The "Online Video Course on Weather Observation" will explain concisely the basic weather observation methods and techniques, such...

Every summer, rainstorms occur in Hong Kong occasionally, leading to loss of property or even casualties.

(Paul Scherrer Institute) Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have collaborated with British economists to study how energy consumption by Swiss industry develops depending on energy pricing. To this end, they examined in particular the prices and consumption of both electricity and natural gas over the past decades. One result: For the most part, price increases have only long-term effects on energy consumption.

(Carnegie Mellon University) A new study developed a model of regulation in which the probability of a stricter standard being enacted increased with the proportion of firms in an industry that could meet the standard. The study found that regulations that consider the proportion of firms that can meet the new standard can motivate the development of a new green technology more effectively than regulations that do not consider this factor.

(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.

(Moscow Research and Practical Clinical Center for Diagnostics and Telemedicine Technologies) Researchers of the Moscow Diagnostics and Telemedicine Center collected a dataset that includes more than a thousand sets of chest CT scans of patients with imaging finding of COVID-19. As of today, it is the largest completely anonymized database of CT studies, which has no analogues in Russia or in the world. It is available for download and can be used for developing services based on artificial intelligence technologies.

(New Jersey Institute of Technology) A team of NJIT physicists has developed a novel test swab that can be 3D printed using inexpensive, widely available materials and speedily assembled in a range of fabrication settings. To augment the nation's testing capabilities, the inventors are making the swab's design publicly available, free of licensing fees, during the COVID-19 emergency.

(Taylor & Francis Group) Over 80% of people surveyed in a study do not plan to conceive during the COVID-19 crisis, perhaps putting to rest suggestions that the lockdown could lead to rise in birth numbers.

(Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan) Now, as hospitals across the country start to return to doing non-emergency operations that keep their beds full and their books balanced, they need to think carefully about what resources each of those procedures will need as the pandemic continues. A new guide could help them prioritize and plan. Created by poring over seven years' worth of data from 17 common operations in dozens of hospitals, it's available for free for any hospital to use.

(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.

(University of Massachusetts Amherst) As physicians and families know too well, though Alzheimer's disease has been intensely studied for decades, too much is still not known about molecular processes in the brain that cause it. Now researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst say new insights from analytic theory and molecular simulation techniques offer a better understanding of amyloid fibril growth and brain pathology.

(Rutgers University) A Rutgers engineer has created a mathematical model that accurately estimates the death toll linked to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and could be used around the world.

(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.

(U.S. Army Research Laboratory) A US Army-funded project is identifying how officials at different levels of government can work together to encourage protective behaviors to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

(Keck School of Medicine of USC) A new USC study suggests that temporarily suppressing the body's immune system during the early stages of COVID-19 could help a patient avoid severe symptoms. That's because the research shows that an interaction between the body's two main lines of defense may be causing the immune system to go into overdrive in some patients.

(Northwestern University) Northwestern University researchers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up the search for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. The AI-powered tool makes it possible to prioritize resources for the most promising studies -- and ignore research that is unlikely to yield benefits.

(Carnegie Mellon University) A new study sought to determine how the impact of recommender systems (also called recommenders) is affected by factors such as product type, attributes, and other sources of information about products on retailers' websites. The study found that recommenders increased the number of consumer views of product pages as well as the number of products consumers consider, but that the increase was moderated by product attributes and review ratings.

(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.

(Simon Fraser University) SFU professor Caroline Colijn’s research and data modelling to map the spread of COVID-19 in British Columbia has helped her procure funding from Genome B.C., a non-profit research organization that leads genomics innovation on Canada’s West Coast.

(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.

(Cornell University) To help future scientists make sense of what their telescopes are showing them, Cornell University astronomers have developed a spectral field guide for rocky worlds orbiting white dwarf stars.

(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.

(Kudos Innovations Ltd) Kudos helps researchers maximize reach and visibility of research by opening up Kudos Pro. The platform helps showcase work to a range of target audiences, supporting researchers in fields where conferences have been cancelled -- and those with COVID-19-relevant work that needs rapid communication. Over 2,000 researchers have already signed up.

(University of California - Irvine) Cyanobacteria living in rocks in Chile's Atacama Desert extract water from the minerals they colonize and, in doing so, change the phase of the material from gypsum to anhydrite. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and Johns Hopkins University gained verification of this process through experiments, and the work points to possible strategies for humans to stay hydrated in harsh environments.

(DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) A new study, led by researchers at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, suggests new paths for catching the signals of dark matter particles that have their energy absorbed by atomic nuclei.

(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.

(International Astronomical Union) The Gruber Cosmology Prize, which is co-sponsored by the IAU, recognises scientists whose discoveries have driven fundamental advances in our understanding of the Universe. The 2020 prize has been awarded to Lars Hernquist and Volker Springel for their pioneering work on cosmological simulations, which have not only led to their own discoveries, but also become an invaluable resource used widely by other researchers.

(DOE/Argonne National Laboratory) A group of the world's best X-ray science facilities has developed a strategy for cooperatively combating COVID-19.

