The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series chronicling the eschaton and the fall of the Republic.
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Science
Data secrecy is crippling attempts to slow COVID-19’s spread in U.S., epidemiologists warn
California was a COVID-19 success story—until suddenly it wasn’t. Early in the pandemic, the state seemed to have the new coronavirus under control, but the pandemic has begun to ride a wave there, with records set in daily cases several times this month, and deaths on the rise.
California officials whose COVID-19 responses were once hailed as enlightened are now receiving criticism—and some of the sharpest is coming from scientists seeking to help guide the state’s fight against the virus. Since April, epidemiologists from Stanford University and several University of California campuses have sought detailed COVID-19 case and contact-tracing data from state and county health authorities for research they hope will point to more effective approaches to slowing the pandemic. “It’s a basic mantra of epidemiology and public health: Follow the data” to learn where and how the disease spreads, says Rajiv Bhatia, a physician and epidemiologist who teaches at Stanford and is among those seeking the California data.
But the agencies have refused requests filed from April through late June, Science has learned. They cited multiple reasons including workload constraints and privacy concerns—even though records can be deidentified, and federal health privacy rules have been relaxed for research during the pandemic.
Dogs may use Earth’s magnetic field to take shortcuts
Dogs are renowned for their world-class noses, but a new study suggests they may have an additional—albeit hidden—sensory talent: a magnetic compass. The sense appears to allow them to use Earth’s magnetic field to calculate shortcuts in unfamiliar terrain.
The finding is a first in dogs, says Catherine Lohmann, a biologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who studies “magnetoreception” and navigation in turtles. She notes that dogs’ navigational abilities have been studied much less compared with migratory animals such as birds. “It’s an insight into how [dogs] build up their picture of space,” adds Richard Holland, a biologist at Bangor University who studies bird navigation.
New genes control plant height, could lead to flood-proof crops
Stature matters to plants. Short crops can carry more grain without bending under their own weight—a key trait that helped power the Green Revolution in the 1960s. But tall plants are better at surviving long floods. Now, researchers have found two genes that together help control the height of rice plants: one that accelerates the elongation of the stem and another that acts as a brake. If the system is similar in other plants, scientists say it could be useful in the breeding of many kinds of crops.
“This could be one more great tool in the toolbox,” says Julia Bailey-Serres, a rice biologist at the University of California, Riverside, who was not involved in the new research.
Gizmodo
‘We Essentially Cook Ourselves’ if We Don’t Fix Air Conditioning, Major UN Report Warns
A new United Nations report shows why it’s crucial to clean up air conditioning. In fact, the authors found that switching over to energy-efficient and climate-friendly air conditioning units could save the world up to 460 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the next 40 years. For context, that’s roughly eight times the amount of greenhouse gases the entire world emitted in 2018.
“If we deal with cooling wrong, we essentially cook ourselves,” Gabrielle Dreyfus, the cool efficiency program manager at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, said on a press call.
Runaway Star Blamed for Black Hole’s Bizarre Disappearing Act
Two years ago, astronomers watched in confusion as the corona of a supermassive black hole quickly faded from view, only to reappear a few months later. New research suggests this strange episode was caused by a runaway star.
Supermassive black holes are located in the centers of galaxies, and, like ordinary black holes, they don’t give off any light. That said, they’re often surrounded by a swirling ring of gas, called an accretion disk, which causes their surroundings to shine rather brightly. Coronas—halos of high-energy particles that generate X-ray light—also betray the presence of supermassive black holes, as this radiation can be detected from Earth.
In 2018, the corona of a supermassive black hole at the core of 1ES 1927+654, a galaxy located some 100 million light-years away, disappeared.
Scientists Discover Hungry Bacteria That Can Chomp Metal
Bacteria, like any living organism, needs to eat, but scientists have discovered some strains are so hungry, they’ll take on metal as a snack too.
