Best of Last Week—Basal thaw, robots that draw their own circuits, using nasal spray to combat COVID-19
Bob Yirka
news contributor
It was an interesting week for Earth science and its history as a team at Stanford University explored whether we are missing a crucial component of sea-level rise. They suggest more attention needs to be given to basal thaw, where ice at the interface of the land meets with the deep ice sheet above it. Also, a team with members from Canada and Australia found what they believe to be one of the best-preserved dinosaurs ever—a full juvenile duck-billed Hadrosaur mummy discovered in a hillside in the U.K. And an international team found a 380-year-old fossilized heart that once belonged to a jawed fish. They suggest that its discovery may help to illuminate the evolutionary history of organs in general.
In technology news, a combined team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Rochester, developed a strategy to create more efficient narrow bandgap perovskite films for tandem solar cells as a possible way to increase efficiency. And a team at Los Alamos National Laboratories developed a new approach for comparing neural networks.The approach exposed how artificial intelligence works. Also, a team at the University of Brescia developed a deep-learning-augmented smart mirror to enhance fitness training, which watches how a person trains and then offers suggestions on how to improve their technique. And a team with members from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and Imperial College London developed a new robotic system that draws circuits with conductive ink. It uses the circuits to maximize the amount of energy it receives from a given power source.
In other news, a team with member affiliations across the U.S. found evidence that the risk factor for developing Alzheimer's disease increases by 50 to 80% in older adults who have had COVID-19. Also, a team with members from Monash University, RMIT University, CSIRO, the Australian Synchrotron and Plymouth University presented evidence that the mysterious diamonds they found in a slice of a meteorite came from outer space—most likely an ancient dwarf planet that collided with a big asteroid. And finally, a team at Augusta University, working with one colleague from Edinburgh Napier University and another with Georgia State University found that twice-daily nasal irrigation can significantly reduce COVID-related illnesses and deaths.