(American Chemical Society) Antiviral drugs could help us fight the new coronavirus, but currently, we don't have a highly potent, effective antiviral that cures COVID-19. Why not? We called a few virologists to find out: https://youtu.be/AIpeZDR9i3E.

(Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) More than 500 researchers from all around the world will gather virtually tomorrow Wednesday May 6 at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) to discuss and propose how society should adopt more sustainable and low-carbon forms of lifestyle that contribute to mitigating climate change.

(University of California - Davis) In the tropical atmosphere, cold air rises due to an overlooked effect -- the lightness of water vapor. This effect helps to stabilize tropical climates, and the impacts of a warming climate would be much worse without it.

(University of Warwick) Warm winter spells have increased in frequency and duration two- to three times over since 1878, according to scientists led by the University of Warwick.

(University of Johannesburg) Fly ash generated by coal-fired power stations is a global environmental headache, creating groundwater and air pollution from vast landfills and ash dams. The waste product can be repurposed into geopolymer concrete, such as precast heat-cured structural elements for buildings. However, a critical durability problem has been low resistance to extreme alkali attack. UJ researchers found that high temperature heat-treatment at 200 degrees Celsius can halve this harmful mechanism in fly ash geopolymer concretes.

(University of Warwick) 21st century X-ray technology has allowed University of Warwick scientists to peer back through time at the production of the armour worn by the crew of Henry VIII's favoured warship, the Mary Rose.

(PLOS) The ancient cemetery of Mözs-Icsei d?l? in present-day Hungary holds clues to a unique community formation during the beginnings of Europe's Migration Period, according to a study published April 29, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Corina Knipper from the Curt-Engelhorn-Center for Archaeometry, Germany, István Koncz, Tivadar Vida from the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary and colleagues.

(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.

(Cell Press) In a study appearing April 30 in the journal Current Biology, scientists tell the story of three 16th century African slaves identified from a mass burial site in Mexico City. Using a combination of genetic, osteological, and isotope analyses, the scientists determined from where in Africa they were likely captured, the physical hardships they experienced as slaves, and what novel pathogens they may have carried with them across the Atlantic.

(Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) Three 16th-century skeletons from a mass burial in Mexico City highlight the role of the transatlantic slave trade in introducing and disseminating new pathogens to the Americas. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico analyzed skeletal features, genetic data and isotopes to explore the life history of three enslaved Africans and explore the wide-ranging impacts of massive forced migration.

(University of Chicago Press Journals) Extensive cooperation among biologically unrelated individuals is uniquely human. It would be surprising if this uniqueness were not related to other uniquely human characteristics, yet current theories of human cooperation tend to ignore the human aspects of human behavior. This paper presents a theory of cooperation that draws on social, cultural, and psychological aspects of human uniqueness for which current theories have little or no explanation.

(Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona) Expansions by groups of humans were common during prehistoric times, after the adoption of agriculture. Among other factors, this is due to population growth of farmers which was greater than of that hunter-gatherers. We can find one example of this during the Neolithic period, when farming was introduced to Europe by migrations from the Middle East.

(University of Warwick) A microbial community is a complex, dynamic system composed of hundreds of species and their interactions, they are found in oceans, soil, animal guts and plant roots. Each system feeds the Earth's ecosystem and their own growth, as they each have their own metabolism that underpin biogeochemical cycles. Researchers from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick have produced an extendable thermodynamic model for simulating the dynamics of microbial communities.

(US Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service) A new freeze-resistant Trichinella species has been discovered in wolverines by Agricultural Research Service scientists and their colleagues. Trichinella are parasites that cause the disease trichinosis (formally referred to as trichinellosis), which people can get by eating raw or undercooked meat from infected animals.

(Texas A&M University) Spoiling foods, souring wine and worsening wounds have a common culprit -- a process called oxidation. Although the ill effects of these chemical reactions can be curtailed by antioxidants, creating a sturdy platform capable of providing prolonged antioxidant activity is an ongoing challenge.

(University of Adelaide) An international team of scientists led by the University of Adelaide's Davies Research Centre has shown that it is possible to disentangle the DNA sequences of the chromosomes inherited from the mother and the father, to create true diploid genomes from a single individual.

(University of Southern Denmark) Investing in the future: Researchers show how cannibalism among the invasive comb jelly enables adults to survive severe conditions at the edge of their ecological range with implications for the use and evolutionary origins of cannibalism.

(Bentham Science Publishers) This comprehensive review presented by researchers from K.S. Rangasamy College of Arts and Science, Tiruchengode, Tamil-Nadu, India, gives readers a brief overview of phytoconstituents, nutritional values and medicinal properties of the plant.

(Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute) Oil pollution is known to cause lethal and sublethal responses on coral communities in the short-term, but its long-term effects have not been widely studied. The Bahia Las Minas oil spill, which contaminated about 40 square kilometers (about 15 square miles) near the Smithsonian's Galeta Point Marine Laboratory in Colon and became the largest recorded near coastal habitats in Panama, served as an opportunity to understand how coral reefs in tropical ecosystems recover from acute contamination over time.