(…) But as the pandemic forced many conferences to adopt virtual formats, the option to attend from home—often with discounted or free registration—led to surges in participation. A survey by Science Careers of 10 U.S.-based meetings of scientific societies across a variety of disciplines showed that most saw higher—and perhaps more diverse—attendance than in previous years. The Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (commonly referred to as “CLEO”) and the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting—both of which offered free access—showed the greatest attendance increases, growing approximately fivefold to about 20,000 and 100,000 attendees, respectively.

But virtual conferences may not serve the needs of all scientific communities. The Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM), for example, was smaller than it had been in previous years, despite offering a registration discount of about 70%. “Some might still value face-to-face interactions,” (…) 

Source: www.sciencemag.org

Technology companies have taken many aspects of tech governance from democratically elected leaders. It will take an international effort to fight back.

Source: www.technologyreview.com

Researchers warn that official figures underestimate the pandemic’s real death toll, which could more than triple if the virus is allowed to spread unchecked.

Source: www.nature.com

S. Hessam M. Mehr, Matthew Craven, Artem I. Leonov, Graham Keenan, Leroy Cronin

Science  02 Oct 2020:
Vol. 370, Issue 6512, pp. 101-108
DOI: 10.1126/science.abc2986

 

A typical chemist running a known reaction will start by finding the method described in a published paper. Mehr et al. report a software platform that uses natural language processing to translate the organic chemistry literature directly into editable code, which in turn can be compiled to drive automated synthesis of the compound in the laboratory. The synthesis procedure is intended to be universally applicable to robotic systems operating in a batch reaction architecture. The full process is demonstrated for synthesis of an analgesic as well as common oxidizing and fluorinating agents.

Source: science.sciencemag.org

Bernardo A. Bastien-Olvera & Frances C. Moore
Nature Sustainability (2020)

Climate change is damaging ecosystems throughout the world with serious implications for human well-being. Quantifying the benefits of reducing emissions requires understanding these costs, but the unique and non-market nature of many goods provided by natural systems makes them difficult to value. Detailed representation of ecological damages in models used to calculate the costs of greenhouse gas emissions has been largely lacking. Here, we have expanded a cost–benefit integrated assessment model to include natural capital as a form of wealth. This brings benefits to people through non-use existence value and as an input into the production of ecosystem services and market goods. In our model, using central estimates for all parameters, optimal emissions reach zero by the year 2050, limiting warming to 1.5 °C by the year 2100. We used Monte Carlo analysis to examine the influence of several key uncertain model parameters, and examined the effect of adaptive investments in natural systems that partially offset climate damages. Overall, we show that accounting for the use and non-use value of nature has large implications for climate policy. Our analysis suggests that better understanding climate impacts on natural systems and associated welfare effects should be a high priority for future research.

Source: www.nature.com