Science Summary - 2020, September

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------------------------------------ September 2020 ------------------------------------

https://imgur.com/gallery/CiiL6Rt

Monthly newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/359cae84aa22/science_summary

-------------- Selection & Info --------------

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_in_science

Items which I added to the Wikipedia list are marked with a star.
Some more relevant information (e.g. rough criteria) can be found on the list's talk page.
The Wikipedia article also has wikilinks to the relevant Wikipedia articles and timelines.
If you can't read a paper you could use Sci-Hub.se

------------------ Sources ------------------

Venus
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/science/venus-life-clouds.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4

*Generic objects of dark energy
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-candidate-mysterious-dark-energy.html
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/abad2f

*Myostatin
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-mighty-mice-musclebound-space-boon.html
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/38/23942

*Sustainability
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-biodiversity-loss.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2705-y

*Climate history
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-high-fidelity-earth-climate-history-current.html
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6509/1383

*Amazon
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-august-deforestation-brazilian-amazon.html
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-brazil-tropical-wetlands-flames.html
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-desperate-world-biggest-tropical-wetlands.html

*Crows
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-conscious-birds-brains.html
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6511/1626
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6511/eabc5534

COVID-19
*Face masks
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-shields-masks-valves-ineffective-covid-.html
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/5.0022968
*Nanobody
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-nanobody-covid-infection.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18174-5
*Interferons
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/one-in-seven-dire-covid-cases-may-result-from-a-faulty-immune-response/
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/09/23/science.abd4585

_________

*Mining for renewable energy
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/01/mining-needed-for-renewable-energy-could-harm-biodiversity
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17928-5

*Digital preservation
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/dozens-scientific-journals-have-vanished-internet-and-no-one-preserved-them
https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.11933

*+Global Safety Net
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2020/sep/29/planetary-safety-net-could-halt-wildlife-loss-and-slow-climate-breakdown-aoe
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabb2824

*Ocean carbon uptake
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-ocean-carbon-uptake-widely-underestimated.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18203-3

*Mammal extinctions
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-humans-climate-driven-rapidly-mammal.html
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabb2313

*SETI
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-australian-telescope-alien-technology-million.html
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/publications-of-the-astronomical-society-of-australia/article/seti-survey-of-the-vela-region-using-the-murchison-widefield-array-orders-of-magnitude-expansion-in-search-space/C175371A2383A6A03FC038D50C4D4B16

*Electromagnetic radiation
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-mobile-insects-german.html
https://www.diagnose-funk.org/download.php?field=filename&id=473&class=DownloadItem

*Plant-based diet
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-offset-years-climate-warming-emissions-analysis.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4

*Environmental factors/air pollution
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-health-environment/one-in-eight-deaths-in-europe-linked-to-pollution-environment-eu-says-idUSKBN25Z1L8

*+CDM
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-hubble-ingredient-current-dark-theories.html
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6509/1347

*Solar cycle 25
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-solar-nasa-noaa-scientists.html
https://www.weather.gov/news/201509-solar-cycle

*Vikings
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-world-largest-dna-sequencing-viking.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2688-8

*Carnian Pluvial Event
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-discovery-mass-extinction.html
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/38/eaba0099

Superhabitable exoplanets
https://news.sky.com/story/scientists-discover-24-superhabitable-planets-with-conditions-that-are-better-for-life-than-earth-12091801
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2161

Extragalactic exoplanet
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2255431-astronomers-may-have-found-the-first-planet-in-another-galaxy/
https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.08987

*Gene drive research
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-biologists-genetic-neutralize-gene.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1097276520306110

*Footprints
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/ancient-footprints-give-detailed-peek-into-early-humans-migration-from-africa/
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/38/eaba8940

*Quantum entanglement
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-quantum-entanglement-distant-large.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-1031-5

Abiogenesis-software
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-new-chemical-tree-of-the-origins-of-life-reveals-our-possible-chemical-evolution
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6511/eaaw1955

*Radiation on the Moon
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-moon.html
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/39/eaaz1334

*Arctic wildfires
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-arctic.html
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-co2-emissions-arctic-wildfires-eu.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-020-00645-5

*Enzymes
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/28/new-super-enzyme-eats-plastic-bottles-six-times-faster
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/09/23/2006753117/

------------------ Not included ------------------

- A new infrared spectroscopy method capable of 80 million spectra per second, nearly 100 times faster than previous techniques, is reported

- The largest known black hole merger, detected in May 2019 via gravitational waves, is confirmed, which also provides the first clear evidence of an intermediate-mass black hole.

