Best of Last Week: The comet ATLAS, a Windows vulnerability, and salt vs. the immune system
Bob Yirka
news contributor
Despite the worldwide pandemic, scientific research has continued. It was a good week for space science particularly, as a pair of researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center found one more secret about Uranus when revisiting decades-old Voyager 2 data—that the probe had flown through a plasmoid. Also, multiple research teams have begun to sense that the Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) may put on quite a show—discovered just this past December, it has grown far brighter than expected. And a team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory validated their ability to accurately simulate how they might deflect an Earth-bound asteroid—hopefully showing how to avert disaster should the need arise.
In technology news, a team at Transport Research Laboratory found that car audio systems pose greater dangers than texting or pot for drivers trying to pay attention to the road. Also, a team at the University of Michigan developed a small, precise and affordable gyroscope for navigating without GPS. They claim it is 10,000 times more accurate than those in cell phones. And Microsoft reported a new Windows vulnerability within the Adobe Type Manager Library—hackers can trick users into opening documents that contain malicious code, and there is no fix yet. Also, Samsung Electronics announced that it will be introducing the first DRAM memory modules in the industry designed with cutting-edge Extreme Ultraviolet Technology.
In other news, a team at LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health found that ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers may increase the risk of severe COVID-19—possibly explaining why some people have worse outcomes than others once infected. Also, a combined team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside and the South Australia Museum made headlines when they announced that they had identified the ancestor of all animals in some Australian fossils.
And finally, if you are like billions of others the world over looking to reduce the severity of a COVID-19 infection, should you get one, you might want to check out the results of a study by a team with members affiliated with multiple institutions in Germany—they found that too much salt can weaken the immune system.
