Dutch scientists were able to find the coronavirus in a city’s wastewater before Covid-19 cases were reported, demonstrating a novel early warning system for the pneumonia-causing disease.

This article was originally published in the July 1945 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It is reproduced here with their permission.

As Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr. Vannevar Bush has coördinated the activities of some six thousand leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare. In this significant article he holds up an incentive for scientists when the fighting has ceased. He urges that men of science should then turn to the massive task of making more accessible our bewildering store of knowledge. For many years inventions have extended man's physical powers rather than the powers of his mind. Trip hammers that multiply the fists, microscopes that sharpen the eye, and engines of destruction and detection are new results, but the end results, of modern science. Now, says Dr. Bush, instruments are at hand which, if properly developed, will give man access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages. The perfection of these pacific instruments should be the first objective of our scientists as they emerge from their war work. Like Emerson's famous address of 1837 on ``The American Scholar,'' this paper by Dr. Bush calls for a new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our knowledge.

• The Editor

It turns out the Earth is also subject to gravity, which was a problem. //

Zharkova engaged in a spirited back-and-forth with Rice that generated more heat than light. Both agreed that the Sun is known to wobble around the precise gravitational balance point of the Solar System, pulled slightly off its mark by the attraction of the larger planets like Jupiter and Saturn. But the study seemed to ignore the fact that the Earth’s orbit also shifts in response to those giant planets, causing it to maintain a constant distance from the Sun. The paper instead assumed that Earth’s orbit was unaffected so that any motion of the Sun would alter its distance from the Earth. If that’s not true, then there has been no change in the strength of sunlight reaching the Earth, and there is no mechanism for their centuries-long warming trend.

As several people tried in vain to point out that this constant Earth-Sun relationship is well-known, Zharkova posted, “Oh dear, You suggest that the Earth does follow in its orbit this solar inertial motion? And its orbit is not stable? You have to have a very vivid imagination assuming that the Earth moves like a drunken men...[sic]”

At one point, after Rice provided a simple orbital simulation calculating the gravitational interactions in the Solar System, Zharkova replied, “Your simulations are extremely biased by the idea you believe in.” //

On Wednesday, Scientific Reports—for which Zharkova is listed as an editor, by the way—formally retracted the paper. The retraction note states that “concerns were raised regarding the interpretation of how the Earth-Sun distance changes over time and that some of the assumptions on which analyses presented in the Article are based are incorrect.” One of the paper’s four authors apparently agreed to retract the paper, while the other three (Zharkova among them) objected.

The response to two epidemics, SARS and coronavirus, starkly highlights how far biotech and global collaborations have evolved in the past two decades. //

It’s impossible not to draw parallels between SARS and the new coronavirus outbreak, COVID-19, that’s been ravaging China and spreading globally. Yet the response to the two epidemics also starkly highlights how far biotech and global collaborations have evolved in the past two decades. Advances in genetic sequencing technologies, synthetic biology, and open science are reshaping how we deal with potential global pandemics. //

The response to COVID-19 was extremely rapid. Within a month of the first identified case in Wuhan, Chinese scientists had deposited the virus’s partial genetic blueprint into GenBank, an online, widely-consulted database.

Almost immediately, scientists from all sectors—academic, biotech, government—around the world began ordering parts of the virus genome online to study in their own labs.

The rise of commercial companies that manufacture custom-made DNA molecules, such as Integrated DNA Technology (IDT) and Biobasic, exemplify how much genetic synthesis has changed from 2003 to 2020. Costs for making entire genomes from scratch have dropped dramatically, giving rise to a booming industry of mail-order virus (and other organisms) parts for cheap. Biobasic, for example, offers “primers” that amplify certain parts of COVID-19 genes at a few bucks apiece. These raw genetic tools, rapidly synthesized and purified to order, form a critical ingredient for scientists to recreate important parts of the virus in their own labs.

Rapid sharing of the viral genome plus easy online ordering make it much easier for scientists to study the bug and test potential vaccines. According to a CBS8 report, Inovio, a biotech company based in San Diego, has already created a potential vaccine for COVID-19 and tested it in mice and guinea pigs. If they gain FDA approval, clinical trials in humans could begin as early as this summer. Sanofi, Moderna, and other pharmaceutical giants are right on Inovio’s tail. In contrast, a vaccine for SARS took about 20 months to engineer, long after the epidemic had burned out.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have known for generations that hot water can sometimes freeze faster than cold, an effect known as the Mpemba effect, but until now have not understood why. Several theories have been proposed, but one scientist believes he has the answer. //

In his experiments, Brownridge took two water samples at the same temperature and placed them in a freezer. He found that one would usually freeze before the other, presumably because of a slightly different mix of impurities. He then removed the samples from the freezer, warmed one to room temperature and the other to 80°C and then froze them again. The results were that if the difference in freezing point was at least 5°C, the one with the highest freezing point always froze before the other if it was heated to 80°C and then re-frozen.

Brownridge said the hot water cools faster because of the bigger difference in temperature between the water and the freezer, and this helps it reach its freezing point before the cold water reaches its natural freezing point, which is at least 5°C lower. He also said all the conditions must be controlled, such as the location of the samples in the freezer, and the type of container, which he said other researchers had not done.

The effect now known as the Mpemba effect was first noted in the 4th century BC by Aristotle, and many scientists have noted the same phenomenon in the centuries since Aristotle’s time. It was dubbed the Mpemba effect in the 1960s when schoolboy Erasto Mpemba from Tanzania claimed in his science class that ice cream would freeze faster if it was heated first before being put in the freezer. The laughter ended only when a school inspector tried the experiment himself and vindicated him.

