combat

15Jun

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

To Help Combat The Urban Heat Island Effect Satellites Zoom In On Cities’ Hottest Neighborhoods

Spend time in a city in summer and you can feel the urban heat rising from the pavement and radiating from buildings. Cities are generally hotter than surrounding rural areas, but even within cities, some residential neighborhoods get dangerously warmer than others just a few miles away. Within these “micro-urban heat islands,” communities can experience heat wave conditions well before officials declare a heat emergency. I use Earth-observing satellites and population data to map these hot spots, often on projects with NASA. Satellites like the Landsat program have become crucial for pinpointing urban risks so cities can prepare for and respond to extreme heat, a top weather-related killer. Among the many things we’ve been able to track with increasingly detailed satellite data is that...

In 19th-century America A Black Writer Used Humor To Combat White Supremacy

4Apr

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IN OTHER NEWS

In 19th-century America A Black Writer Used Humor To Combat White Supremacy

Any writer has to struggle with the dilemma of staying true to their vision or giving editors and readers what they want. A number of factors might influence the latter: the market, trends and sensibilities. But in the decades after the Civil War, Black writers looking to faithfully depict the horrors of slavery had to contend with readers whose worldviews were colored by racism, as well as an entire swath of the country eager to paper over the past. Charles Chesnutt was one of those writers. Forced to work with skeptical editors and within the confines of popular forms, Chesnutt nonetheless worked to shine a light on the legacy of slavery. His 1899 collection of stories, “The Conjure Woman,” took place on a Southern plantation and sold well. At first glance, the stories seemed to mimic...

CRISPR can help combat the troubling immune response against gene therapy

4Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LIFESTYLE

CRISPR can help combat the troubling immune response against gene therapy

One of the major challenges facing gene therapy - a way to treat disease by replacing a patient’s defective genes with healthy ones - is that it is difficult to safely deliver therapeutic genes to patients without the immune system destroying the gene, and the vehicle carrying it, which can trigger life-threatening widespread inflammation. Three decades ago researchers thought that gene therapy would be the ultimate treatment for genetically inherited diseases like hemophilia, sickle cell anemia and genetic diseases of metabolism. But the technology couldn’t dodge the immune response. Since then, researchers have been looking for ways to perfect the technology and control immune responses to the gene or the vehicle. However, many of the strategies tested so far have not been completely s...

How technology can combat the rising tide of fake science

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

How technology can combat the rising tide of fake science

Science gets a lot of respect these days. Unfortunately, it’s also getting a lot of competition from misinformation. Seven in 10 Americans think the benefits from science outweigh the harms, and nine in 10 think science and technology will create more opportunities for future generations. Scientists have made dramatic progress in understanding the universe and the mechanisms of biology, and advances in computation benefit all fields of science. On the other hand, Americans are surrounded by a rising tide of misinformation and fake science. Take climate change. Scientists are in almost complete agreement that people are the primary cause of global warming. Yet polls show that a third of the public disagrees with this conclusion. A crop circle in Switzerland. Jabberocky/Wikimedia Commons In...