Researchers at California Institute of Technology accidentally discovered the tiny metal monsters after conducting an unrelated experiment with manganese, a metal, and publishing their findings in Nature.
Professor Jared Leadbetter, the paper’s co-author, said he had left a glass coated in manganese in his office sink before leaving to work off-site for months. When he returned, the jar was coated in a black substance.
“I thought, ‘What is that?'” Professor Leadbetter said in a media release.
Phys.org
Ecuadorian hummingbirds chirp ultrasonic songs of seduction
Perched on a flowering shrub on a windy Andean mountainside, the tiny Ecuadorian Hillstar hummingbird chirps songs of seduction that only another bird of its kind can hear.
As the male sings, he inflates his throat, causing iridescent throat feathers to glisten princely purple. The female may join in a courtship dance—or chase him off.
For the first time, scientists have shown that these hummingbirds can sing and hear in pitches beyond the known range of other birds, according to research published Friday in the journal Science Advances.
The male's ballad is sung at around 13.4 kilohertz. That's considered "ultrasonic" for birds, which generally can't hear above 9 or 10 kilohertz.
The research is clear: White people are not more likely than Black people to be killed by police
When he was asked this week why Black people are "still dying at the hands of law enforcement" in the U.S., … Donald Trump responded by focusing on white people who had been killed by police.
"So are white people. So are white people. What a terrible question to ask. So are white people," Trump told CBS News in an interview on Tuesday. "More white people, by the way. More white people."
Northeastern professor Matt Miller says that Trump's response was a "grotesque" misdirection that fails to account for the fact that Black people are killed by police at a higher rate than white people. A recent study by Miller found that that Black people are shot and killed by police at twice the rate that white people are.
"He is using the truth to tell a lie," Miller says of Trump. "Or at the very least to mislead, which in either case shows an indifference to the critical question: Why are Black people still dying at the hands of law enforcement?"
Scientists achieve major breakthrough in preserving integrity of sound waves
In a breakthrough for physics and engineering, researchers from the Photonics Initiative at the Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY (CUNY ASRC) and from Georgia Tech have presented the first demonstration of topological order based on time modulations. This advancement allows the researchers to propagate sound waves along the boundaries of topological metamaterials without the risk of waves traveling backwards or being thwarted by material defects.
The new findings, which appear in the journal Science Advances, will pave the way for cheaper, lighter devices that use less battery power, and which can function in harsh or hazardous environments. Andrea Alù, founding director of the CUNY ASRC Photonics Initiative and Professor of Physics at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and postdoctoral research associate Xiang Ni were authors on the paper, together with Amir Ardabi and Michael Leamy from Georgia Tech.
Mongabay
Sea temperature a critical factor in success of coral reef outplants
Coral reefs are often called the “rainforests of the sea” because they harbor some of the highest levels of biodiversity of any ecosystem in the world. But as sea temperatures rise, coral reef systems are suffering mass bleaching events, leading to widespread mortality. One way to try and restore coral reef systems is coral reef gardening or “outplanting,” a method of growing coral fragments in a nursery and transferring them to ailing reef systems. But like naturally grown coral, it’s hard to keep outplants alive, especially with climate change steadily raising global sea temperatures.
A new study, published this month in Environmental Research Letters, shows that coral reef outplant survival dropped below 50% when temperatures rose above 30.5° Celsius (86.9° Fahrenheit).
“In normal coral reefs, an increase of one degree [Celsius, or 1.9°F] can cause bleaching and death,” Shawna Foo, lead author and postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State University’s Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science (GDCS), told Mongabay. “But it was not actually known what temperatures were important for coral outplants to survive, maybe because they’ve been grown in different conditions, or maybe [it was thought that] they could be less resilient to temperature or more resilient to temperature.”
Only a few ‘rotten apples’ causing most illegal Brazil deforestation: Study
Brazil’s deforestation rate is soaring, adding fuel to a debate raging in the European Union over whether to reject ratification of the $19 trillion Mercosur trade deal in protest of the Jair Bolsonaro administration’s systematic dismantling of Brazil’s environmental regulations and enforcement.
