The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series chronicling the eschaton and the fall of the Republic.
8,407 people have died from coronavirus in the U.S.
Nature
Special report: The simulations driving the world’s response to COVID-19
When Neil Ferguson visited the heart of British government in London’s Downing Street, he was much closer to the COVID-19 pandemic than he realized. Ferguson, a mathematical epidemiologist at Imperial College London, briefed officials in mid-March on the latest results of his team’s computer models, which simulated the rapid spread of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 through the UK population. Less than 36 hours later, he announced on Twitter that he had a fever and a cough. A positive test followed. The disease-tracking scientist had become a data point in his own project.
Ferguson is one of the highest-profile faces in the effort to use mathematical models that predict the spread of the virus — and that show how government actions could alter the course of the outbreak. “It’s been an immensely intensive and exhausting few months,” says Ferguson, who kept working throughout his relatively mild symptoms of COVID-19. “I haven’t really had a day off since mid-January.”
Research does not get much more policy-relevant than this. When updated data in the Imperial team’s model indicated that the United Kingdom’s health service would soon be overwhelmed with severe cases of COVID-19, and might face more than 500,000 deaths if the government took no action, Prime Minister Boris Johnson almost immediately announced stringent new restrictions on people’s movements. The same model suggested that, with no action, the United States might face 2.2 million deaths; it was shared with the White House and new guidance on social distancing quickly followed.
Science
Scientists have turned the structure of the coronavirus into music
You’ve probably seen dozens of images of the novel coronavirus—now responsible for 1 million infections and tens of thousands of deaths. Now, scientists have come up with a way for you to hear it: by translating the structure of its famous spike protein into music.
The sounds you hear—the chiming bells, the twanging strings, the lilting flutes—all represent different aspects of the spikelike protein (above) that pokes from the virus’ surface and helps it latch onto unsuspecting cells. Like all proteins, the spikes are made of combinations of amino acids. Using a new technique called sonification, scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology assigned each amino acid a unique note in a musical scale, converting the entire protein into a preliminary musical score.
Science Daily
Missing link in coronavirus jump from bats to humans could be pangolins, not snakes
As scientists scramble to learn more about the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, two recent studies of the virus' genome reached controversial conclusions: namely, that snakes are intermediate hosts of the new virus, and that a key coronavirus protein shares "uncanny similarities" with an HIV-1 protein. Now, a study in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research refutes both ideas and suggests that scaly, anteater-like animals called pangolins are the missing link for SARS-CoV-2 transmission between bats and humans.
Understanding where SARS-CoV-2 -- the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic -- came from and how it spreads is important for its control and treatment. Most experts agree that bats are a natural reservoir of SARS-CoV-2, but an intermediate host was needed for it to jump from bats to humans.
A recent study that analyzed the new virus' genome suggested snakes as this host, despite the fact that coronaviruses are only known to infect mammals and birds. Meanwhile, an unrelated study compared the sequence of the spike protein -- a key protein responsible for getting the virus into mammalian cells -- of the new coronavirus to that of HIV-1, noting unexpected similarities.
Traces of ancient rainforest in Antarctica point to a warmer prehistoric world
Researchers have found evidence of rainforests near the South Pole 90 million years ago, suggesting the climate was exceptionally warm at the time.
A team from the UK and Germany discovered forest soil from the Cretaceous period within 900 km of the South Pole. Their analysis of the preserved roots, pollen and spores shows that the world at that time was a lot warmer than previously thought.
The discovery and analysis were carried out by an international team of researchers led by geoscientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany and including Imperial College London researchers. Their findings are published today in Nature.
Phys.org
Changes to drylands with future climate change
A research team led by Washington State University has found that while drylands around the world will expand at an accelerated rate because of future climate change, their average productivity will likely be reduced.
The study, published in Nature Communications on April 3, is the first to quantify the impact of accelerated dryland expansion under future climate change on their gross primary production. Drylands, which primarily include savannas, grasslands and shrublands, are important for supporting grazing and non-irrigated croplands around the world. They are also an important player in the global carbon cycle and make up 41% of Earth's land surface and support 38% of its population.
"Our results highlight the vulnerability of drylands to more frequent and severe climate extremes," said Jingyu Yao, a research assistant in WSU's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and lead author on the paper.
