Climate Things for Thought

Scientists warn that many dangerous feedback loops make climate action more urgent

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-scientists-dangerous-feedback-loops-climate.html

20 physical loops like albedo and 21 biological loops like wetlands or peatlands:

Because these feedbacks may not yet be fully incorporated into climate models, current emissions drawdown plans could fail to adequately limit future warming. 

via Conservation Biology Institute and Oregon State University: Many risky feedback loops amplify the need for massive climate action, One Earth (2023). DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.01.004

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.01.004

US housing market overvalued by $200 billion due to unpriced climate risks, says study

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-housing-overvalued-billion-due-unpriced.html

"Increasing flood risk under climate change is creating a bubble that threatens the stability of the US housing market. As we've seen in California in the last few weeks*, these aren't hypotheticals and the risk is more extensive than expected—and that risk carries an enormous cost," said Jesse Gourevitch, a postdoctoral fellow at Environmental Defense Fund and lead author of the study.

"These risks are largely unaccounted for in property transactions, encouraging development in flood-prone areas. Accurately pricing the costs of flooding in home values can support adaptation to flood risk, but may leave many worse off."

Currently, more than 14.6 million properties in the United States face at least a 1 percent annual probability of flooding, with expected annual damages to residential properties exceeding $32 billion. Increasing frequency and severity of flooding under climate change is predicted to increase the number of properties exposed to flooding by 11 percent and average annual losses by at least 26 percent by 2050.

*Circa Feb 2023 - 12 "atmospheric rivers" deluge California in three months, bringing the historic "Triple Dip La Nina" to it's climax on the US West Coast.

via Resources for the Future, Environmental Defense Fund, First Street Foundation, the Federal Reserve: Jesse Gourevitch, Unpriced climate risk and the potential consequences of overvaluation in US housing markets, Nature Climate Change (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-023-01594-8.

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01594-8

NASA space mission takes stock of carbon dioxide emissions by countries

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-nasa-space-mission-stock-carbon.html

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission helped researchers track carbon dioxide emissions for more than 100 countries around the world. The pilot project offers a powerful new look at the carbon dioxide being emitted in these countries and how much of it is removed from the atmosphere by forests and other carbon-absorbing "sinks" within their borders. 

Traditional activity-based (or "bottom-up") approaches to carbon measurement rely on tallying and estimating how much carbon dioxide is being emitted. But that's hard. Top-down measurement can help. 

via NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Brendan Byrne et al, National CO2 budgets (2015–2020) inferred from atmospheric CO2 observations in support of the global stocktake, Earth System Science Data (2023). DOI: 10.5194/essd-15-963-2023

https://dx.doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-963-2023

Image credit: AI Art - Hyperdimensional Planet - 2023

Same Same

Headlines with a negative twist boost the consumption of online news, demonstrates study

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-headlines-negative-boost-consumption-online.html

This isn't about misinformation or memetic propagation; it's about multiple discovery, which I would rather call simultaneous discovery -- Calculus and the telephone come to mind. 

Incidentally, the publication of the research is a story all by itself. Only when Feuerriegel and his team submitted an initial version of the paper to Nature Human Behaviour did they become aware that a research group led by Jay Van Bavel from New York University had also submitted a paper -- in the same week, on the same topic, based on the same dataset from Upworthy.com, and with almost identical results.

via Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich: Claire E. Robertson et al, Negativity drives online news consumption, Nature Human Behaviour (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4

Image credit: AI Art - The Concept of Dimensionality Reduction in Machine Learning - 2023

Post Script:

This whole description is poorly sourced but well written: The concept of multiple discovery (also known as simultaneous invention) is the hypothesis that most scientific discoveries and inventions are made independently and more or less simultaneously by multiple scientists and inventors. The concept of multiple discovery opposes a traditional view—the "heroic theory" of invention and discovery. Multiple discovery is analogous to convergent evolution in biological evolution.

Robert K. Merton defined such "multiples" as instances in which similar discoveries are made by scientists working independently of each other.

-Merton, Robert K. (December 1963). "Resistance to the Systematic Study of Multiple Discoveries in Science". European Journal of Sociology. 4 (2): 237–282. doi:10.1017/S0003975600000801. JSTOR 23998345. S2CID 145650007. Reprinted in: Robert K. Merton (15 September 1996). On Social Structure and Science. University of Chicago Press. pp. 305–. ISBN 978-0-226-52070-4.

Human vs Human

Man beats machine at Go in human victory over AI

Feb 2023, Ars Technica

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/man-beats-machine-at-go-in-human-victory-over-ai/

John Henry rests in his eternal place:

A human player has comprehensively defeated a top-ranked AI system at the board game Go, in a surprise reversal of the 2016 computer victory that was seen as a milestone in the rise of artificial intelligence.

Kellin Pelrine, an American player who is one level below the top amateur ranking, beat the machine by taking advantage of a previously unknown flaw that had been identified by another computer. 

