- What to know about Mycoplasma, the bacteria behind recent spikes in pneumonia cases in Ohio and overseas
- The 5 Best Tips for Dealing with all Your Holiday Stress, according to Experts
- ‘It’s Chaos:’ Starving Gazans Dig for Food, Supplies under the Rubble
- Modern Earthquakes in US Could Be Aftershocks from Quakes in the 1800s, Scientists say
- Is AI Leading to a Reproducibility Crisis in Science?
- Approaching 1.5 °C: How Will We Know We’ve Reached This Crucial Warming Mark?
What to know about Mycoplasma, the bacteria behind recent spikes in pneumonia cases in Ohio and overseas
關於黴漿菌的知識，黴漿菌是最近俄亥俄州和海外肺炎病例激增的細菌
Health
Health 2023.12.01 What to know about Mycoplasma, the bacteria behind recent spikes in pneumonia cases in Ohio and overseas 關於黴漿菌的知識，黴漿菌是最近俄亥俄州和海外肺炎病例激增的細菌 https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/231201130942-china-children-pneumonia-112923.jpg?c=16x9&q=h_653,w_1160,c_fill/f_webp China, Denmark, France and the Netherlands have all recently reported an increase in cases of pneumonia in children linked to a bacteria called Mycoplasma pneumoniae. A spike in cases has also been reported in one county in Ohio. There’s no sign of any widespread or pronounced increase in Mycoplasma infections in other places in the United States, but this bacteria tends to cause pneumonia outbreaks every one to three years. The US hasn’t had a real wave of it since before the Covid-19 pandemic, and experts say they would not be surprised if there was an increase this year. “We expect that there are going to be some seasons that are worse than others for Mycoplasma infections, and it certainly seems that, across the US and Europe, that this year might be worse than other years,” said Dr. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. Last week, European experts conducting surveillance for Mycoplasma at 45 sites in 24 countries reported that the incidence of cases, which fell to less than 1% during the pandemic, had started to rise again at the beginning of the year. By this summer and fall, there was an average increase of more than fourfold, with larger increases in Asia and Europe, according to a report published in The Lancet Microbe.
--from CNN
中國、丹麥、法國和荷蘭最近都報告稱，黴漿菌有關的兒童肺炎病例增加。 俄亥俄州一個縣也報告病例激增。 在美國其他地方，沒有跡象表明黴漿菌感染有任何廣泛或顯著增加，但這種細菌往往每隔一到三年就會引起肺炎爆發。 自從Covid-19大流行之前以來，美國還沒有出現過真正的疫情浪潮，專家表示，如果今年疫情增加，他們不會感到驚訝。 「我們預計某些季節黴漿菌感染會比其他季節更嚴重，而且在美國和歐洲，今年的情況或許會比往年更嚴重，」范德比爾特大學兒科傳染病專家Dr. Buddy Creech說。 上週，歐洲專家在24個國家的45個地點進行黴漿菌監測，報告指出病例發生率在疫情期間降至不到1%，但今年年初又開始上升。 根據《The Lancet Microbe》發表的報告，到今年夏季和秋季，平均增幅超過四倍，其中亞洲和歐洲增幅更大。
-- 摘錄翻譯自 CNN
The 5 Best Tips for Dealing with all Your Holiday Stress, according to Experts
專家表示，應對假期壓力的 5 個最佳技巧
Health
Whether it’s approaching dawn of a new year or just simply the holidays, there’s a good chance you may be feeling more stressed out than usual right now. A lot of us are already too busy, says wellness expert Dr. Ann Kulze. “Then, you add to that the added responsibilities and obligations, more social engagements, entertaining people, family coming in,” she says. “That means, oh, I’ve got to clean up the yard and the house. And I have additional cooking. And if it’s Christmas, I’ve got to think about what I’m going to get for people, what presents I’m going to get.” Fortunately, there are some ways to mitigate this stress, and we spoke with wellness and organization experts about ways to keep it all together even when you’d like to run away from it all.