Smartphone vs virus, is privacy always going to be the loser?
In Europe, officials, doctors and engineers are looking at how smartphones could be enlisted in the war against the spread of the new coronavirus.
One obvious attraction for health officials is the possibility of using smartphones to find out with whom someone diagnosed with COVID-19 has been in contact.
But can this be done without intrusive surveillance and access to our devices that store a wealth of private information?
Firms can "anonymise" location data received from your smartphone by stripping out personal identifiers. It can then be presented in an "aggregate" form where individual and identifiable data points are not accessable.
Gizmodo
Scientists Made A Drone To Capture Whale Snot
Right now, whales are facing myriad threats, from pollution and getting tangled in fishing gear, to warming and acidifying oceans. To understand how those threats are affecting whales, scientists need data. And to get that data, they’ve come up with a drone that can capture whale snot.
Whales push out massive amounts of snot—or more scientifically, “exhaled breath condensate”—through their blowholes. That mucus-like substance is sticky and nasty, but it’s also rich with biological information: DNA, stress and pregnancy hormones, and microbiomes, among other indicators of health.
So how do you collect whale snot? I present to you, the SnotBot.
These Flies Have Been Trapped in the Bone Zone for 41 Million Years
A pair of long-legged flies met a Romeo-and-Juliet ending some 41 million years ago, when a falling drop of tree resin ruined their tender moment. On the bright side, their disrupted act of fornication was preserved for all eternity in this pornographic piece of amber.
Prehistoric spiders, ants, midges, and a pair of copulating flies are among a unique treasure trove of amber fossils described in a paper published today in Scientific Reports.
Amber fossils are typically associated with the northern hemisphere, particularly Myanmar, which has produced a bewildering assortment of fossils over the years. The new selection is unique in that these are among of the oldest amber fossils collected from the southern hemisphere, including sites in Australia and New Zealand. The new paper was headed by Jeffrey Stilwell from the Monash School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment.
The Guardian
Climate monitoring and research could fall victim to coronavirus, scientists fear
The coronavirus pandemic has stalled scientific fieldwork and may even start to affect the monitoring of the climate, scientists have warned.
Major projects to gather environmental data have been postponed or canceled over concerns that teams of researchers working together will spread the Covid-19 virus.
The crisis has so far mainly stymied long-term studies, but concerns have been raised that routine monitoring of weather and the climate crisis may be affected if the pandemic drags on for an extended period.
Petteri Taalas, secretary general of World Meteorological Organization, said: “The impacts of climate change and growing amount of weather-related disasters continue.
Mice have a range of facial expressions, researchers find
Whether it is screwing up your face when sucking a lemon, or smiling while sitting in the sun, humans have a range of facial expressions that reflect how they feel. Now, researchers say, they have found mice do too.
“Mice exhibit facial expressions that are specific to the underlying emotions,” said Dr Nadine Gogolla, co-author of the research from Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology. She said the findings were important, as they offer researchers new ways to measure the intensity of emotional responses, which could help them probe how emotions arise in the brain.
What’s more, she said, the findings show mice have a repertoire of emotions.
Rescuing the Great Barrier Reef: how much can be saved, and how can we do it?
When coral scientist Dr Zoe Richards left the Great Barrier Reef’s Lizard Island in late January, she was feeling optimistic.
Richards is a taxonomist. Since 2011 she has recorded and monitored 245 coral species at 14 locations around the island’s research station, about 270km north of Cairns.
In 2017 she saw “mass destruction of the reef”. Back-to-back mass bleaching in 2016 and 2017, and cyclones in 2014 and 2015, had wreaked havoc.
But in January, she saw thousands of new colonies of fast-growing Acropora corals that had “claimed the space” left by dead and degraded corals. In a three-year window without spiralling heat or churning cyclones, some corals were in an adolescent bloom – not mature enough to spawn, but getting close.
Space
NASA unveils plan for Artemis 'base camp' on the moon beyond 2024
NASA is forging ahead with its Artemis program to land humans on the moon by 2024, but the agency has also just offered its first plan for what a U.S. lunar presence may look like after that milestone.
The new plan comes from a 13-page report submitted on April 2 to the National Space Council… Much of the report, titled "NASA’s Plan for Sustained Lunar Exploration and Development," summarizes the vision NASA has laid out for justifying and accomplishing the 2024 moon landing. But the report also looks farther out to focus on what a long-term presence on the moon and in lunar orbit would permit the U.S. to accomplish.
