Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@qoto.org

'The prospect of an H5N1 pandemic has been a source of concern ever since the virus was isolated from humans in Hong Kong in 1997. In response, the U.S. government began developing pandemic-preparedness plans. A series of reports from the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has emphasized the need for the stockpiling of personal protective equipment, resilient supply chains, and greater coordination between agencies and various levels of government. Yet despite these plans and warnings, and despite being ranked the most prepared among 195 countries to handle a pandemic on the Global Health Security Index in 2019, when Covid-19 arrived, the United States fared terribly by most measures'

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2406427

'As tourists savored icy granitas under hibiscus trees and swam in the cool Mediterranean Sea, in the farmlands of southern Sicily, among hillsides so scorched they resembled desert dunes, a farmer watched recently as his cows headed to the slaughterhouse.
After months of drought, he didn’t have any water or food to give them.'

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/24/world/europe/drought-farming-tourism.html

“Specifically, these little shrew-like animals, despite appearances, probably lived and died more like reptiles, with a long growth trajectory through childhood to maturity, and then a much longer lifespan than the live fast, die young approach of today’s small mammals”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/24/early-mammal-could-help-answer-one-of-biologys-biggest-question-say-experts

' It wasn’t long before I joined the lab of Dr Peter Kima. Dr Kima, as it turned out, was also from a developing country – Cameroon. He had a path not too different from my own and in him I found the first mentor on my journey to becoming a scientist. I was impressed that Dr Kima had found a way to not only become a successful scientist in a new country, but also that he was able to build a research program around a topic that was relevant to his home country – tropical parasitology. It was through his influence and guidance that I began to answer my next big question – “How can I remain connected to home?”
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imcb.12810

'The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent out an alert Tuesday to health care providers, laboratory professionals, health care facility administrators, and state, tribal, local, and territorial health departments warning of the shortage of Bactec blood culture medium bottles, marketed by Becton Dickinson. The shortage, which has been going on for weeks, could stretch into September, hospitals have been warned.'
https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/23/blood-culture-bottle-shortage-cdc-alert-becton-dickinson/

'In the school year that ended recently, one class of learners stood out as a seeming puzzle. They are hard-working, improving and remarkably articulate. But curiously, these learners — artificially intelligent chatbots — often struggle with math.'

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/23/technology/ai-chatbots-chatgpt-math.html

'After Unicef helped carry out tests of sewage samples from Gaza that showed the presence of poliovirus, Russell said: “It’s incredibly alarming.”

Russell said the world was “getting so close, we believe, to getting rid of polio once and for all”, so any potential emergence of the poliovirus requires “close attention”.'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/25/gaza-palestine-poliovirus-discovery-unicef

'Leading AI companies, including OpenAI and Microsoft, have tested the use of “synthetic” data — information created by AI systems to then also train large language models (LLMs) — as they reach the limits of human-made material that can improve the cutting-edge technology. Research published in Nature on Wednesday suggests the use of such data could lead to the rapid degradation of AI models. One trial using synthetic input text about medieval architecture descended into a discussion of jackrabbits after fewer than 10 generations of output.'
https://www.ft.com/content/ae507468-7f5b-440b-8512-aea81c6bf4a5