Wednesday 15 May 2019

Bullet train champion in Japan will debut in 2030, now being tested

Testing for a train capable of 249mph (400 kph) speeds is to happen about twice a week at night. Bloomberg said ALFA-X is the world's fastest bullet train— well, for now, it is holding that title. Japan has also been working on a maglev train.

* This article was originally published here

Coherent? Voice disorders significantly affect listeners, too

"Fly heading two three zero, runway two seven left, cleared for takeoff." Air traffic controllers are among the 25 to 45 percent of the workforce in the United States who use their voices professionally. It is imperative for their listeners to understand what they are communicating. Air traffic controllers, teachers and university professors have a high prevalence of voice disorders referred to as "dysphonia." Other professions also are at risk including clergy, attorneys, counselors and performers.

* This article was originally published here

Cellular rivalry promotes healthy skin development

Not all cells are destined for greatness. Deemed unfit to serve in the body, some are killed off during early development through a process called cell competition. This phenomenon has previously been documented in flies and is now turning out to occur in mammals as well.

* This article was originally published here

Stop gambling with black box and explainable models on high-stakes decisions

As the buzzwords "machine learning" continue to grow in popularity, more industries are turning to computer algorithms to answer important questions, including high-stakes fields such as healthcare, finance and criminal justice. While this trend can lead to major improvements in these realms, it can also lead to major problems when the machine learning algorithm is a so-called "black box."

* This article was originally published here

Study finds scientific reproducibility does not equate to scientific truth

Reproducible scientific results are not always true and true scientific results are not always reproducible, according to a mathematical model produced by University of Idaho researchers. Their study, which simulates the search for that scientific truth, will be published Wednesday, May 15, in the journal PLOS ONE.

* This article was originally published here

Flying cars mooted for Paris' public transport network

European aerospace giant Airbus and Paris underground operator RATP will study the viability of adding flying vehicles to the city's urban transport network, the companies said Wednesday.

* This article was originally published here

Atlas is rockstar cross-stepper over tricky terrain

Robot enthusiasts were sending up cheers this month to the team advancing Atlas into an even more human-like walker through obstacles including a bunch of cinder blocks and a balance beam. They have turned Atlas into the very credible hulk, who wins the spotlight with its display of walking, which was recorded May 1.

* This article was originally published here

Study identifies how cancer drug inhibits DNA repair in cancer cells

According to researchers at Yale Cancer Center, a cancer drug thought to be of limited use possesses a superpower of sorts: It is able to stop certain cancer cells from repairing their DNA in order to survive. The study, published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine, suggests that combining this drug, cediranib, with other agents could potentially deliver a lethal blow in cancer that uses a specific pathway—or process—to create DNA repair cells.

* This article was originally published here

Video: Fly over Mount Sharp on Mars

Ever wanted to visit Mars? A new animated video shows what it would be like to soar over Mount Sharp, which NASA's Curiosity rover has been climbing since 2014.

* This article was originally published here

How climate change will affect the rural northeast: Expect three weeks of heat

While extreme cold and snow often make headlines in the Northeast, by 2060, there will be far more record heat. Imagine the most sweltering day of the year. By 2060, you will experience that type of hot day for approximately three weeks of the year, assuming we don't substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to a Dartmouth study, of the rural Northeast counties represented, those in the bottom two lowest income quartiles will be hit hardest, as their communities will be disproportionately affected by increases in extremely hot days relative to wealthier counties. The findings are published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers.

* This article was originally published here

Optimizing device implantation in patients with atrial fibrillation and risk of stroke

According to clinical studies, about a third of patients with atrial fibrillation will suffer a stroke during their lifetime. Between 70 and 90% of these strokes are caused by a thrombus formed in the left atrial appendage.

* This article was originally published here

Chronic insomnia and memory problems: A direct link is established

Chronic insomnia disorder, which affects approximately 10 percent of adults, has a direct negative impact on cognitive function of people aged 45 and over, independent of the effect of other health issues.

* This article was originally published here

An approach for securing audio classification against adversarial attacks

Adversarial audio attacks are small perturbations that are not perceivable by humans and are intentionally added to audio signals to impair the performance of machine learning (ML) models. These attacks raise serious concerns about the security of ML models, as they can cause them to make mistakes and ultimately generate wrong predictions.

* This article was originally published here

Like a lot of things, women's gut microbiomes appear to mature earlier than men's

The human gut microbiome is a complex microbial ecosystem that plays an important role in our health. For example, these microbes—bacteria, viruses, fungi—help regulate metabolism, fend off infections, produce essential vitamins and break down dietary fiber. They may also be biomarkers of health and disease.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers identify new therapeutic target for metastatic prostate cancer

Researchers in New York have found that treating human prostate cancer cells with a drug that targets a protein called PHLPP2 may prevent the cancer cells from spreading to other organs in the body. The study, which will be published May 15 in the Journal of Cell Biology, reveals that inhibiting PHLPP2 lowered the levels of MYC, an oncogenic protein that causes many different types of cancer that cannot be targeted by conventional drug therapies.

* This article was originally published here

A new way to wind the development clock of cardiac muscle cells

These days, scientists can collect a few skin or blood cells, wipe out their identities, and reprogram them to become virtually any other kind of cell in the human body, from neurons to heart cells.

* This article was originally published here