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Early detection is key to slowing outbreaks of Ebola, such as the one currently spreading across west Africa that is estimated to have infected almost 1000 people, according to the latest World Health Organization report. A molecular computer could one day simplify analysis of biomedical assays like those used to diagnose Ebola, researchers say. And a new prototype device can display a fluorescent letter in the presence of nucleic acid sequences from the Ebola virus or the closely-related Marburg virus: ‘E’ for Ebola or ‘M’ for Marburg....

It looks like a game of tic tac toe, but engravings found deep inside a cave in Gibraltar might be a Neandertal masterpiece. At more than 39,000 years old, the etchings rival in age the oldest cave art in Europe — and they are the first to be unquestionably done by a Neandertal, claim the researchers who discovered them. Other scientists, however, say that the artwork’s attribution is not an open-and-shut case....

In the fall of 2015 an incredible 100,000 smoldering peatland fires turned Indonesia into a hazy hellscape, air thick with smoke and chemicals. More than 500,000 people were hospitalized with respiratory, eye and skin ailments. In addition to the $16-billion price tag the country catapulted from the sixth- to fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases worldwide. Sweeping changes in land use over 20 years fueled the fires. In the 1990s authorities built thousands of kilometers of canals to drain saturated peat swamps and cut down 30-meter-tall tropical tree stands, primarily to generate land to greatly expand oil palm and pulpwood plantations....

Talk about living dangerously. A white dwarf star nearly 15,000 light-years from Earth apparently whips around its companion black hole once every 28 minutes, a new study suggests. That means the two objects are likely separated by just 2.5 Earth-moon distances — the tightest such orbit ever observed around a black hole, study team members said. “This white dwarf is so close to the black hole that material is being pulled away from the star and dumped onto a disk of matter around the black hole before falling in,” study lead author Arash Bahramian, of the University of Alberta in Canada and Michigan State University, said in a statement....

By Eugenie Samuel Reich of Nature magazineIt was one of the most dramatic sightings ever made in an aerial survey of the Arctic: a dead polar bear, bloated like a gigantic beach ball, floating in open water north of the Beaufort Sea coastline in Alaska.Researchers say that they spotted four dead polar bears during the survey, and surmised that the bears drowned in stormy waters as they searched for ever-receding sea ice....

The world’s attention is rightly focused on news of COVID-19 vaccine updates, from eligibility to supply. But we will make a critical error if we ignore the need for treatments as well as vaccines. Vaccines may not reach everyone for many years. Vaccines will not protect everyone. And as infection surges threaten to overwhelm hospitals and nursing homes, immediate remedies are needed. So, it is vitally important we continue to research treatments to limit and cure COVID-19....

In the race for a coronavirus vaccine, China is making bold promises. A Chinese health official has publicly pledged that an effective coronavirus vaccine will be available by the end of the year. The country has also committed to sharing its vaccines with more than a dozen nations, particularly low-income countries that it has close ties with. But even if a vaccine is ready soon, some scientists question whether the country will be able to produce enough doses to meet its international commitments, and if deals with individual countries are the best way to ensure equitable vaccine distribution....

This new buzz phrase has been floating around the internet for a while and is now beginning to make its way into mainstream media. Naturally when words like this enter the general lexicon, I get a lot of questions about them! This one is near and dear to my heart, so I’m going to roll up my sleeves and try to explain away this catch-all term! What is the Internet of Things?...

Catherine writes: We all know that processed meats are not good for us, but what is the definition of processed meat? Is fresh sausage from the butcher with no added chemicals processed? How about the organic lunch meats that have no added preservatives? What about local bacon with no added nitrites or nitrates?” Catherine is not alone in her confusion about processed meat. This is always a hot topic among those who do my 30-Day Nutrition Upgrade™ program, for example....

You probably know the GIF as the perfect vehicle for sharing memes and reactions. We believe the format can go further, that it has real power to capture science and explain research in short, digestible loops. So each Friday, we’ll round up the week’s most GIF-able science. Enjoy and loop on. Something Slams into Jupiter (?) Credit: Ethan Chappel “It looks awfully like an impact flash to my eyes,” wrote Ethan Chappel, an amateur astronomer in Cibolo, Tex....

