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Study takes unprecedented peek into life of 17,000-year-old mammoth

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An international research team has retraced the astonishing lifetime journey of an Arctic woolly mammoth, which covered enough of the Alaska landscape during its 28 years to almost circle the Earth twice.

Scientists gathered unprecedented details of its life through analysis of a 17,000-year-old fossil from the University of Alaska Museum of the North. By generating and studying isotopic data in the mammoth’s tusk, they were able to match its movements and diet with isotopic maps of the region.

Few details have been known about the lives and movements of woolly mammoths, and the study offers the first evidence that they traveled vast distances. An outline of the mammoth’s life is detailed in the new issue of the journal Science. [Read more…] about Study takes unprecedented peek into life of 17,000-year-old mammoth

Deep learning model classifies brain tumors with single MRI scan

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A team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have developed a deep learning model that is capable of classifying a brain tumor as one of six common types using a single 3D MRI scan, according to a study published in Radiology: Artificial Intelligence.

“This is the first study to address the most common intracranial tumors and to directly determine the tumor class or the absence of tumor from a 3D MRI volume,” said Satrajit Chakrabarty, M.S., a doctoral student under the direction of Aristeidis Sotiras, Ph.D., and Daniel Marcus, Ph.D., in Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology’s Computational Imaging Lab at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. [Read more…] about Deep learning model classifies brain tumors with single MRI scan

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    A neural network learns when it should not be trustedIncreasingly, artificial intelligence systems known as deep learning neural networks are used to inform decisions vital to human health and safety, such as in autonomous driving or medical diagnosis. These networks are good at recognizing patterns in large, complex datasets to aid in decision-making. But how do we know they're…
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  • New deep learning models: Fewer neurons, more intelligence
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    New deep learning models: Fewer neurons, more intelligenceArtificial intelligence has arrived in our everyday lives – from search engines to self-driving cars. This has to do with the enormous computing power that has become available in recent years.  But new results from AI research now show that simpler, smaller neural networks can be used to solve certain…
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Stanford researchers develop a better way to track methane in the skies

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When Stanford University graduate student Jeff Rutherford began his doctorate in 2018, the amount of methane entering the atmosphere from oil and gas extraction operations – mostly due to fracking – had become a major matter of contention. Tracking this harmful greenhouse gas falls to the Environmental Protection Agency.

To help in their accounting, the EPA uses computer models that take a “bottom-up” approach, counting the total number of well heads, storage tanks, miles of pipeline and other sources of methane, declaring an average annual release per component, and totaling everything up. They call it an “inventory.”

The only problem is that other organizations taking a “top-down” approach – using satellite imaging or atmospheric measurement to calculate the actual total methane emissions – were saying that the EPA was missing the mark by as much as half. [Read more…] about Stanford researchers develop a better way to track methane in the skies

Space scientists reveal secret behind Jupiter’s ‘energy crisis’

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New research published in Nature has revealed the solution to Jupiter’s ‘energy crisis’, which has puzzled astronomers for decades.

Space scientists at the University of Leicester worked with colleagues from the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA), Boston University, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) to reveal the mechanism behind Jupiter’s atmospheric heating.

Now, using data from the Keck Observatory in Hawai’i, astronomers have created the most-detailed yet global map of the gas giant’s upper atmosphere, confirming for the first time that Jupiter’s powerful aurorae are responsible for delivering planet-wide heating. [Read more…] about Space scientists reveal secret behind Jupiter’s ‘energy crisis’

Americans with higher net worth at midlife tend to live longer

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One of the keys to a long life may lie in your net worth.

In the first wealth and longevity study to incorporate siblings and twin pair data, researchers from Northwestern University analyzed the midlife net worth of adults (mean age 46.7 years) and their mortality rates 24 years later. They discovered those with greater wealth at midlife tended to live longer.

The researchers used data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) project, a longitudinal study on aging. Using data from the first collection wave in 1994-1996 through a censor date of 2018, the researchers used survival models to analyze the association between net worth and longevity. [Read more…] about Americans with higher net worth at midlife tend to live longer

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  • Study: Countering hate on social media
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    Study: Countering hate on social mediaThe rise of online hate speech is a disturbing, growing trend in countries around the world, with serious psychological consequences and the potential to impact, and even contribute to, real-world violence. Citizen-generated counter speech may help discourage hateful online rhetoric, but it has been difficult to quantify and study. Until…
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Observation, simulation, and AI join forces to reveal a clear universe

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Japanese astronomers have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) technique to remove noise in astronomical data due to random variations in galaxy shapes.