More information: Mpemba effect - Wiki article;
James D. Brownridge web page;
Mpemba Effect scientific paper, March 2010, by James D. Brownridge;
via Newscientist

© 2010 PhysOrg.com

As usual, the science does NOT seem settled, but the news is always bad. //

Tropospheric aerosol radiative forcing has persisted for many years as one of the major causes of uncertainty in global climate model simulations. To sample the range of plausible aerosol and atmospheric states and perform robust statistical analyses of the radiative forcing, it is important to account for the combined effects of many sources of model uncertainty. //

To explain what is being said here, the ‘’Tropospheric aerosol radiative forcing’’ is an overly complex way of saying that the greenhouse gasses currently in the atmosphere are actually reflecting sunlight and are contributing to reducing the harmful heating effect.

You have to be at least a little bit surprised to read this. They repeatedly mention ‘’uncertainty’’ in the climate modeling, despite the constant barrage of talk we are served that the science is settled, and we have to move forward to radical solutions. Yet, here we are told models are completely uncertain, and that they may have discovered that the reflective effects by aerosols are actually beneficial. //

We need to clean our emissions because it causes warming, and doing so will clear away aerosols which protect us from warming. As usual, no matter what takes place environmentally, we are in a no-win scenario — but we are fully to blame, of course. I cover this type of contradictory data-point summation in my annual Earth Day piece, where I collected numerous modeling and predictions that were contradicting themselves. //

Pollution is causing warming, and removing pollution is causing warming. For once I believe that I can use the phrase ”I can’t even…’’, because I am dismayed as to what the solution can possibly be for this unsettled scientific conclusion. //

”We must act’’, all the while being completely unable to formulate a cogent solution to the problem. I now understand better than ever why politicians love the climate hysteria so much.

Frances Arnold, an American scientist who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, retracted a paper after admitted to faulty research. //

“Sometimes things appear to work, then they don’t. Science should be a process, not winner takes all whatever the cost,” wrote Professor Lee Cronin of the University of Glasgow in Scotland. //

"Seeing a Nobel laureate tweet about a paper retraction teaches how important it is for scientist to be honest about their data,” tweeted scientist Anmol Kilkarni.

Atomic clocks are used around the world to precisely tell time. Each "tick" of the clock depends on atomic vibrations and their effects on surrounding electromagnetic fields. Standard atomic clocks in use today, based on the atom cesium, tell time by "counting" radio frequencies. These clocks can measure time to a precision of one second per every hundreds of millions of years. Newer atomic clocks that measure optical frequencies of light are even more precise, and may eventually replace the radio-based ones.

Now, researchers at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is managed by Caltech for NASA, have come up with a new design for an optical atomic clock that holds promise to be the most accurate and precise yet (accuracy refers to the ability of the clock to correctly pin down the time, and precision refers to its ability to tell time in fine detail). Nicknamed the "tweezer clock," it employs technology in which so-called laser tweezers are used to manipulate individual atoms.

A new technique developed by researchers at MIT uses shock waves to remove radioactive contaminants from nuclear reactor wastewater.

Called shock electrodialysis, the cleansing process separates waste products from the power plant's coolant system for disposal, while the water can be recycled instead of replaced. //

Originally invented to remove salt from seawater, the process uses a deionization shockwave in a tube of water to push electrically charged ions into a charged porous material that acts as the tube's lining. The upshot of this is that, if the ions consist of the desired element for disposal, they can be selectively filtered out of the coolant water flow, which can amount to 10 million cubic meters of water per year for a large reactor. //

So far, the technique has been used to remove 99.5 percent of the radioactive cobalt and cesium from simulated wastewater that also contains boric acid and lithium, which are left behind. This means that up to two-thirds of the water can be recycled. The process is scalable and MIT says that it can not only be used to clean reactor cooling systems, but also for large-scale applications like removing lead from drinking water. //

The research paper, which was authored by professor of chemical engineering at MIT Martin Bazant, graduate students Mohammad Alkhadra Huanhuan Tian and postdocs Kameron Conforti and Tao Gao, is published in Environmental Science and Technology.

The Vietnam draft lotteries functioned as a randomized experiment—which has allowed social scientists to study its life-changing effects. //.

. In an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the team reported a greater frequency of birthdates that had been called for induction among the death certificates. Specifically, in results still relevant to today’s veterans, the team reported that having a draft-selected birthdate increased mortality among draft-eligible men by about 4 percent, including a 13 percent increase in the rate of suicide and an 8 percent increase in the rate of motor-vehicle death

It’s surprisingly common for men to start losing entire chromosomes from blood cells as they age.

A large monitoring station used to gather important scientific data in the Baltic Sea has mysteriously vanished.

The underwater observatory, which had been on the seafloor since December 2016, is managed by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel and the Helmholtz Center Geesthacht (HZG). On August 21 at 8:15 p.m. local time, transmissions from the €300,000 ($330,000) station came to a sudden halt. Divers were dispatched to the site, only to find—much to their astonishment—that the entire structure was gone, save for a shredded transmission cable, according to a GEOMAR statement.

10 more words that mean something different to scientists.

Some of this science sounds awfully familiar.

Physics for Entertainment was written by Yakov Perelman in the 1920’s (in Russian) and updated periodically through the 1930’s. There are actually two parts to it, but Volume 1 is long out-of-print (though findable online — more on that later). The book I have is a 1975 translation of Volume 2. The book is a series of a few hundred examples, no more than one or two pages each, asking a question that illustrates some idea in basic physics.

It’s neat to see what has and hasn’t changed in the last century or so. Many of the examples he uses seem to be straight out of a modern high school physics textbook, while others were totally new to me.