- Researchers in China demonstrate how microplastic pollution contaminates the soil and harms the abundance of common species, such as microarthropods and nematodes, as well as disrupting carbon and nutrient cycling

* Researchers present an eight-user city-scale quantum communication network using already deployed fibres without active switching or trusted nodes

* Scientists report that asphalt currently is a significant and largely overlooked source of air pollution in urban areas, especially during hot and sunny periods

* A study highlights the importance of old bulls in African savannah elephants and, according to the study, raises concerns over the removal of old bulls as currently occurring in both legal trophy hunting and illegal poaching

* Scientists announce new experimental evidence for the existence of anyons

- Scientists in northern India report the discovery of the fossil molar tooth of a new extinct species, and oldest known ancestor of gibbons, that lived about 13 million years ago, closing a major gap in the hominoid fossil record and showing that gibbons migrated to Asia at least five million years earlier than thought previously

* Scientists report the oldest Neanderthal specimen in Central-Eastern Europe, found in the Stajnia Cave. A ~80,000 years old tooth dated via mtDNA shows that at a time of environmental changes Neanderthals most related to those of Northern Caucasus moved farther from their southern home areas than previously known

* The WMO publishes a high-level brief compilation of the latest climate science information from the WMO, GCP, UNESCO-IOC, IPCC, UNEP and the Met Office, which is not published under an open license and is subdivided into 7 chapters which each have a list of key messages

* Scientists explain a mechanism by which the C. elegans worm learns and inherits pathogenic avoidance after exposure to a single non-coding RNA of a bacterial pathogen

* The first proof-of-concept exploit for the Windows Server vulnerability called Zerologon (CVE-2020-1472) for which a patch exists since August is published and some federal agencies using the software have been ordered to install the patch

- For the first time in its 175-year history, Scientific American endorses a presidential candidate, Joe Biden

- Astronomers report the discovery, for the first time, of a very massive Jupiter-sized planet, named WD 1856 b, closely orbiting, every 36 hours, a tiny white dwarf star, named WD 1856+534, a left-over remnant of an earlier much larger sun-like star

* The first case of a, civilian, fatality as a direct consequence of a cyberattack, after ransomware disrupted a hospital in Germany, is reported

- Evidence is presented of solid-state water in the interstellar medium, and particularly, of water ice mixed with silicate grains in cosmic dust grains

* Researchers report that over half of endangered species' proposed recovery plan budgets are allocated to research and monitoring (R&M), that species with higher proportions of such budgets have poorer recovery outcomes and provide recommendations for ensuring that "conservation programs emphasize action or [R&M] that directly informs action"

- Scientists report the discovery of Gnathomortis stadtmani, a very large sea-faring lizard that lived about 80 million years ago

* Scientists publish new findings and data about the supermassive black hole M87*, including a video of the black hole based on data not sufficient for images, using statistical modeling about changes in its appearance in 2009–2017, showing variations of its orientation and a wobbling ring – constituting the "first glimpse of the dynamical structure of the accretion flow so close to the black hole's event horizon"

- Scientists confirm the existence of several large saltwater lakes under the ice in the south polar region of the planet Mars

- Astronomers report the first detection of an earth-mass rogue planet unbounded by any star in the galaxy

* Scientists report that they expect construction of the experimental SPARC fusion reactor to begin in 2021 and take four years to complete, and, with seven studies, that it is "very likely" to work

- Scientists reaffirm that the first-ever found feather fossil from a dinosaur, about 150 million years old and discovered in 1861, belonged to Archaeopteryx lithographica

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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Corvus_corone_-Southend-on-Sea_-England-8.jpg
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- Background image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rENyyRwxpHo