Can we call this new "champ" the Zero-day King? (user Wastrel)

They say the actual John Henry was born in 1848 in New Jersey and died of silicosis and not due to exhaustion of work.

Super-AI gameplay spurs humans to novel, winning strategies

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-03-super-ai-gameplay-spurs-humans-strategies.html

Examining Decision Quality Index scores over several decades, Shin and his team found that while human players made minimal strides during the first several decades of Go play, substantial improvement was found immediately following 2016, the year of AlphaGo's first remarkable achievements.

"We find that human decision-making significantly improved following the advent of superhuman AI," Shin said. "This improvement was associated with greater novelty in human decisions."

via City University of Hong Kong: Minkyu Shin et al, Superhuman artificial intelligence can improve human decision-making by increasing novelty, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2214840120

https://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2214840120

Image credit: AI Art - Hands Shaking Hands - 2023

Word on the Street

Diminishing health benefits of living in cities for children and teens

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03-diminishing-health-benefits-cities-children.html

The new Geoffrey West:

The research, by a global consortium of more than 1,500 researchers and physicians, analyzed height and weight data from 71 million children and adolescents (aged five to 19 years) across urban and rural areas of 200 countries from 1990 to 2020.

The new study found that in the 21st century, this urban height advantage shrank in most countries as a result of accelerating improvements in height for children and adolescents in rural areas.

Also, on average children living in cities had a slightly higher BMI than children in rural areas in 1990. 

But the reality is too complex to be summarized in a sentence: "The issue is not so much whether children live in cities or urban areas, but where the poor live, and whether governments are tackling growing inequalities with initiatives like supplementary incomes and free school meal programs."

via Imperial College London: Rachel Heap & Conrad Duncan, Diminishing benefits of urban living for the health of children and adolescents, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05772-8.

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05772-8

Collective forms of governance, infrastructural investments, collaboration all help societies last longer, study finds

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-infrastructural-investments-collaboration-societies-longer.html

Researchers examined 24 ancient cities in what's now Mexico and found that the cities that lasted the longest showed indications of collective forms of governance, infrastructural investments, and cooperation between households.

Early efforts to construct dense, interconnected residential spaces and the construction of large, central, open plazas were two of the factors that the authors found contributed to greater sustainability and importance of the early cities.

via Anthropology Field Museum in Chicago: Gary M. Feinman et al, Sustainability and duration of early central places in prehispanic Mesoamerica, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2023). DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2023.1076740

https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1076740

Image credit: AI Art Hybrid Prabhu B 5 - 2022

Post Script:

Bordeaux town hall set on fire in France pension protests

Mar 2023, BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65057249

More than a million people took to the streets across France, sparked by legislation raising the retirement age by two years to 64. ... 

I was intrigued by the way they (English-speaking BBC reporters translating French protesters) use this term -- The Street -- as if it were a bunch of people, like a badass crew: "The street has a legitimacy in France," said a protester in Nantes. "If Mr Macron can't remember this historic reality, I don't know what he is doing here".

Artificially Generated Traffic Jams

Researchers propose a fourth light on traffic signals for self-driving cars

Feb 2023, Matt Shipman, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-02-fourth-traffic-self-driving-cars.html

Red lights will still mean stop. Green lights will still mean go. And white lights will tell human drivers to simply follow the car in front of them."

The white phase concept rests on the fact that it is possible for AVs to communicate wirelessly with both each other and the computer controlling the traffic signal. When enough AVs are approaching the intersection, this would activate the white light. 

Red lights will still mean stop. Green lights will still mean go. And white lights will tell human drivers to simply follow the car in front of them."

The white phase concept rests on the fact that it is possible for AVs to communicate wirelessly with both each other and the computer controlling the traffic signal. When enough AVs are approaching the intersection, this would activate the white light. 

via North Carolina State University: Ramin Niroumand et al, White Phase Intersection Control Through Distributed Coordination: A Mobile Controller Paradigm in a Mixed Traffic Stream, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (2023). DOI: 10.1109/TITS.2022.3226557

https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TITS.2022.3226557

Unrelated image credit: Super heated filament - Aurich Lawson f*** Getty Images - 2022

How the Sausage is Made

Predicting human group sizes with physics

Jan 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-01-human-group-sizes-physics.html

People behaving like particles with spin: Only by knowing the average number of friends each person has, scientists were able to predict the group sizes of people in a computer game, modeled on the self-organization of particles with spin, and with social stress as comparable to energy in physics.

This model was able to predict the distribution of group size in the multiplayer online game Pardus. "Normally you would need to know the structure of the network and how it is designed," Korbel explains the results. "Here we only need to know how many friends a player has on average." With this relatively small amount of information, the researchers were able to predict how many groups of a certain size would appear.

via Complexity Science Hub Vienna: Jan Korbel et al, Homophily-Based Social Group Formation in a Spin Glass Self-Assembly Framework, Physical Review Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.057401

https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.057401

Exploring the neural mechanisms behind how social networks shape our decisions

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03-exploring-neural-mechanisms-social-networks.html

"Essentially, our brain tends to assign higher weight to the observations by better connected neighbors and down-weight or even ignore the observations by less connected neighbors, even when these neighbors have valuable information," Zhu explained. "We found that activity in a part of our brain called dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, which typically implicated in adjusting our behavior to adapt to the external environment, tracks how well connected a neighbor is at the time when the brain is processing a decision observed from the neighbor."

