(American Association for the Advancement of Science) A one-hour exercise designed to increase feelings of social belonging administered during the first year of college appears to significantly improve the lives and careers of black students up to 11 years later, psychologists report.

(University of Bath) For the first time, labs around the world can 3D print their own precision microscopes, thanks to an open-source design created at Bath.

(Arizona State University) Gary Moore, assistant professor in ASU's School of Molecular Sciences and the Biodesign Institute's Center for Applied Structural Discovery has just been named one of 14 young faculty nationwide to be honored with a 2020 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.

A pet dog repeatedly tested weak positive for the COVID-19 virus, indicating a low-level of infection with the virus, the Agriculture, Fisheries & Conservation Department said today.

The department first collected test samples from the dog on February 26. It detected low levels of COVID-19 virus from its nasal and oral cavity samples on February 27.

The dog also tested weak positive for the virus when the department repeated the test on February 28 and March 2.

Experts from Hong Kong University’s School of Public Health, City University’s College of Veterinary Medicine & Life Sciences and the World Organisation for Animal Health have been consulted, and unanimously agreed that these results suggest that the dog has a low-level of infection and it is likely to be a case of human-to-animal transmission, the department noted.

The dog has not shown any signs of disease related to COVID-19. It is currently under quarantine at the animal keeping facility at the Hong Kong Port of Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. The department will closely monitor the dog and repeat the test later.

To ensure public and animal health, the department strongly advises that mammalian pets from households with COVID-19 infected people, or close contacts of infected individuals, should be put under quarantine in the department’s facilities.

The department emphasised that there is currently no evidence that pets can be a source of infection of COVID-19 and under no circumstances should people abandon their pets.

The Advisory Committee on Recycling Fund today announced the launch of the One-off Recycling Industry Anti-epidemic Scheme.

The scheme aims to help the recycling industry cope with the current economic situation and operational difficulties brought by the COVID-19 epidemic.

Around $100 million has been earmarked for implementing the scheme under Enterprise Support Programme, providing financial support for the operational costs of recyclers for six months.

The maximum funding limit for each recycler is $20,000 per month.

The funding period will cover from January 1 to June 30, making a total maximum subsidy of $120,000.

The scheme opens for application from today until June 30. Recyclers with operations on or before January 1 can apply.

The first instalment related to the subsidy for the first three months will be available from April onwards and the rest of the subsidy will be disbursed in the middle of this year.

The committee also decided to extend the earlier launched One-off Rental Support Scheme for another six months.

The scheme, which has been accepting applications for six months of rental support starting from October 2019, will now be extended to September 2020.

Upon the extension, the maximum funding limit for each recycler will be 50% of the rental or $25,000 per month, whichever is lower.

The maximum rental funding limit will be raised to $300,000.

Application eligibility and requirements remain unchanged while the deadline has been extended to September 30.

Call 2788 5658 or email enquiry@recyclingfund.hk for more information.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government today welcomed the promulgation of the Meteorological Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (2020-2035) by the China Meteorological Administration.

In a statement, the Hong Kong SAR Government said the promulgation of the plan would further strengthen meteorological co-operation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau in areas such as data sharing, scientific research and innovation, and training of meteorological personnel.

Such co-operation would in turn enhance the meteorological services in the three places, it added.

The relevant co-operation initiatives will benefit the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) in its development of fine-scale meteorological monitoring, warning and forecasting services, and will further enhance Hong Kong's capability in forecasting extreme weather events, the statement said, adding the HKO will take forward the initiatives in collaboration with the relevant authorities in Guangdong and Macau.

The full text of the meteorological plan is available on the China Meteorological Administration's website. It can also be accessed via the Hong Kong SAR Government's Greater Bay Area and HKO websites.

Carlos Gustavo T. Moreira, Maria José Pacifico and Sergio Romaña Ibarra
Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 57 (2018), 269-292.
Abstract, references and article information

Araceli Bonifant and John Milnor
Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 57 (2020), 171-267.
Abstract, references and article information

The Government is actively exploring sustainable and innovative approaches to expand the city’s land resources. One viable source of land supply is rock cavern development.

The relocation of suitable existing government facilities to caverns can release above-ground sites for housing and other beneficial uses. This would reduce the amount of land occupied by them, as well as relocate facilities which do not need to be above-ground and are incompatible with the surrounding environment and land uses nearby.

