The Plight of the Tiger – Akchousanh Rasphone

Translating brain activity into written sentences

Researchers develop brain-machine interface capable of translating human brain activity directly into text with about the same accuracy as human transcriptionists.

Medical workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic

Front line medical staff working in department of respiratory, emergency, ICU and infectious disease experience greater fear, anxiety and depression than administrative staff, who hardly contact coronavirus patients.

Spider venom may hold key to addiction-free pain killers

Researchers have designed a mini-protein from the venom of tarantulas that may lead to an alternative method of treating pain.

Loss of smell and taste validated as COVID-19 symptoms

Study empirically demonstrates that those who lose their sense of taste and smell are more than 10 times more likely to have COVID-19 than other causes of infection; also that those reporting sore throats more typically test negative for the virus.

Supernova outshines all others

Merging stars create the brightest supernova ever recorded; shines twice as brightly as any other.

Controversial link between bats, rats, and COVID-19

Bats ‘pose no greater viral threat’ to humans than other species; instead, virus spillover from animals to humans found to be more likely among any species that have both grown in population number and whose ranges have expanded because of humans.

Hospitalizations down once power plants retired coal

Lung-irritating pollutants dropped by 55% and hospitals see 400 fewer admissions after one coal plant closed and others added scrubbers in Kentucky.

Upcoming guests

Amalia Bastos from the The University of Auckland will join us to discuss her article “The Kea show three signatures of domain-general statistical inference”  [already recorded].

Courtney Coughenour and Jennifer Pharr from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will join us to discuss their article “Estimated car cost as a predictor of driver yielding behaviors for pedestrians”  [already recorded].