Submission + - New dark matter map reveals cosmic mystery (bbc.com)

Submitted by rundgong
rundgong writes: BBC and Fermilab reports on results published by The Dark Energy Survey

An international team of researchers has created the largest and most detailed map of the distribution of so-called dark matter in the Universe.

The results are a surprise because they show that it is slightly smoother and more spread out than the current best theories predict.
The observation appears to stray from Einstein's theory of general relativity — posing a conundrum for researchers.

Dark Matter is an invisible substance that permeates space. It accounts for 80% of the matter in the Universe. Astronomers were able to work out where it was because it distorts light from distant stars. The greater the distortion, the greater the concentration of dark matter.

Dr Niall Jeffrey, of École Normale Supérieure, in Paris, who pieced the map together, said that the result posed a "real problem" for physics.
"If this disparity is true then maybe Einstein was wrong," he told BBC News. "You might think that this is a bad thing, that maybe physics is broken. But to a physicist, it is extremely exciting. It means that we can find out something new about the way the Universe really is."

Submission + - Batteries used in hearing aids could be key to the future of renewable energy (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: If necessity is the mother of invention, potential profit has to be the father. Both incentives are driving an effort to transform zinc batteries from small, throwaway cells often used in hearing aids into rechargeable behemoths that could be attached to the power grid, storing solar or wind power for nighttime, or when the wind is calm. Zinc batteries promise to be cheaper and safer than conventional lithium-ion batteries, today’s battery leader. But turning zinc cells into long-lived rechargeables faces several challenges. Now, advances in critical zinc battery components are injecting renewed optimism that rechargeable zinc batteries face a bright future.

Submission + - Facebook Ends Ban on Posts Asserting Covid-19 Was Man-Made (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook Inc. has ended its ban on posts asserting Covid-19 was man-made or manufactured, a policy shift that reflects a deepening debate over the origins of the pandemic that was first identified in Wuhan, China, almost 18 months ago.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report.

“In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps,” Facebook said in a statement on its website Wednesday.

President Biden on Wednesday ordered a U.S. intelligence inquiry into the origins of the virus. The White House has come under pressure to conduct its own investigation after China told the World Health Organization that it considered Beijing’s part of the investigation complete, calling for efforts to trace the virus’s origins to shift into other countries.

Submission + - Cities have their own distinct microbial fingerprints (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: When Chris Mason’s daughter was a toddler, he watched, intrigued, as she touched surfaces on the New York City subway. Then, one day, she licked a pole. “There was a clear microbial exchange,” says Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medicine. “I desperately wanted to know what had happened.”

So he started swabbing the subway, sampling the microbial world that coexists with people in our transit systems. After his 2015 study revealed a wealth of previously unknown species in New York City, other researchers contacted him to contribute. Now, Mason and dozens of collaborators have released their study of subways, buses, elevated trains, and trams in 60 cities worldwide, from Baltimore to Bogotá, Colombia, to Seoul, South Korea. They identified thousands of new viruses and bacteria, and found that each city has a unique microbial “fingerprint.”

The study’s main value isn’t in its findings (which are mapped here[http://metasub.org/map/]) so much as its open data, available at metagraph.ethz.ch, says Noah Fierer, a microbiologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who was not involved with the research. That will give other researchers the chance to delve into new questions. “Different cities have different microbial communities,” Fierer says. “That’s not supersurprising. The question for me is, why?”

Mason sees an opportunity for “awe and excitement about mass transit systems as a source of unexplored and phenomenal biodiversity.” Newly discovered species have potential for drug research, he says, and wide-scale mapping and monitoring of urban microbiomes would be a boon for public health, helping researchers spot emerging pathogens early.

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