science

• (2024, free) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4860527
• (2021, pay walled) https://online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/article-abstract/54/4/54/119024/Killing-Politics-SoftlyUnconvincing-Propaganda-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext

I don't have a background in science, I learned of the 2021 study as a footnote in a book I'm reading.

I'm curious to see what more attention this will get over the coming years.

Space weather experts say auroras could be visible from 10 p.m. EST Thursday to 1 a.m. Friday EST, though it’s difficult to pin down an exact window. Updated forecasts may be available as the event draws closer on NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center website or an aurora forecasting app.

The results of a recent study suggest that, if there is no deficit of the hormone, supplements are unlikely to improve a man’s libido

Dear colleagues,

Please find attached the call for proposals to our Open Science Devroom.

A conference track about all things "open source in research context" at the Free and Open Source Development European Meeting on 1st and 2nd of February 2025 at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

We are looking forward to your proposals!

See you there, The Open Research Devroom managers

Of course killing the Younglings after Mouse Order 66 was carried out wasn't a big deal since the rodent mothers do that all the time anyway.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/386215/trump-rfk-jr-vaccines-health-measles-chart

In this study, the scientists simulated the process of spaced learning by examining two types of non-brain human cells — one from nerve tissue and one from kidney tissue — in a laboratory setting.

These cells were exposed to varying patterns of chemical signals, akin to the exposure of brain cells to neurotransmitter patterns when we learn new information.

The intriguing part? These non-brain cells also switched on a “memory gene” – the same gene that brain cells activate when they detect information patterns and reorganize their connections to form memories.

Abstract

This study evaluates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers in Argentina, during the second wave in 2021.

The aim is to assess stress and burnout, incorporating the assessment of hair cortisol levels as a biomarker of chronic stress. A total of 496 healthcare workers from three different hospitals were included in this study. Two of these hospitals depend on the Buenos Aires City Ministry of Health and the third hospital belongs to Buenos Aires University.

Hair samples were obtained using scissors from the posterior vertex, as close to the scalp as possible. Each sample was weighed, and cortisol was extracted and then measured using an automated chemiluminescent method.

Notably, 10% of the population exhibited hair cortisol levels above 128 pg/mg. Associations were found between high hair cortisol levels and age, workload, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization. In addition, burnout, identified in 11% of participants, correlated with higher perceived stress and lower social support.

Binary logistic regression revealed associations between burnout and perceived stress, and age. Finally, mediation analysis showed depersonalization as a mediating variable in the relationship between hair cortisol concentration and emotional exhaustion.

In conclusion, this study highlights the complex relationships between stress, cortisol levels, and burnout. Prioritizing interventions and research is essential to support the well-being of frontline healthcare professionals, ensuring their resilience during challenging times.

A shared meal, a kiss on the cheek: these social acts bring people together — and bring their microbiomes together, too. The more people interact, the more similar the make-up of their gut microorganisms is, even if individuals don’t live in the same household, a study shows.

The study also found that a person’s microbiome is shaped not only by their social contacts but also by the social contacts’ connections. The work is one of several studies that raise the possibility that health conditions can be shaped by the transmission of the microbiome between individuals, not just by diet and other environmental factors that affect gut flora.

What if we shared our microbiomes under the moonlight

Associated research article (open access): Beghini, F., Pullman, J., Alexander, M. et al. Gut microbiome strain-sharing within isolated village social networks. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08222-1

Another relevant research article cited by the news (also open access): Valles-Colomer, M., Blanco-Míguez, A., Manghi, P. et al. The person-to-person transmission landscape of the gut and oral microbiomes. Nature 614, 125–135 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05620-1

A new study of 35 million news links circulated on Facebook reports that more than 75% of the time they were shared without the link being clicked upon and read

Abstract

: With the increasing use of online meetings, there is a growing need for efficient tools that can automatically generate meeting minutes from recorded sessions. Current solutions often rely on proprietary systems, limiting adaptability and flexibility. This paper investigates whether various open-source models and methods such as audio-to-text conversion, summarization, keyword extraction, and optical character recognition (OCR) can be integrated to create a meeting minutes generation tool for recorded video presentations. For this purpose, a series of evaluations are conducted to identify suitable models. Then, the models are integrated into a system that is modular yet accurate. The utilization of an open-source approach ensures that the tool remains accessible and adaptable to the latest innovations, thereby ensuring continuous improvement over time. Furthermore, this approach also benefits organizations and individuals by providing a cost-effective and flexible alternative. This work contributes to creating a modular and easily extensible open-source framework that integrates several advanced technologies and future new models into a cohesive system. The system was evaluated on ten videos created under controlled conditions, which may not fully represent typical online presentation recordings. It showed strong performance in audio-to-text conversion with a low word-error rate. Summarization and keyword extraction were functional but showed room for improvement in terms of precision and relevance, as gathered from the users’ feedback. These results confirm the system’s effectiveness and efficiency in generating usable meeting minutes from recorded presentation videos, with room for improvement in future works.