At the debate’s core is a fierce argument over economic and environmental priorities… a gigantic unanswered question has loomed over that either/or, economy vs. environment, dispute: exactly how much of Brazilian agricultural exports stem from agricultural lands that have been illegally deforested, and where precisely are those lands, and who precisely, is doing that deforestation?
Now a landmark peer-reviewed study published in the journal Science Thursday brings nuance, numbers and a spotlight to that debate. An international team of researchers has found that a fifth, and possibly more, of Brazil’s annual exports to the European Union are potentially contaminated with illegal deforestation.
Science Daily
Solar Orbiter's first images reveal 'campfires' on the Sun
The first images from Solar Orbiter, a new Sun-observing mission by ESA and NASA, have revealed omnipresent miniature solar flares, dubbed 'campfires', near the surface of our closest star.
According to the scientists behind the mission, seeing phenomena that were not observable in detail before hints at the enormous potential of Solar Orbiter, which has only just finished its early phase of technical verification known as commissioning.
"These are only the first images and we can already see interesting new phenomena," says Daniel Müller, ESA's Solar Orbiter Project Scientist. "We didn't really expect such great results right from the start. We can also see how our ten scientific instruments complement each other, providing a holistic picture of the Sun and the surrounding environment."
Improvements in access to modern contraception and the education of girls and women are generating widespread, sustained declines in fertility, and world population will likely peak in 2064 at around 9.7 billion, and then decline to about 8.8 billion by 2100 -- about 2 billion lower than some previous estimates, according to a new study published in The Lancet.
The modelling research uses data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 to project future global, regional, and national population. Using novel methods for forecasting mortality, fertility, and migration, the researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington's School of Medicine estimate that by 2100, 183 of 195 countries will have total fertility rates (TFR), which represent the average number of children a woman delivers over her lifetime, below replacement level of 2.1 births per woman. This means that in these countries populations will decline unless low fertility is compensated by immigration. […]
The new study also predicts huge shifts in the global age structure, with an estimated 2.37 billion individuals over 65 years globally in 2100, compared with 1.7 billion under 20 years, underscoring the need for liberal immigration policies in countries with significantly declining working age populations.
Researchers convert female mosquitoes to nonbiting males with implications for mosquito control
Virginia Tech researchers have proven that a single gene can convert female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes into fertile male mosquitoes and identified a gene needed for male mosquito flight. […]
"The presence of a male-determining locus (M locus) establishes the male sex in Aedes aegypti and the M locus is only inherited by the male offspring, much like the human Y chromosome," said Zhijian Tu, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
"By inserting Nix, a previously discovered male-determining gene in the M locus of Aedes aegypti, into a chromosomal region that can be inherited by females, we showed that Nix alone was sufficient to convert females to fertile males. This may have implications for developing future mosquito control techniques."
These findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Guardian
North Atlantic right whales now officially 'one step from extinction'
With their population still struggling to recover from over three centuries of whaling, the North Atlantic right whale is now just “one step from extinction”, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN last week moved the whale’s status on their Red List from “endangered” to “critically endangered” – the last stop before the species is considered extinct in the wild.
The status change reflects the fact that fewer than 250 mature individuals probably remain in a population of roughly 400. While grim, scientists and conservationists expressed hope that this move may help speed up protections for these dwindling giants.
Nature
Mystery over Universe’s expansion deepens with fresh data
A new map of the early Universe has reinforced a long-running conundrum in astronomy over how fast the cosmos is expanding. The data — collected using a telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert — back up previous estimates of the Universe’s age, geometry and evolution. But the findings clash with measurements of how fast galaxies are flying apart from each other, and predict that the Universe should be expanding at a significantly slower pace than is currently observed.
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) mapped the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the radiation ‘afterglow’ of the Big Bang. The findings, based on data collected from 2013 to 2016, were posted on 15 July in two preprints on the arXiv repository.
