As automobile manufacturers race to cash in on the soaring popularity of electric vehicles, concerns grow about the environmental and social impact of more intense mining operations. In a report in the journal Nature Reviews Materials, British earth scientist Richard Herrington points out that by the year 2035, there could be 245 million battery-powered electric vehicles on the road. In addition, there will be a huge demand for stationary batteries needed for energy storage to compensate for the less...
German researchers have proposed a solution to prevent blood clots caused by two leading COVID-19 vaccines. Other scientists warn it is too early to draw conclusions about the mechanism behind the potentially deadly condition, CBC reports. The researchers behind the new preprint study say they hope their theory could eventually help laboratories adapt the AstraZeneca-Oxford and Johnson & Johnson vaccines to increase safety and boost global vaccination efforts. Though uncommon, vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) is much more severe than a...
Microsoft president Brad Smith told the BBC that it will be "difficult to catch up” with rapidly advancing artificial intelligence. “If we don’t enact the laws that will protect the public in the future, we are going to find the technology racing ahead ... ” he said. “I’m constantly reminded of George Orwell’s lessons in his book 1984. You know the fundamental story…was about a government who could see everything that everyone did and hear everything...
Scientists from the Santa Fe Institute, MIT, and ETH Zürich have developed a scaling law that governs the number of visitors to any urban location based on how far they are traveling and how often they are visiting. The researchers' findings are a result of analysis of data from millions of anonymized cellphone users in urban regions including Boston, Lisbon, Singapore, and Dakar. The visitation law increases accuracy in predicting flows between locations, which could have...
Researchers have shown that sustainably decarbonizing the U.S. energy system by 2050 will require us to change the way energy transitions are modelled and account for the role of public opinion, reports Tech Xplore. Carnegie Mellon University researchers used nuclear energy as a case study of how conventional energy models – which minimize system costs – fail at accounting for social acceptance, a factor that can inhibit the deployment of certain technologies such as...
A once-in-a-decade population census has shown that births in China have fallen to their lowest level since the 1960s, the BBC reports. The census showed that around 12 million babies were born in China last year, a 33% decrease from 18 million in 2016. Experts say the situation could be uniquely exacerbated given the number of men who are finding it difficult to find a wife in the first place. Last year, there were 34.9 million more...
As businesses and consumers increasingly sign up to the benefits of cloud-based, mobile application development solutions, many developers of these solutions are failing to take into account the security risks involved when these apps are misconfigured, Tech Xplore reports. Check Point Research recently discovered misconfigurations and implementation issues that have exposed the data of 100 million mobile application users. Researchers expressed surprise at facing no obstacles to accessing open databases for certain apps on...
A novel defensive response to SARS-CoV-2 involving the viral pattern recognition receptor RIG-I has been discovered by scientists from Hokkaido University, Medical Xpress reports. Upregulating expression of this protein could strengthen the immune response in COPD patients. A team led by professor Akinori Takaoka has shown that RIG-I, a biological molecule that detects RNA viruses, restrains SARS-CoV-2 replication in human lung cells. Their findings, which could help predict COVID-19 patient outcomes, were published in the...
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are using a unique computer model to better understand the possible consequences of supply disruption in rare earth materials, Tech Xplore reports. They analysed the potential effects of three supply disruption scenarios on 10 rare earth elements, along with a handful of associated compounds, to determine the market effects. To conduct the analysis, which was supported by the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Logistics Agency, they used...
Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount confirmed that he authorized a $4.4-million ransom payment to hackers in order to get the critical energy artery operating. The company paid about 75 bitcoin in exchange for decryption software, the Wall Street Journal reported. "I didn't make it lightly," Blount said. "I will admit that I wasn't comfortable seeing money go out the door to people like this." The ransomware infection at Colonial highlighted the vulnerability of critical infrastructure. The FBI blamed...