After extensive training and testing on large mock data created by supercomputer simulations, they then applied this new tool to actual data from Japan’s Subaru Telescope and found that the mass distribution derived from using this method is consistent with the currently accepted models of the Universe.

This is a powerful new tool for analyzing big data from current and planned astronomy surveys. [Read more…] about Observation, simulation, and AI join forces to reveal a clear universe

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    Supercomputer turns back cosmic clockAstronomers have tested a method for reconstructing the state of the early Universe by applying it to 4000 simulated universes using the ATERUI II supercomputer at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). They found that together with new observations the method can set better constraints on inflation, one of…
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  • Has the hidden matter of the universe been discovered?
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    Has the hidden matter of the universe been discovered?Astrophysicists consider that around 40 percent of the ordinary matter that makes up stars, planets and galaxies remains undetected, concealed in the form of a hot gas in the complexe cosmic web. Scientists at the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay) may have detected, for the first time, this hidden matter…
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  • Hubble data confirms galaxies lacking dark matter
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    Hubble data confirms galaxies lacking dark matterThe most accurate distance measurement yet of ultra-diffuse galaxy (UDG) NGC1052-DF2 (DF2) confirms beyond any shadow of a doubt that it is lacking in dark matter. The newly measured distance of 22.1 +/-1.2 megaparsecs was obtained by an international team of researchers led by Zili Shen and Pieter van Dokkum…
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Scientists use NASA satellite data to track ocean microplastics from space

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Scientists from the University of Michigan have developed an innovative way to use NASA satellite data to track the movement of tiny pieces of plastic in the ocean.

Microplastics form when plastic trash in the ocean breaks down from the sun’s rays and the motion of ocean waves. These small flecks of plastic are harmful to marine organisms and ecosystems.

Microplastics can be carried hundreds or thousands of miles away from the source by ocean currents, making it difficult to track and remove them. Currently, the main source of information about the location of microplastics comes from fisher boat trawlers that use nets to catch plankton – and, unintentionally, microplastics. [Read more…] about Scientists use NASA satellite data to track ocean microplastics from space

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  • NASA finds heavy rainfall ringing major Hurricane Maria’s eye
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    NASA finds heavy rainfall ringing major Hurricane Maria’s eyeImagine being able to look down at a storm from orbit in space, and provide data that lets scientists calculate the rate in which rain is falling throughout it. That is what a NASA satellite rainfall product does as it incorporates data from satellites and observations. NASA found very heavy…
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Can a calculator predict your risk of dementia?

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Canadian researchers at The Ottawa Hospital, the University of Ottawa, the Bruyère Research Institute and ICES have built and validated an online calculator that empowers individuals 55 and over to better understand the health of their brain and how they can reduce their risk of being diagnosed with dementia in the next five years.

Their process was published today in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, and the calculator is available at projectbiglife.ca.

Dementia is an umbrella term for loss of memory and other thinking abilities severe enough to interfere with daily life. Every year, 76,000 new cases of dementia are diagnosed in Canada, a number expected to increase as the population ages. [Read more…] about Can a calculator predict your risk of dementia?

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  • Drinking any type of coffee associated with reduced risk of chronic liver disease
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    Drinking any type of coffee associated with reduced risk of chronic liver diseaseDrinking coffee that is caffeinated (ground or instant) or decaffeinated is associated with a reduced risk of developing chronic liver disease and related liver conditions, according to a study published in the open access journal BMC Public Health. Researchers at the Universities of Southampton and Edinburgh, UK, found that drinking…
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Setting gold and platinum standards where few have gone before

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Like two superheroes finally joining forces, Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine – generator of the world’s most powerful electrical pulses – and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility – the planet’s most energetic laser source – in a series of 10 experiments have detailed the responses of gold and platinum at pressures so extreme that their atomic structures momentarily distorted like images in a fun-house mirror. 

Similar high-pressure changes induced in other settings have produced oddities like hydrogen appearing as a metallic fluid, helium in the form of rain and sodium a transparent metal. But until now there has been no way to accurately calibrate these pressures and responses, the first step to controlling them.

Said Sandia manager Chris Seagle, an author of a technical paper recently published by the journal Science, “Our experiments are designed to measure these distortions in gold and platinum as a function of time. Compression gives us a measurement of pressure versus density.” [Read more…] about Setting gold and platinum standards where few have gone before