Which is interesting because we know that novel information comes from the outside fringe people who are less connected to any one group, yet hold more connections to more otherwise un-connected groups...

via Peking University: Yaomin Jiang et al, Neurocomputational mechanism of real-time distributed learning on social networks, Nature Neuroscience (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-023-01258-y.

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41593-023-01258-y

How miscommunication can be constructive during problem-solving in diverse groups

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-miscommunication-problem-solving-diverse-groups.html

"Higher-ability groups tend to think about a problem in the same way when making predictions or finding solutions," explains Muldoon. "They end up exploring the same spots. Diverse groups collectively are able to explore more options, increasing the chance of bigger successes."

"Some miscommunication can make errors worse, while other examples of miscommunication can diminish the harm that might come from those errors," 

"What we found is that how we organize groups matters a great deal when we're evaluating the benefits of diversity—especially when we can miscommunicate," 

via University of Buffalo: Keith Hankins et al, Does (mis)communication mitigate the upshot of diversity?, PLOS ONE (2023). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0283248

https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283248

Unrelated image credit: Stanford Torus by Alexander Preuss

Cross Sensory Instantiation

Creating 3D objects with sound

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-02-3d.html

Their concept uses multiple acoustic holograms to generate pressure fields with which solid particles, gel beads and even biological cells can be printed.

They capture particles and cells freely floating in water and assemble them into three-dimensional shapes. 

The advantage of ultrasound is that it is gentle enough for using biological cells and that it can travel deep into tissue. This way it can be used to remotely manipulate and push cells without harm.

via the Max Planck Society at Heidelberg University's Micro, Nano and Molecular Systems Lab: Kai Melde et al, Compact holographic sound fields enable rapid one-step assembly of matter in 3D, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf6182

https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adf6182

Preserving endangered languages as 3D shapes

Jan 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-01-endangered-languages-3d.html

The first of its kind in the world, the project and its outputs not only enable the visual demonstration of the architecture of language, but also enables its preservation in a permanent, solid form.

via University College London: Alex Pillen et al, Natural language modelled and printed in 3D: a multi-disciplinary approach, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1057/s41599-022-01089-5

https://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01089-5

Unrelated image credit: AI Art - Surface Antigen of Glioblastoma Multiformae - 2022

Solaris Shoutout

Recognizing the ocean as a living being is increasingly important for global sustainability, claim researchers

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-ocean-important-global-sustainability.html

How can you read that headline and not think about Solaris?

Gamma Jacking

New approach puts brain scans on the witness stand in trademark disputes

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-approach-brain-scans-witness-trademark.html

Talking to brains instead of people. (Something about this reminds me of the perennial line by business owners who resist organized worker unions because they prefer "a direct relationship with their workers".)

The standard according to trademark law is whether a "reasonable person" would find two trademarks similar, but it doesn't define what similar means. "Asking the brain, not a person, could reduce -- if not eliminate -- inconsistencies." (They use fMRI).

via University of California - Berkeley: Zhihao Zhang et al, From scanner to court: A neuroscientifically informed "reasonable person" test of trademark infringement, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abo1095

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36753556/

Image credit: Gamma Ray Burst GRB 221009A nicknamed the BOAT - Brightest Of All Time - NASA Swift - 2023

Brain-inspired computing system based on skyrmions 'reads' handwriting

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-02-brain-inspired-based-skyrmions.html

The researchers trained the device using more than 13,000 images of handwritten digits from 0 to 9. They converted the images into magnetic input signals, and tuned the device so that the output voltage signals accurately represented the correct digit.

(Skyrmions are miniature magnetic whirlpools.)

via RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science: Tomoyuki Yokouchi et al, Pattern recognition with neuromorphic computing using magnetic field–induced dynamics of skyrmions, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq5652

https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abq5652

Electrodes grown in the brain: Paving the way for future therapies for neurological disorders

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-electrodes-grown-brain-paving-future.html

Like it's not a big deal:

Successfully grown electrodes in living tissue using the body's molecules as triggers.

"For several decades, we have tried to create electronics that mimic biology. Now we let biology create the electronics for us,"

The body's endogenous molecules are enough to trigger the formation of electrodes. There is no need for genetic modification or external signals, such as light or electrical energy, which has been necessary in previous experiments. The Swedish researchers are the first in the world to succeed in this.

via Linköping, Lund and Gothenburg Universities in Sweden: Xenofon Strakosas et al, Metabolite-induced in vivo fabrication of substrate-free organic bioelectronics, Science (2023). DOI: 10.1126/science.adc9998

https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.adc9998

Post Script:

A place to exercise your brain? Introducing mental health gyms

Feb 2023, BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64042267

At Inception, Mr McCullar has designed boot camps and circuit training featuring equipment to help the brain relax: infrared saunas, zero-gravity chairs, flotation therapy tanks and neurofeedback therapy.