Ars Technica
Scientists unlocked the secret of how these ultrablack fish absorb light
In the darkest depths of the ocean, where little to no light from the surface penetrates, unusual creatures thrives, many of whom create their own light via bioluminescence to hunt for prey, among other uses. But several species of fish have evolved the opposite survival strategy: they are ultrablack, absorbing nearly all light that strikes their skin, according to a new paper in Current Biology.
Karen Osborn of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History became intrigued by the creatures upon finding she was unable to capture these ultrablack fish on camera while working in the field. She was trying to photograph specimens caught in the team's deep-sea trawl nets. "Two specimens, the Anoplogaster cornuta and the Idiacanthus antrostomus, were the only two fish over the course of six years of field work that I was able to get decent photographs of," Osborn told Ars.
To do so, she used a Canon Mark II DSLR body and a 65mm macro lens with four strobes, then tested various lighting setups by taking lots and lots of photographs. Finally, she adjusted contrast and applied a high-pass filter uniformly across the images, the better to bring out the details. It still wasn't sufficient to capture most of the specimens caught in the trawl net. "Over the years I deleted thousands of failed shots of other fish as useless because I couldn't bring out the details in the photos," she added. "It didn't matter how you set up the camera or lighting—they just sucked up all the light. I wish I had a few of them now to illustrate this."
Siberia’s hot 2020 “effectively impossible” without global warming
Generally speaking, 2020 has been a hell of a year. But in Siberia, there is an additional reason to make comparisons to the inferno: record-breaking warmth and its consequences. Wildfires have burned about 8,000 square miles, aided by a bumper crop of silk moths consuming the needles off conifers. And slumping permafrost also contributed to a massive diesel spill when a tank on unstable ground burst.
The immediate cause of this extreme year was last winter’s jet stream pattern, which kept Siberia mild from later winter into spring, melting ice and snow early and boosting the warmth further. Then in June, a stubborn high pressure set up, as a northward wiggle of the jet stream brought warmer air from the south into Siberia. It was during this heatwave that the Russian town of Verkhoyansk apparently hit 38°C (100°F)—a first for any station above the Arctic Circle.
As with many extreme weather events in recent years, a team of scientists has completed a rapid analysis of the role of climate change in all this. The scientists analyzed both that record high temperature and the warm January-to-June across the region, concluding “in both cases that this event would have effectively been impossible without human-induced climate change.”
Space.com
Don't miss Comet NEOWISE in the evening sky now. It won't be back for 6,800 years.
An amazing comet that thrilled early-morning stargazers earlier this month is now visible in the evening sky, and it's a sight you won't want to miss. After all, this comet won't be back for 6,800 years, NASA says.
Comet NEOWISE can now be seen just after sunset for observers in the Northern Hemisphere, according to NASA. (Sorry, Southern Hemisphere skywatchers, it's not visible there.) The comet made its closest approach to the sun July 3 but was only visible before dawn until now.
"If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you can see it," said Joe Masiero, deputy principal investigator of NEOWISE, the NASA space telescope that discovered the comet, in a NASA Science Live webcast Wednesday (July 15). "As the next couple of days progress, it will get higher in the evening sky, so you're going to want to look northwest right under the Big Dipper." (The Big Dipper is a ladle-shaped star pattern that is part of the constellation Ursa Major, the Big Bear.)
How to photograph Comet NEOWISE: NASA tips for stargazers
Are you excited to spot Comet NEOWISE as it pops into view in the night sky? Do you want to try your hand at photographing the cosmic snowball? Let's take a look at some beginner astrophotography tips from NASA.
Comet NEOWISE, named for NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), the space telescope that first spotted the comet in March, is currently gracing our night skies with its icy presence. It made its closest approach to the sun on July 3 and the comet is now visible to skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere. It is so bright that, while it can help to use binoculars or a small telescope, the comet and its tail are visible with the naked eye.