liberalism and conservatism are associated with qualitatively different psychological concerns, notably those linked to morality, shows a new study that explores how political ideology and moral values are connected to motivated social cognition. The findings, which appear in the journal PLOS ONE, offer deeper psychological insights into the nature of political division in the United States.
Scientists have compiled the first comprehensive review of plant natural products that play a role in antibacterial activity, to serve as a guide in the search for new drugs to combat antibiotic-resistant pathogens.
Chemical Reviews published the work by researchers at Emory University, which includes 459 plant natural products that met rigorous criteria for demonstrating antibacterial activity. The review is also deposited on the Shared Platform for Antibiotic Research and Knowledge (SPARK), sponsored by Pew Charitable Trusts.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have become accustomed to wearing cotton face masks in public places. However, viruses and bacteria that stick to the mask could be transferred elsewhere when the wearer removes or touches it. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed a special type of cotton face mask that kills up to 99.9999% of bacteria and viruses within 60 minutes of daylight exposure.
The famous seed vault in Spitsbergen and national gene banks retain hundreds of thousands of seed samples to preserve old varieties of crop plants and the genetic diversity associated with them. Are these seed banks gold mines or seed cemeteries?
Massive explosions of energy happening thousands of light-years from Earth may have left traces in our planet's biology and geology, according to new research by University of Colorado Boulder geoscientist Robert Brakenridge.
The study, published this month in the International Journal of Astrobiology, probes the impacts of supernovas, some of the most violent events in the known universe. In the span of just a few months, a single one of these eruptions can release as much energy as the sun will during its entire lifetime. They're also bright--really bright.
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Both of Andrew Kiselica's grandfathers developed dementia when he was in graduate school. As Kiselica was going through neuropsychology training in graduate school, he saw his mother's father become unable to walk or speak due to severe dementia. The University of Missouri researcher said that personal experience has motivated his work to identify and prevent neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.
East Hanover, NJ. November 11, 2020. Kessler Foundation researchers have linked balance dysfunction in individuals with traumatic brain injury with diminished sensory acuity. This study used a psychophysical approach to develop a new metric called the perturbation perception threshold (PPT) for objectively quantifying impaired sensory acuity after traumatic brain injury.
Most people closing in on a high school or college degree, and even those casting their career fates without a diploma, at some point take an interest assessment to help determine how their interests relate to different jobs. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, The Occupational Information Network's (O*NET) My Next Move website, which hosts the Interest Profiler, averages over 1 million site visits per month.
HOUSTON - (Nov. 11, 2020) - It's a long-standing assumption that the presence of water influences how proteins fold. A new study is challenging the details.
A paper in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters shows proteins that presumably evolved to avoid water as they fold may actually behave in ways scientists did not anticipate.
That discovery could change how scientists think about hydrophobic (water-avoiding) and hydrophilic (water-attracting) interactions in solutions, according to a Rice University engineer.