Articles - QESP
By Ted Smillie
- Sunday, January 10th, 2021
It seems Trump’s failed attack on US democracy is insignificant when compared to previous successful US Government attacks on US and third world democracies. Here are some examples:
“In 1965, with the aid of weapons and intelligence from the United States, Suharto hunted down and killed between 500,000 and a million of Sukarno’s supporters in one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century”
“The US felt it had no choice but to shift to a more aggressive stance and resorted to the tactic they had used in Guatemala and Indonesia – the good old-fashioned coup. It was executed on 11 September 1973, by General Augusto Pinochet with CIA support under the code name Operation Fubelt.
By Technical University of Denmark
- Tuesday, December 15th, 2020
Methods currently used around the world for predicting the development of COVID-19 and other pandemics fail to report precisely on the best and worst case scenarios. Newly developed prediction method for epidemics, published in Nature Physics, solve this problem.
“It is about understanding best and worst-case scenarios — and the fact that worst case is one of the most important things to keep track of when navigating through pandemics — regardless whether it be in Denmark, the EU, the USA or the WHO. If you are only presented with an average estimate for the development of an epidemic — not knowing how bad it possible can get, then it is difficult to act politically,” says Professor Sune Lehmann, one of four authors of the article Fixed-time descriptive statistics underestimate extremes of epidemic curve ensembles just published in Nature Physics.
By Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Tuesday, December 15th, 2020
In some ways, learning to program a computer is similar to learning a new language. It requires learning new symbols and terms, which must be organized correctly to instruct the computer what to do. The computer code must also be clear enough that other programmers can read and understand it.
In spite of those similarities, MIT neuroscientists have found that reading computer code does not activate the regions of the brain that are involved in language processing. Instead, it activates a distributed network called the multiple demand network, which is also recruited for complex cognitive tasks such as solving math problems or crossword puzzles.
However, although reading computer code activates the multiple demand network, it appears to rely more on different parts of the network than math or logic problems do, suggesting that coding does not precisely replicate the cognitive demands of mathematics either.
By American Friends of Tel Aviv University
- Monday, December 14th, 2020
Researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) have proven that the coronavirus can be killed efficiently, quickly, and cheaply using ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (UV-LEDs). They believe that the UV-LED technology will soon be available for private and commercial use.
This is the first study conducted on the disinfection efficiency of UV-LED irradiation at different wavelengths or frequencies on a virus from the family of coronaviruses. The study was led by Professor Hadas Mamane, Head of the Environmental Engineering Program at TAU’s School of Mechnical Engineering, Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering. The article was published in November 2020 issue of the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology.
By University of Oregon
- Friday, December 11th, 2020
By the time children are 3 years old they already have an adult-like preference for visual fractal patterns commonly seen in nature, according to University of Oregon researchers.
That discovery emerged among children who’ve been raised in a world of Euclidean geometry, such as houses with rooms constructed with straight lines in a simple non-repeating manner, said the study’s lead author Kelly E. Robles, a doctoral student in the UO’s Department of Psychology.
“Unlike early humans who lived outside on savannahs, modern-day humans spend the majority of their early lives inside these humanmade structures,” Robles said. “So, since children are not heavily exposed to these natural low-to-moderate complexity fractal patterns, this preference must come from something earlier in development or perhaps are innate.”
By Frances Di Lauro Senior Lecturer, Department of Writing Studies, University of Sydney
- Friday, August 28th, 2020
Giovanni Boccaccio introduces his acclaimed collection of novellas, the Decameron, with a reference to the most terrifying existential crisis of his time: the decimating effects of the bubonic plague in the 1348 outbreak known as the Black Death.
By Helen Dickinson, Anne Kavanagh
- Friday, August 21st, 2020
“In Victoria there are nearly 80 active COVID-19 cases linked to more than 50 disability accommodation sites. At least two people have died.
These don’t sound like big numbers in the context of Victoria’s second wave, and particularly when we compare it to the COVID-19 crisis in residential aged care.
But similarities between residential disability care and aged care — including vulnerable residents and a casualised workforce — give us cause for concern.
Recent experience in Victoria’s aged-care sector shows the potential for the current outbreaks to escalate very quickly.”
By RMIT University
- Tuesday, August 18th, 2020
The wings of cicadas and dragonflies are natural bacteria killers, inspiring scientists who are searching for new ways to defeat drug-resistant superbugs. They’ve now revealed how bioinspired nanomaterials physically destroy bacteria. It’s a vital step on the way to delivering precisely engineered anti-bacterial surfaces, and powerful new weapons in the fight against deadly superbugs.
By Ted Smillie
- Tuesday, July 28th, 2020
Stanford University. “Researchers develop a method for predicting unprecedented events.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 July 2020. “Researchers combined avalanche physics with ecosystem data to create a computational method for predicting extreme ecological events. The method may also have applications in economics and politics” (QESP Editor’s Note: The following is a reprint of a 23 July 2020 […]
By Ted Smillie
- Tuesday, July 28th, 2020
QED proves the need for a federal ICAC, but also a broken culture BY KIM WINGEREI | Jul 17, 2020 (QESP Editor’s Note: The following is a reprint of a Jul 17, 2020 article by Kim Wingerei. The original . with links to related material, is available at https://www.michaelwest.com.au/the-need-for-a-federal-icac-qed/?mc_cid=31bb79ce94&mc_eid=dac1e75d32 ) “When we launched QED, the […]