Post Post Script

Study examines how our native language shapes our brain wiring

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03-native-language-brain-wiring.html

With the help of magnetic resonance tomography, they looked deep into the brains of native German and Arabic speakers and discovered differences in the wiring of the language regions in the brain.

"Arabic native speakers showed a stronger connectivity between the left and right hemispheres than German native speakers," explained Alfred Anwander, last author of the study that was recently published in the journal NeuroImage. "This strengthening was also found between semantic language regions and may be related to the relatively complex semantic and phonological processing in Arabic."

As the researchers discovered, native German speakers showed stronger connectivity in the left hemisphere language network. They argue that their findings may be related to the complex syntactic processing of German, which is due to the free word order and greater dependency distance of sentence elements.

via Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig: Xuehu Wei et al, Native language differences in the structural connectome of the human brain, NeuroImage (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.119955

https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.119955

Word Mart and the Crack Cocaine of Algorithms

A deep belief neural network based on silicon memristive synapses

Jan 2023, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-01-deep-belief-neural-network-based.html

Neuromorphic computing system supporting deep belief neural networks (DBNs), based on silicon-based memristors, energy-efficient devices that can both store and process information.

The artificial synapses created by the researchers were fabricated using commercial complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) processes. 

via Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and the Peng Cheng Laboratory: Wei Wang et al, A memristive deep belief neural network based on silicon synapses, Nature Electronics (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41928-022-00878-9

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41928-022-00878-9

Image credit: AI Art - Ice Cream Screaming 1 - 2022

On-chip mechanical exceptional points based on an optomechanical zipper cavity

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-on-chip-mechanical-exceptional-based-optomechanical.html

Optomechanical zipper cavities.

via Tsinghua University in China: Ning Wu et al, On-chip mechanical exceptional points based on an optomechanical zipper cavity, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abp8892

https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abp8892

Also: Jing Zhang et al, A phonon laser operating at an exceptional point, Nature Photonics (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41566-018-0213-5

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41566-018-0213-5

TikTok sets 60-minute daily screen time limit for under-18s

Feb 2023, BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64813981

'Crack cocaine of algorithms'

-Imran Ahmed, the Center for Countering Digital Hate

(And don't forget that China calls algorithms "electronic drugs" -- but in the U.S., they can't call it that because algorithms are engines of economic productivity.)

Is biodegradable better? Making sense of 'compostable' plastics

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-biodegradable-compostable-plastics.html

'Eternal pollutants'

"People tend to believe they're contributing to the protection of the planet while buying these products, but it's not at all the case." 

Biodegradable plastics break down quicker, but need to be disposed of correctly, whether it's in an industrial compost facility or a home compost, which most people don't have access to, meaning biodegradable plastics end up in recycling centres or landfills -- or worse, the environment.

But wait --

Some companies even claim to have developed edible plastics.

(Counterintuitively, bio-based plastics are not necessarily compostable or biodegradable, and and although they may contain some biomass like corn, potato starch, wood pulp or sugarcane, they may also contain fossil fuel-derived materials.)

via Surfrider Foundation Europe

And speaking of plastic:

Scientists make 'disturbing' find on remote island: plastic rocks

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-scientists-disturbing-remote-island-plastic.html

Plastiglomerates - similar to sedimentary rocks

Pyroplastics - similar to clastic rocks

Plastistones - previously unidentified, similar to igneous rocks formed by lava flow

The Plasticine - (you guessed it; you're in it.)

via Federal University of Parana in Brazil

Megadata vs Magadata

The death of open access mega-journals?

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-death-access-mega-journals.html

"...explosive growth of mega-journals may be accompanied by the fall of some previously prestigious journals."

Many newer mega-journals have begun specializing in discipline-focused journals that are publishing faster and in greater volume than traditional journals can keep up with.

And because getting more citations and publishing more stories in a current year helps lift the impact factor, self-citing journals are skewing the imapct factor of the journal. 

Using an internally-developed AI tool to help identify outlier characteristics that indicate that a journal may no longer meet quality criteria, the Web of Science has removed the impact factor of nearly two dozen journals, including one of the world's largest, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Many of the journals published by Hindawi and two by MDPI have had their impact factor ratings removed, likely reflecting concerns with the integrity of the publishing process.

• Hiring "guest editors" who may not be reviewing studies in their field of expertise
• Quick turnaround times from submitting a paper to publication (200 hundred days in traditional publishing, 30 for Hindawi)
• Hindawi was purchased by Wiley publishing in 2021 for $300 million and has already had to deal with thousands of retractions after uncovering thousands of fraudulent papers filled with off-subject citations.

via opinion letter by researchers from Italy and Stanford: John P. A. Ioannidis et al, The Rapid Growth of Mega-Journals Threats and Opportunities, JAMA (2023). DOI: 10.1001/jama.2023.3212

https://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2023.3212

Megajournals may perpetuate and accentuate an already dysfunctional system of scientific evaluation and publication,” they write. The pay-for-publication model creates an incentive for authors trying to meet institutions’ quotas for publications, and “megajournals may drain an already strained pool of reviewers from traditional journals.” Ioannidis calls for more research comparing the quality of peer review in megajournals and traditional ones, and he suggests institutions and funders reward researchers for studies that are transparent and rigorous. 