"After 20 years of continuously living in low-Earth orbit, we're now ready for the next great challenge of space exploration — the development of a sustained presence on and around the moon," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement released with the report.
Mashable
NASA's new Jupiter image is stunning
Some 484 million miles from coronavirus-beleaguered Earth lies the gas giant Jupiter, and its stormy, magnificent atmosphere.
One of the latest images NASA's Juno spacecraft sent back to Earth shows a view of the planet's churning northern region. Juno captured it on Feb. 17, during a "close" swing by Jupiter — which means Juno was some 15,610 miles above these clouds.
The Atlantic
The Pandemic Is Turning the Natural World Upside Down
From inside her living room in London, Paula Koelemeijer can feel the world around her growing quieter.
Koelemeijer, a seismologist, has a miniature seismometer sitting on a concrete slab at the base of her first-floor fireplace. The apparatus, though smaller than a box of tissues, can sense all kinds of movement, from the rattle of trains on the tracks near Koelemeijer’s home to the waves of earthquakes rolling in from afar. Since the United Kingdom announced stricter social-distancing rules last month, telling residents not to leave their home except for essential reasons, the seismometer has registered a sharp decrease in the vibrations produced by human activity.
With fewer trains, buses, and people pounding the pavement, the usual hum of public life has vanished, and so has its dependable rhythms: Before the spread of COVID-19 shut down the city, Koelemeijer could plot the seismometer’s data and see the train schedule reflected in the spikes, down to the minute. Now, with fewer trains running, the spikes seem to come at random.
“It’s very literally reflecting a slowdown of our lives,” Koelemeijer told me over Skype.
Mongabay
The kelps are alright: Studies reveal resilience in kelp forests
As the Beagle traversed the frigid waters of Tierra del Fuego on its famed voyage, Charles Darwin noted the diversity of life teeming in the dense foliage below. Now, nearly half a century since they were first formally surveyed (in 1973), the kelp forests beyond the southernmost tip of South America remain relatively unchanged.
A survey of 11 locations in the easternmost region of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago revealed no significant differences in the abundance of giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) or the sizes of the kelp holdfasts (the part that anchors it to the rocky bottom) since they were first surveyed more than 45 years ago. According to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, the diversity and amounts of sea urchins also remained relatively unchanged between the two time periods.
Ars Technica
Will SARS-CoV-2 have a long-term impact on the climate?
COVID-19 is bad for human activity and enterprise. Human activity and enterprise is bad for the environment. So since our present situation reduces human activity and enterprise, is COVID-19 good for the environment?
The cessation of manufacturing and transportation in Hubei province has caused a drop in air pollution levels all over China so dramatic—emissions were estimated to be down 25 percent—that the relative dearth of both nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide in the air can be observed from space. Most of the effect came from a sharp drop in coal burning, which still provides the bulk of energy in China. Coal is used to heat homes in rural areas there, but also to fuel power plants and industry.
However, pollution—much like the virus itself—may come roaring back after the lockdowns are lifted. This “revenge pollution” can easily negate the temporary drop in emissions we are now seeing. That’s exactly what happened in China in 2009, when the Chinese government responded to the global financial crisis with an enormous stimulus package that funded large-scale infrastructure type projects.
Face masks for COVID-19: A deep dive into the data
As COVID-19 cases increase sharply nationwide, some health experts are now recommending that seemingly healthy members of the public wear cloth masks when they’re out and about. On April 3, President Trump announced a new federal recommendation urging the public to wear cloth masks to prevent people who are infected, but may not have symptoms, from unknowingly spreading the disease.
The recommendation is an about-face from previous guidance on mask usage. Until now, officials at the World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other agencies worldwide have discouraged the public from wearing masks unless they are sick or caring for someone who is sick. They noted that there is little evidence to support mass masking and that the limited data we do have suggests it may reduce disease transmission only marginally at best.
With evidence of benefits in short supply, experts also raised concerns about potential harms. Mask wearing may give people a false sense of security, some experts said. This may lead some members of the public to be lax about other, far more critical precautions, such as staying two meters apart from others, limiting outings, and washing their hands frequently and thoroughly.