Mountain move

Sha Tin Sewage Treatment Works is one such facility. It will be relocated to caverns in Nui Po Shan of A Kung Kok to release the existing site of about 28 hectares for housing and other uses that will enhance Hong Kong’s living quality and bring extended benefits to the community and environment of Sha Tin.

Drainage Services Department Sewerage Projects Division Engineer Brian Chan said that moving the sewage treatment plant to caverns minimises any adverse impact on the environment and community.

“The whole sewage treatment works will be put inside the cavern and the cavern will serve as a natural barrier fully enclosing the sewage treatment works. With the implementation of an effective odour management system, the odour impact to the community will be minimised.”

Mr Chan added that moving the existing plant, which has been in operation for more than 35 years, provides an opportunity to formulate a long-term strategy for the ageing facility.

High-tech solutions

The relocated Sha Tin Sewage Treatment Works will consist of several caverns.

A successful local example of accommodating facilities in rock caverns is Stanley Sewage Treatment Works on which the layout for the Sha Tin treatment plant is based.

To reduce the required cavern space and shorten the construction period, advanced sewage and sludge treatment technologies will be used.

Water recycling is a multi-stage process in wastewater treatment plants.

Mr Chan explained that moving bed biofilm reactors will be used in the secondary treatment process at the relocated Sha Tin plant as they require less space than the traditional wastewater treatment.

“Compared to the conventional method, there will be some biofilm carriers inside the reactor and this biofilm carrier will enlarge the surface area for the biological treatment and therefore, the overall size will be reduced. In terms of the sewage treatment process, there will be about a 20% reduction in the areas.”

Sha Tin Sewage Treatment Works serves a population of about 630,000 in Sha Tin and Ma On Shan, which produce 250,000 cubic metres (m3) of sewage daily. After the relocation, the facility will be able to handle 340,000 m3 of sewage per day.

The first phase of works to relocate Sha Tin Sewage Treatment Works to caverns began in February. The Drainage Services Department hopes to start the second phase from the end of next year to early 2021 with the excavation of the caverns. The department plans to move the whole sewage plant in five stages. The project is expected to be completed by 2031.

Members of the public can visit the department's website for more details about the project and its latest developments.

(American Association for Cancer Research) Combining intratumoral electroporation of interleukin-12 (IL-12) DNA (tavokinogene telseplasmid, or TAVO) with the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) led to clinical responses in patients with immunologically quiescent advanced melanoma, according to results from a phase II trial.

(Princeton University, Engineering School) New findings about critical cellular structures have upended common assumptions about their formation and composition and provided new insight how molecular machines are built in living cells.

(Impact Journals LLC) Oncotarget Volume 11, Issue 12 reported that the p16 tumor suppressor is coded by CDKN2A and plays an important role during carcinogenesis and tumor progression in numerous tumor entities.

(JAMA Network) Death certificate data were used to compare the rate of opioid-related deaths in the US among cancer survivors with that of the general population from 2006 through 2016. Whether opioid-associated deaths in cancer survivors, who are often prescribed opioids for cancer-related pain, are rising at the same rate as in the general population is unknown.

(University of Helsinki) Mutations in white blood cells can contribute to abnormal immune profile after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government welcomes the promulgation of the Meteorological Development Plan ...

(Dartmouth College) Expanded Dartmouth awards program gives prizes for 'spec fic' playwriting on what it means to be human in a computerized world.

(DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Using ORNL's now-decommissioned Titan supercomputer, a team of researchers estimated the combined consequences of many different extreme climate events at the county level, a unique approach that provided unprecedented regional and national climate projections that identified the areas most likely to face climate-related challenges.

(NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) A randomized, controlled clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of a treatment regimen of the investigational antiviral remdesivir plus the anti-inflammatory drug baricitinib for COVID-19 has begun. The trial is now enrolling hospitalized adults with COVID-19 in the United States. The trial is expected to open at approximately 100 US and international sites. Investigators currently anticipate enrolling more than 1,000 participants. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is sponsoring the trial.

(Bentham Science Publishers) Using a nationally representative sample, the researchers explored racial/ethnic variation in the link between educational attainment and heart disease among American adults.

(George Mason University) The team's work supports evidence-based decision making, informed by models, to rethink and facilitate hospital operations during the pandemic.

(University of Iowa Health Care) A $3.7 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been awarded to the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA to study ways to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection among frontline health care workers in hospital emergency departments.