-Fast-growing open-access journals stripped of coveted impact factors: Web of Science delists some 50 journals, including one of the world’s largest, Mar 2023, Jeffrey Brainard for Science [link]

And by the way:

AI language models open a potential Pandora's box of medical research fraud

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03-ai-language-potential-pandora-medical.html

Meta things -- they wanted to see if artificial intelligence could write a fabricated research paper and then investigate how best to detect it, so they ran their AI-generated text through a free, online, AI rephrasing tool -- the consensus unanimously flipped to "likely human," suggesting we need better AI detection tools, since these technologies could be used to write entire studies with false data, nonexistent participants and meaningless results.

via Faisal Elali of the State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University: Faisal R. Elali et al, AI-generated research paper fabrication and plagiarism in the scientific community, Patterns (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.patter.2023.100706

https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2023.100706

Image credit: AI Art - Anatomy of an Altmodern Female Head - 2022

Origami Moments

Researchers detail never-before-seen properties in a family of superconducting Kagome metals

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-never-before-seen-properties-family-superconducting-kagome.html

Superconductors that can operate at close to room temperature are considered the holy grail of condensed-matter physics because of the tremendous technological opportunities they would open in power efficiency, including in electricity transmission, transportation and quantum computing.

The new study focuses on superconductor RbV3Sb5, which is made of the metals rubidium vanadium and antimony. The material earns its namesake because of its peculiar atomic structure, which resembles a basketweave pattern that features interconnected star-shaped triangles. Kagome materials fascinate researchers because of the insight they provide into quantum phenomena, bridging two of the most fundamental fields of physics—topological quantum physics and condensed matter physics.

They showed that the structure moves from a 2x2x1 pattern with a signature Star of David pattern to a 2x2x2 pattern. This happens because the Kagome lattice inverts in on itself when the temperature gets extremely frigid. The new lattice it transitions into is made up largely of separate hexagons and triangles, the researchers showed. They also showed how this pattern connects when they take one plane of the RbV3Sb5 structure and rotate it, ''gazing '' into it from a different angle. [Sounds like magical kagome nano sandwiches to me.]

via Brown University: Jonathan Frassineti et al, Microscopic nature of the charge-density wave in the kagome superconductor RbV3Sb5, Physical Review Research (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.5.L012017

https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.5.L012017

Origami-inspired robots can sense, analyze and act in challenging environments

Apr 2023, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-04-origami-inspired-robots-environments.html

Origami about to have its moment:

By embedding flexible and electrically conductive materials into a pre-cut, thin polyester film sheet, the researchers created a system of information-processing units, or transistors, that can be integrated with sensors and actuators. They then programmed the sheet with simple computer analogical functions that emulate those of semiconductors. Once cut, folded and assembled, the sheet transformed into an autonomous robot that can sense, analyze and act in response to their environments with precision. The researchers named their robots "OrigaMechs," short for Origami MechanoBots.

via UCLA Wenzhong Yan et al, Origami-based integration of robots that sense, decide, and respond, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37158-9

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37012246/

Image credit: AI Art - Glass Sculpture of White Pore Fungi - 2022

Building Intelligence

Temperature-sensing building material changes color to save energy

Jan 2023, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-01-temperature-sensing-material-energy.html

Chameleon-like building material that changes its infrared color—and how much heat it absorbs or emits—based on the outside temperature. On hot days, the material can emit up to 92 percent of the infrared heat it contains, helping cool the inside of a building. On colder days, however, the material emits just 7 percent of its infrared, helping keep a building warm.

Non-flammable "electrochromic" building material that contains a layer that can take on two conformations: solid copper that retains most infrared heat, or a watery solution that emits infrared. At any chosen trigger temperature, the device can use a tiny amount of electricity to induce the chemical shift between the states by either depositing copper into a thin film, or stripping that copper off.

via University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering: Chenxi Sui et al, Dynamic electrochromism for all-season radiative thermoregulation, Nature Sustainability (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-022-01023-2

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01023-2

Also: Radiative electrochromism for energy-efficient buildings, Nature Sustainability (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-022-01030-3 , www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-01030-3

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-01030-3

Using mushroom skin as a base for computer chips

Nov 2022, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-11-mushroom-skin-base-chips.html

The skin of the Ganoderma lucidum mushroom can be used as a biodegradable base for computer chips.

