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Daily briefing: Politicization of vaccination is warping our COVID memories
Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here. Trucks evacuate people from a neighbourhood in LaPlace, Louisiana, that was flooded by Hurricane Ida in 2021.Credit: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Major US climate disaster every three weeks The fifth US National Climate Assessment has…
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Major US climate disasters occur every three weeks, report finds
“Unprecedented”: That’s how a new assessment released by the administration of President Joe Biden describes the toll that climate change is taking on the United States. Global warming causes US$150 billion in direct damages across the country each year, whether owing to rising seas, heat waves, droughts or floods, and the costs are rising, says…
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Computational prediction of complex cationic rearrangement outcomes
Abstract Recent years have seen revived interest in computer-assisted organic synthesis1,2. The use of reaction-network and neural-network algorithms which can plan multi-step synthetic pathways have revolutionized this field1,3-7, including examples leading to advanced natural products6,7. Such methods typically operate on full, literature-derived “substrate(s)-to-product” reaction rules and cannot be easily extended to the analysis of reaction…
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Impact of a catastrophic tropical cyclone on large African mammals
RESEARCH BRIEFINGS 15 November 2023 In 2019, Cyclone Idai caused devastating flooding in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park when ecological studies of mammals were already under way. Small-bodied species and those in low-lying areas were affected most, suggesting that animals’ sensitivity to extreme weather depends on traits such as body size and habitat use.
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One-third of Indian STEM conferences have no women
Women make up just 16.7% of Indian university faculty members in science, technology, engineering and medicine.Credit: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg via Getty In the past three years, 35% of all science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) conferences held in India featured only male speakers, according to a preprint1 posted on the bioRxiv server on 27 October. Female…
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Quantum gas mixtures and dual-species atom interferometry in space
Abstract The capability to reach ultracold atomic temperatures in compact instruments has recently been extended into space1,2. Ultracold temperatures amplify quantum effects, whereas free fall allows further cooling and longer interactions time with gravity—the final force without a quantum description. On Earth, these devices have produced macroscopic quantum phenomena such as Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs), superfluidity,…
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Accurately predicting molecular spectra with deep learning
The accurate prediction of molecular spectra is essential for substance discovery and structure identification, but conventional quantum chemistry methods are computationally expensive. Now, DetaNet achieves the accuracy of quantum chemistry while improving the efficiency of prediction of organic molecular spectra. Self-driving labs (SDL) are a rich, sophisticated domain that intertwines the robust capabilities of in…
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Technology solutions to support blind students in the chemistry laboratory
For blind and low vision chemists to participate independently in the chemistry laboratory we must employ principles of universal design and embrace new technologies mirroring those available outside the lab. By designing a first-year chemistry course that provides non-visual access, we are taking the first step to empower more blind and low vision people to…
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A full-stack platform for spiking deep learning
Spike-based intelligence on neuromorphic chips has attracted substantial research interest due to its energy efficiency from event-driven computing on spikes. Spiking neural networks (SNNs), which make abstractions of biological neuronal networks, are the foundation for spike-based intelligence, and while they have been demonstrated in simple learning tasks, such as classification, the design of high-performance learning…
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Disaster early-warning systems are ‘doomed to fail’ — only collective action can plug the gaps
Disasters associated with natural hazards are constantly in the headlines. Some involve predictable human-made factors, such as the catastrophic floods in Derna, Libya, in September, which were caused by the collapse of two dams after torrential rains. Others are unexpected, such as the eruption of volcano Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai in Tonga in January 2022, with…