The moon’s light influences lion prey behavior, dung beetle navigation, fish growth, mass migrations and birdsong.
Crowds of people gather to watch an evening spectacle on beaches in Southern California: Twice a month, typically from March through August, the sand becomes carpeted with hundreds or thousands of California grunion. Writhing, flopping, silvery sardine look-alikes lunge as far onto shore as possible. As the female fish dig their tails into the sand and release eggs, males wrap around females and release sperm to fertilize those eggs. About 10 days later, the eggs hatch and the little grunion get washed out to sea.
This mating ritual is set to the tides, with hatching timed to the arrival of the peak high tide every two weeks. But the ultimate force choreographing this dance is the moon.
Many people know that the moon’s gravitational tug on the Earth drives the tides, and with them, the life cycles of coastal creatures. Yet the moon also influences life with its light.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.sciencenews.org
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On 1 January 2011, Germany introduced early benefit assessment (Frühe Nutzenbewertung) of new drugs through the reform of the market for medicinal products act (AMNOG). Its aim is to determine whether a new drug has any added benefit over standard care. The Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), the main decision making body within the German statutory health insurance system, is responsible for the assessment procedure and ultimately decides on the added benefit.
The G-BA specifies the standard care based on criteria laid down in the law. According to these criteria, standard care is an approved and reimbursed intervention that is established in clinical practice and for which a benefit has been proved according to the standards of evidence based medicine (predominantly based on studies with patient relevant outcomes). If appropriate, standard care might also be watchful waiting or best supportive care.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.bmj.com
The post More than half of new drugs have not been shown to add any benefit, study shows appeared first on Antonios Bouris.
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Using just the language in millions of old scientific papers, a machine learning algorithm was able to make completely new scientific discoveries.
In a study published in Nature on July 3, 2019, researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory used an algorithm called Word2Vec sift through scientific papers for connections humans had missed. Their algorithm then spit out predictions for possible thermoelectric materials, which convert heat to energy and are used in many heating and cooling applications.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.vice.com
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In July 2019, the village of Gallargues-le-Montueux located in southern France outside of Montpellier topped 114.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature ever recorded in continental France.
That sweltering heat broke the previous record of 113.2 degrees, which was set just hours before in the village of Villevieille. And those weren’t the only hot spots. Brian Kahn at Earther reports that at least 12 weather stations in France detected temperatures above 111.4 degrees Fahrenheit, the previous hottest temperature set in 2003.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.smithsonianmag.com
The post French Village Hits 114.6 Degrees Due to Global Warming, Setting New National Record appeared first on Antonios Bouris.
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