The team developed a means for depositing metal electronic circuitry components onto the skin using physical vapor deposition, which was followed up with an ablated laser.  

via Johannes Kepler University: Doris Danninger et al, MycelioTronics: Fungal mycelium skin for sustainable electronics, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.add7118

https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.add7118

Farewell radiators? Testing out electric infrared wallpaper

Feb 2023, BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64402524

"It has two copper strips down each side of it and then a graphene layer, and when it's powered [with electricity] the graphene emits infrared, which is like the heat you get from the sun."

The graphene material he refers to is a thin layer of carbon atoms that can conduct electricity, first discovered by researchers at Manchester University. The version in Hull, which has also been used in other parts of Europe, like Scandinavia, uses a carbon paste layer to similar effect.

Image credit: AI Art - Pantheons of Grass - 2022

Just Science Pictures

Experts discover how zebra stripes work to thwart horsefly attacks

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-experts-zebra-stripes-thwart-horsefly.html

Idk I just find this really funny

via University of Bristol: Tim Caro et al, Why don't horseflies land on zebras?, Journal of Experimental Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1242/jeb.244778

https://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.244778

Post Script:

In case you need help channeling your inner 3rd-grader, it's a close-up of a beetle's butthole which you can call a "hindgut" if you want to sound more professional: 

Microscopic cross-section of the beetle's hindgut - Kenneth Veland Halberg at University of Copenhagen - 2023

And if you want to see what happens when you cross a professional science photographer with an automatic image cropping script for a news aggregator service -- accidental adult imagery:

Embedded textile sensor - Valeria Galli ETH Zurich - 2023

The Big Hard

Drinking alcohol brings no health benefits, study finds

Apr 2023, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-alcohol-health-benefits.html

You've been told that one drink a day is actually good for your health -- but it's so hard to believe, right? It's good for your heart! It can't be true right?

No, it's not true. We screwed up, for decades, using one bad study after another to support a crazy idea. Can it be true that not one person stopped and said, wait, that sounds too good, let me double check that study. Not until now. 

It's been named "former-drinker bias", and it will be in every public health textbook for the rest of time starting now, as an example of what can go wrong with biostatistics and epidemiological research. 

We heard rumblings of this a while back...

• via Public Library of Science: John U, et al. (2021) Alcohol abstinence and mortality in a general population sample of adults in Germany: A cohort study. PLoS Med 18(11): e1003819. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003819 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003819
• Baselines, Biases and Big Data Problems - The Secrets of Statistics and the Magic of Metrology https://networkaddress.blogspot.com/2022/04/baselines-biases-and-big-data-problems.html

And now this article sums it up pretty well:

• Former drinkers aren't lifetime abstainers -- For example, many studies tend to place former drinkers in the same group as lifetime abstainers, referring to them all as "non-drinkers," Stockwell said.
• But former drinkers typically have given up or cut down on alcohol because of health problems, Stockwell said. The new analysis found that former drinkers actually have a 22% higher risk of death compared to abstainers.
• Their presence in the "non-drinker" group biases the results, creating the illusion that light daily drinking is healthy, Stockwell said.
• It's called "former-drinker bias"; and the reason it's been hiding in our public health research for decades? 
• "This is an overview of a lot of really bad studies," Stockwell said. "There's a lot of confounding and bias in these studies, and our analysis illustrates that."

via Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria in British Columbia:  Jinhui Zhao et al, Association Between Daily Alcohol Intake and Risk of All-Cause Mortality, JAMA Network Open (2023). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.6185

https://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.6185

Image credit: AI Art - My Feet On Yours by Disney Concept Artist - 2022

Post Script:

Continuum of Risk

• 2 standard drinks or less a week -- You are likely to avoid alcohol-related consequences for yourself or others at this level.
• 3 to 6 standard drinks a week -- Your risk of developing several types of cancer, including breast and colon cancer, increases at this level.
• 7 standard drinks or more a week -- Your risk of heart disease or stroke increases significantly at this level.

Bonus:

Partially unrelated, but still a good example of why science is hard:

HUGO (Human Genome Organisation) Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC), the body that names genes, has changed 27 genes to avoid being confused by Excel's default naming protocols.

For example, SEPT2 is the short name of a gene called Septin 2....

-Scientists rename human genes to stop Microsoft Excel from misreading them as dates

Aug 2020, The Verge

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355674/human-genes-rename-microsoft-excel-misreading-dates

Artificially Induced Hype Cycles

The Functionality Assumption:

"If one thinks the danger of AI is that it will work too well, it is a necessary precondition that it works at all."

 

-via UC Berkeley, Brown, ACLU, UCLA: The Fallacy of AI Functionality. Inioluma DR, et al. 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, Seoul, Republic of Korea, June 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3531146.3533158  

https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3531146.3533158

Image credit: A laptop screen, injured in a terrible accident, gasping its last breath

Bicameral Supremacy

How commercial actors influence and impact health and society

Apr 2023, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-commercial-actors-impact-health-society.html

A Lancet Series on the commercial determinants of health (CDOH) is a ground-breaking exposé of the products and practices of the CDOH and provides recommendations and frameworks to foster a better understanding of the diversity of the commercial world, potential pathways to health harms or benefits, and the need for regulatory action and investment in enterprises that advance health, well-being, equity, and society.

