Global Warming Already Responsible for 1 in 3 Heat-related Deaths

Sunrise in London, UK. Credit: Kasim Rashid/Flickr

New estimates suggest Central and South America and South-East Asia most affected regions. Between 1991 and 2018, more than a third of all deaths in which heat played a role were attributable to human-induced global warming, according to a new article in Nature Climate Change.

The study, the largest of its kind, was led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the University of Bern within the Multi-Country Multi-City (MCC) Collaborative Research Network. Using data from 732 locations in 43 countries around the world it shows for the first time the actual contribution of human-made climate change in increasing mortality risks due to heat.

Overall, the estimates show that 37% of all heat-related deaths in the recent summer periods were attributable to the w...

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New ‘Swiss Army knife’ cleans up water pollution

Co-authors Vinayak Dravid and Stephanie Ribet examine their phosphate elimination and recovery substrate
CREDIT
Northwestern University

Phosphate pollution in rivers, lakes and other waterways has reached dangerous levels, causing algae blooms that starve fish and aquatic plants of oxygen. Meanwhile, farmers worldwide are coming to terms with a dwindling reserve of phosphate fertilizers that feed half the world’s food supply.

Inspired by Chicago’s many nearby bodies of water, a Northwestern University-led team has developed a way to repeatedly remove and reuse phosphate from polluted waters. The researchers liken the development to a “Swiss Army knife” for pollution remediation as they tailor their membrane to absorb and later release other pollutants.

The research will be publishe...

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Dark Energy Survey releases most precise look at the Universe’s Evolution

In 29 new scientific papers, the Dark Energy Survey examines the largest-ever maps of galaxy distribution and shapes, extending more than 7 billion light-years across the Universe. The extraordinarily precise analysis, which includes data from the survey’s first three years, contributes to the most powerful test of the current best model of the Universe, the standard cosmological model. However, hints remain from earlier DES data and other experiments that matter in the Universe today is a few percent less clumpy than predicted.

First three years of survey data uses observations of 226 million galaxies over 1/8 of the sky...

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Detecting Skin Disorders based on Tissue Stiffness with a Soft Sensing Device

The research team designs a simple, miniature electromechanical device for high-precision and real-time evaluations of deep tissue stiffness. (Photo source: Dr Yu Xinge’s team)

A research team has designed a simple electromechanical device that can be used for deep tissue pathology diagnosis, such as psoriasis, in an automated and non-invasive fashion. The findings will lay a foundation for future applications in the clinical evaluation of skin cancers and other dermatology diseases.

By putting a piece of soft, strain-sensing sheet on the skin may be able to detect skin disorders non-invasively and in real-time very soon.

The research is co-led by Dr Yu Xinge, Assistant Professor from CityU’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, and scientists from and Northwestern University ...

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