Joellen Russell wasn’t prepared for the 10-metre waves that pounded her research vessel during an expedition south of New Zealand. “It felt like the ship would be crushed each time we rolled into a mountain of water,” recalls Russell, an ocean modeller at the University of Arizona in Tucson. At one point, she was nearly carried overboard by a rogue wave. But what really startled her was the stream of data from sensors analysing the seawater....

By Sid Perkins for Nature magazine Beginning in late 2004, a flurry of massive, tsunami-spawning earthquakes have rocked the world, first slamming Indonesia, then Chile and most recently Japan. Temblors that size are rare indeed: only 7 quakes as large or larger than 8.8 – the magnitude of last February’s Chilean event – have occurred since 1900. So what does it mean that three of those seven shocks have happened almost within the span of six years?...

The blue dot on the center-right of this photograph is us. This picture was taken by NASA’s Cassini probe on 19 July, while the spacecraft’s orbit took it into the shadow of Saturn — meaning that the Sun was eclipsed by the gas giant. Seen from the outer Solar System, Earth’s orbit looks small and tightly wound around the Sun. To see the planet from Saturn, then, one would have to wait for the rare occasions when the Sun has just set or is about to rise and the Earth happens to hover just above the horizon....

The world’s largest cities have been razing tree canopy and hardening natural landscapes for decades, often to the detriment of the urban poor, racial and ethnic minorities, and, increasingly, climate migrants. Thirty-one cities, including four from the United States, made commitments last week to reverse course under a new global compact called the “Urban Nature Declaration.” It aims to reduce the heat island effect, stem urban flooding and improve living conditions by replacing lifeless, impervious landscapes with shaded or watery havens for climate-stressed communities....

Google, Facebook and other corporate giants are taking major strides in building technology that can learn on its own. Their efforts rely heavily on something known as deep learning. Rooted in the decades-old idea that computers would be smarter if they operated more like the human brain, deep-learning networks consist of layer on layer of connected computer processing units called artificial neurons, each of which performs a different operation on the input at hand—say, an image to be classified....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Like any large company, a modern hospital has hundreds—even thousands—of workers using countless computers, smartphones and other electronic devices that are vulnerable to security breaches, data thefts and ransomware attacks. But hospitals are unlike other companies in two important ways. They keep medical records, which are among the most sensitive data about people. And many hospital electronics help keep patients alive, monitoring vital signs, administering medications, and even breathing and pumping blood for those in the most dire conditions....

In early August a short item crossed my desk about troubles on a movie set in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay. Actors and crew were trying to film a scene in a public restroom for the Bollywood blockbuster Keep at It, Munnabhai. But when the actors walked past the autoflush urinals, they inadvertently set off the sensors. The water would noisily flow, and the scene would go down the drain. “At one point, with so many unit members inside the loo, all the flush sensors went berserk and started flushing simultaneously,” recounted Raju Hirani, the film’s director, according to the Associated Press....

Scientists in France have launched an unprecedented campaign to catch shooting stars, an effort that will rely on thousands of volunteers to comb the ground for bits of space rock. The programme already includes 68 cameras that scan the skies for meteors, which are seen when bits of asteroid, comet or other planetary material streak through Earth’s atmosphere. By the end of this year, some 100 cameras will blanket France, organizers say....

The stark institutional isolation prevalent in the orphanages of some countries might have mostly melted away decades ago, but many babies and young children all over the world still grow up in environments where touch and emotional engagement are lacking. Many children who have not had ample physical and emotional attention are at higher risk for behavioral, emotional and social problems as they grow up. These trends point to the lasting effects of early infancy environments and the changes that the brain undergoes during that period....

Inside a secure laboratory in New York City geologist Evan Smith is peering into billion-year-old blue diamonds to gauge the inner workings of Planet Earth. The cold, dense objects zap the warmth from his hands. They come in a range of hues. “Some are so pale you wouldn’t know they’re blue, some get a gray tone along with the blue, so they can look a little mysterious,” says Smith, who works in the diamond-grading lab at the Gemological Institute of America....