Dr. Mialon continued, "Often, we're hearing that individuals just need to make healthier choices for themselves. But that's ignoring that our choices are shaped by external factors, such as how much marketing we're exposed to, or the lack of protection against pollution because fossil fuel companies orchestrated a disinformation campaign on that topic. My work exposes those practices of commercial actors. It helps inform the public, who can then ask for change."

via Trinity College Dublin: Sharon Friel et al, Commercial determinants of health: future directions, The Lancet (2023). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00011-9

https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00011-9

Jennifer Lacy-Nichols et al, Conceptualising commercial entities in public health: beyond unhealthy commodities and transnational corporations, The Lancet (2023). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00012-0

https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00012-0

Anna B Gilmore et al, Defining and conceptualising the commercial determinants of health, The Lancet (2023). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00013-2

https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00013-2

Image credit: Fruiting body of a parasitic fungus erupts from body of its victim - Roberto García-Roa - 2022

Add the article about pfas not actually doing what it says --

Study finds harmful PFAS don't actually prevent furniture stains

Apr 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-04-pfas-dont-furniture.html

Put this on a wall:

"It was surprising that these harmful but supposedly indispensable chemicals had no practical benefit"

via Green Science Policy Institute: Jonas LaPier et al, Evaluating the Performance of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance Finishes on Upholstery Fabrics, AATCC Journal of Research (2023). DOI: 10.1177/24723444231159856

https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/24723444231159856

Bonus:

For-profit hospices deliver lower quality care than nonprofit hospices, finds study

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-02-for-profit-hospices-quality-nonprofit.html

via RAND Corporation: Association of hospice profit status with family caregivers' reported care experiences, JAMA Internal Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2022.7076

https://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2022.7076

Testing of smartphone apps that identify plants shows most are not very good

Apr 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-04-smartphone-apps-good.html

It doesn't matter if it's good, as long as people think it's good --

Many smartphone apps claim to identify plants, but as with other apps, little is done by independent groups to verify their accuracy. 

They note that all of the apps are based on deep-learning technology and have been trained using images posted on the internet. This, they further note, leads to errors because so many images of plants on the internet are mislabeled.

The team concludes that none of the apps are good enough to use as a field guide for people foraging for food in the wild, nor are they good enough for use by environmentalists or farmers to determine which plants to protect and which to eradicate. Instead, they suggest, they can be used by hobbyists hoping to learn more about their local environment.

via University of Galway's School of Natural Science and University of Leeds' School of Geography: Neil Campbell et al, A repeatable scoring system for assessing Smartphone applications ability to identify herbaceous plants, PLOS ONE (2023). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0283386

https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283386

Poisoning the Well

I almost feel irresponsible for posting this picture above, so a mandatory public service announcement is in order: Do not put bleach in your air vents.

And now for something totally different:

Two types of dataset poisoning attacks that can corrupt AI system results

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-03-dataset-poisoning-corrupt-ai-results.html

The researchers began by noting that ownership of URLs on the Internet often expire—including those that have been used as sources by AI systems. That leaves them available for purchase by nefarious types looking to disrupt AI systems. If such URLs are purchased and are then used to create websites with false information, the AI system will add that information to its knowledge bank just as easily as it will true information—and that will lead to the AI system producing less then desirable results.

The research team calls this type of attack split view poisoning. 

There is another way that AI systems could be subverted—by manipulating data in well known data repositories such as Wikipedia. [This has been a tactic by authoritarian governments since its inception.]

via Google, ETH Zurich, NVIDIA and Robust Intelligence: Nicholas Carlini et al, Poisoning Web-Scale Training Datasets is Practical, arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2302.10149

https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2302.10149

Post Script:

Another public service announcement -- the datasets used by today's deep learning artificial intelligence are not stored locally, they are stored as URLs which have to be accessed at the time of execution.

In other words, the Stable Diffusion LAION dataset is not a bunch of pictures; instead, it's a bunch of url's of pictures, like a url with ".jpg" at the end. This is good because it makes the memory storage for 5 billion images much smaller, because you're storing the link to the picture, not the actual picture. 

For anyone who's done anything on the internet for more than 5 years, you know what link rot is, and why it should make you really confused as to how people think the current crop of AI magic will continue to work as all the urls rot out, making the dataset smaller and smaller, and the quality of the output worse and worse. 

(And this isn't even considering the intentional data poisoning attacks described above.)

Also, double check the thumbnail for this post, which is an ad-poisoning injection about "this one trick" to get the dust out of your air vents by pouring bleach in them, itself designed not to advertise a product, but simply to get you to click so the broker can charge both parties for clickthroughs, even though no "eyeballs" took place, and as much as this shouldn't be happening, it is, and it's now in The Big Dataset in the Sky, poisoning our artificial intelligent systems. 