(The Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo) Understanding the principles of cancer evolution is important in designing a therapeutic strategy. A research group at The Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo (IMSUT) announced a new simulation model that describes various modes of cancer evolution in a unified manner.

(DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) Software vulnerabilities are more likely to be discussed on social media before they're revealed on a government reporting site, a practice that could pose a national security threat, according to computer scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

(Queensland University of Technology) Your house number could be the key to the safe relaxation of COVID-19-related restrictions if governments follow a new exit strategy proposal published today in the British Medical Journal. Co-authored by QUT statistician Professor Adrian Barnett, the paper proposes the use of an 'odds-and-evens' approach to allowing people to head back to work and enjoy other activities after weeks of lockdown.

(Goethe University Frankfurt) According to modern particle physics, matter produced when neutron stars merge is so dense that it could exist in a state of dissolved elementary particles. This state of matter, called quark-gluon plasma, might produce a specific signature in gravitational waves. Physicists at Goethe University Frankfurt and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies have now calculated this process using supercomputers.

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) A bustling stellar nursery in the picturesque Orion Nebula will be a subject of study for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2021. A team led by Mark McCaughrean, the Webb Interdisciplinary Scientist for Star Formation, will survey an inner region of the nebula called the Trapezium Cluster. This cluster is home to a thousand or so young stars, all crammed into a space only 4 light-years across -- about the distance from our Sun to Alpha Centauri.

(University of Arkansas) Giant elliptical galaxies are not as likely as disk-shaped galaxies, such as our own Milky Way, to be cradles of technological civilizations, according to a recent paper by a University of Arkansas astrophysicist.

(Arizona State University) An interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by Arizona State University, has provided a framework called a 'detectability index' to help prioritize exoplanets to study and provide scientists with a tool to select the best targets for observation and maximize the chances of detecting life.

(Kazan Federal University) Senior Research Associate Margarita Sharina (Special Astrophysical Observatory) and Associate Professor Vladislav Shimansky (Kazan Federal University) studied the globular cluster NGC 6652.4.05957 and found out that its age is close to 13.6 billion years, which makes it one of the oldest objects in the Milky Way.

(ESO) Astronomers have discovered a black hole lying just 1,000 light-years from Earth. The black hole is closer to our solar system than any other found to date and forms part of a triple system that can be seen with the naked eye. The astronomers found evidence for the invisible object by tracking its two companion stars using the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. They say this system could just be the tip of the iceberg.

(Yale University) The 2020 Gruber Cosmology Prize recognizes Lars Hernquist, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and Volker Springel, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, for their defining contributions to cosmological simulations, a method that tests existing theories of, and inspires new investigations into, the formation of structures at every scale from stars to galaxies to the universe itself.

(Boston University School of Medicine) A new Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) study published in the journal Environmental Research finds detectable levels of DDE (what DDT becomes when metabolized in the body) and other banned organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in the blood of over 60 percent of a cohort of black women of reproductive age in the Detroit area, with higher levels in women who smoked cigarettes daily, drank more alcohol, and drank more water.

(Tokyo University of Science) Plastic waste often ends up in river bodies and oceans, posing a serious threat to the marine ecosystem. To prevent the accumulation of plastic debris, we must find out where plastic emission is prevalent. To this end, scientists in Japan have come up with a new method to track plastic emissions from inland areas to sea. This method is useful to identify the 'hotspots' of plastic emission and can even help to implement appropriate measures to avoid plastic pollution.

(Aarhus University) An international team of researchers has put together a new image of Neanderthals based on the genes Neanderthals left in the DNA of modern humans when they had children with them about 50,000 years ago. The researchers found the new information by trawling the genomes of more than 27,000 Icelanders. Among other things, they discovered that Neanderthal children had older mothers and younger fathers than the Homo-Sapien children in Africa did at the time.

(World Scientific) New book explores human's endeavours to measure the age of the Earth -- the biblical story, geology's response, Darwin's contribution, Kelvin's cooling Earth model, and modern science.

(Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) What makes our species unique compared to other hominins? High profile genetic, fossil and material culture discoveries present scientists working in the Late Pleistocene with an ever-more complex picture of interactions between early hominin populations. One distinctive characteristic of Homo sapiens, however, appears to be its global distribution. Exploring how Homo sapiens colonized most of the world's continents in a relatively short period could reveal the exceptional capacities of humans relative to other hominins.