What Ever Happened to Good Old Fashioned Brainwashing

AKA "Green Behavior"

Veganism may not save the planet: Study suggests limited meat consumption better for environment, animals

Feb 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-veganism-planet-limited-meat-consumption.html

Here to think about how "-washing" is changing its meaning -- Whitewashing is where you wash something in white to make it sound better; you dilute it. From there we get Greenwashing, where you wash it in green to make it sound earth-friendly. But there's another -washing, which is Brainwashing, and maybe more of the -washings to come will be about brainwashing than about "cleaning things up".

The paper found that a diet of mostly plants with local and humanely raised meat is likely the most ethical way to eat if we want to save the environment and protect human rights.

"There's nothing sustainable about this plant-based model," said Amy Trauger, author of the study and a professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "It is really just a lot of greenwashing. You really don't have to look very far to see how problematic this narrative is."

The soybeans for tofu and palm oil for butter substitute are not from the U.S. ... Trader Joe's stores in New Jersey have have not yet responded just kidding.

via University of Georgia: Amy Trauger, The vegan industrial complex: the political ecology of not eating animals, Journal of Political Ecology (2022). DOI: 10.2458/jpe.3052

https://dx.doi.org/10.2458/jpe.3052

Image credit: AI Art - Teylor Doll Eating - 2022

Totally Unrelated Post Script:

Childhood trauma linked to civic environmental engagement, green behavior

Jan 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-01-childhood-trauma-linked-civic-environmental.html

"Green Behavior" they say.

via University of Colorado at Boulder: Urooj S. Raja et al, Childhood trauma and other formative life experiences predict environmental engagement, Scientific Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-24517-7

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-24517-7

Post Post Script:

Most existing methods found to be ineffective for counteracting conspiracy beliefs

Apr 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-04-methods-ineffective-counteracting-conspiracy-beliefs.html

"One of the most important findings of our review is that traditional fact-checking and counterarguments are the least effective means of combating conspiracy beliefs. We found that preventative measures, such as exposing participants to counterarguments before they encountered misinformation, were the most effective strategies to challenge conspiracy beliefs."

via University College Cork in Ireland: The efficacy of interventions in reducing belief in conspiracy theories: A systematic review, PLOS ONE (2023). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280902

https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280902

Artificial Atoms and the Quantum Simulator

Quantum breakthrough could revolutionise computing

Feb 2023, BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64492456

Good distinction:

"It is not just solely a physics problem anymore"

"It is an engineering problem, a computer science problem and also a mathematical problem.

-Sussex University PhD student Sahra Kulmiya

And then -- a marketing problem.

Image credit: Rita Mcbride Laser Wormhole

New analog quantum computers to solve previously unsolvable problems

Jan 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-01-analog-quantum-previously-unsolvable-problems.html

To demonstrate the power of analog quantum computation using their new Quantum Simulator platform, the researchers first studied a simple circuit comprising two quantum components coupled together.

The device simulates a model of two atoms coupled together by a peculiar quantum interaction. By tuning electrical voltages, the researchers were able to produce a new state of matter in which electrons appear to have only a 1/3 fraction of their usual electrical charge—so-called "Z3 parafermions." These elusive states have been proposed as a basis for future topological quantum computation, but never before created in the lab in an electronic device.

via University College Dublin: Andrew Mitchell, Quantum simulation of an exotic quantum critical point in a two-site charge Kondo circuit, Nature Physics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-022-01905-4.

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01905-4

Ancient Mathematics is the New Mathematics

A tool to detect higher-order phenomena in real-world data

Jan 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-01-tool-higher-order-phenomena-real-world.html

Researchers' multivariate time series method was able to detect oscillations between chaotic and synchronized neural interactions occurring in a brain at rest, between periods of financial stability and crisis. In the epidemiological example, or interactions between the spread of different diseases, like flu and pertussis.

"We are able to use ancient mathematics in new ways thanks to modern computing power, and access to big data. We are creating a new mathematics."

via Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Neuro-X Institute, Austria's Central European University and Italy's CENTAI Institute: Andrea Santoro et al, Higher-order organization of multivariate time series, Nature Physics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-022-01852-0

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01852-0

Image credit: Anatoly Fomenko

Harnessing incoherence to make sense of real-world networks

Mar 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-harnessing-incoherence-real-world-networks.html

Mapping the hierarchies and also the incoherence within a system will enable us to predict the system's strong and weak points.

Most real-world systems are neither perfectly coherent nor completely incoherent, but lie somewhere in between. In a food web, for instance, this might occur because of omnivorous animals that will eat both plants and other animals.

It was possible to use this trophic incoherence to estimate the point at which a network becomes strongly connected. They demonstrated that the method works for any type of network, including those of neurons, people, species, metabolites, genes and words...

"This modeling approach could be used to disrupt networks as well, because the points at which connectivity becomes strong can be targeted. Neurologists, for example, might find new ways to treat epilepsy by pinpointing specific connections responsible for maintaining seizures."

via University of Birmingham: Niall Rodgers et al, Strong connectivity in real directed networks, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2215752120

https://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215752120