--from CNN
無論是新年即將到來還是只是假期，您現在很可能會比平常感到壓力更大。 健康專家Ann Kulze博士說，我們很多人已經太忙了。 「然後，你還要承擔更多的責任和義務、更多的社交活動、娛樂活動、家人的到來，」她說。 「這意味著，哦，我必須清理院子和房子。 而且我還有額外的烹飪。 如果是聖誕節，我必須考慮要為人們買什麼，要買什麼禮物。” 幸運的是，有一些方法可以減輕這種壓力，我們與健康和組織專家討論了您想逃離這些壓力而能保持平衡的方法。
--摘錄翻譯自CNN
‘It’s Chaos:’ Starving Gazans Dig for Food, Supplies under the Rubble
「一片混亂：」飢餓的加薩人在廢墟下挖掘食物和補給品
Culture
One man carries six jars of cooking oil as he struggles to walk across the rubble. Two little girls run as they each carry stacks of white paper, used to build fire for heat and cooking. A group of men argue, elbowing each other as they battle to find a bag of flour, some tea or even a forgotten blanket. These are the scenes from the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah, where an apparent Israeli airstrike on Monday destroyed not only homes and streets, but also the neighborhood’s Al-Baraka bakery, one of the few still standing in the Strip. In response to CNN questions about the bakery, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said Tuesday that “in stark contrast to Hamas’ intentional attacks on Israeli men, women and children, the IDF follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.” Dier al-Balah is in the center of the Strip, an area that is coming under increasing Israeli bombardment. Israel has also called on Palestinians in some parts of southern Gaza to leave, issuing digital maps that residents tell CNN are either confusing or to which they don’t have access because of a lack of electricity and internet connectivity. The IDF had earlier in the war encouraged Gazans to move to the southern part of the Strip for their safety, while committing to strike at Hamas “wherever it is.”
-- from CNN
一名男子拿著六罐食用油，艱難地走過廢墟。 兩個小女孩跑著，她們各自拿著一疊白紙，用來生火取暖和煮飯。 一群男人互相爭吵，爭先恐後地尋找一袋麵粉、一些茶，甚至是一條被遺忘的毯子。 這些是加薩中部城市Deir al-Balah的場景，週一，明顯地是以色列發動空襲，不僅摧毀了房屋和街道，還摧毀了附近的Al-Baraka 麵包店，這是拉斯維加斯大道上為數不多的幾家仍在營業的麵包店之一。 在回答CNN 有關這家麵包店的問題時，以色列國防軍(IDF) 週二表示，「相較與哈馬斯對以色列男人、女人和兒童的蓄意襲擊，以色列國防軍遵循國際法，並採取可行的預防措施來減輕平民傷害，形成鮮明對比。 ” Dier al-Balah 位於加薩走廊的中心，該地區正遭受以色列日益頻繁的轟炸。 以色列還呼籲加薩南部部分地區的巴勒斯坦人離開，並發布了數位地圖，居民告訴美國有線電視新聞網，這些地圖令人困惑，由於缺乏電力和網路連線而無法使用。 以色列國防軍在戰爭初期曾鼓勵加薩人為了安全而遷移到加薩走廊南部，同時承諾對哈瑪斯「無論在哪裡」進行打擊。
--摘錄翻譯自CNN
Modern Earthquakes in US Could Be Aftershocks from Quakes in the 1800s, Scientists say
科學家表示，美國現代地震可能是 1800 年代地震的餘震
Culture
After large earthquakes, there is an expectation that aftershocks could occur in the hours and days that follow, but aftershocks from some of the strongest earthquakes in recorded United States history may still be happening — nearly 200 years later, new research has found. Frequent aftershock activities stemming from a trio of quakes that occurred near the Missouri-Kentucky border between 1811 and 1812, and a separate earthquake in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1886, are likely continuing today, according to a study published recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. One of the regions researchers focused on, called the New Madrid seismic zone, encompasses present-day Memphis and the surrounding Mid-Mississippi River Valley area, and the other includes Charleston and the surrounding coastal plain. Seismic activity in these relatively stable regions of North America is not well understood, and its nature is debated among scientists, the study authors wrote. “You use the time, distance and the magnitude of event pairs, and try to find the link between two events — that’s the idea,” said lead study author Yuxuan Chen, geoscientist at Wuhan University in China, in a news release. “If the distance between a pair of earthquakes is closer than expected from background events, then one earthquake is likely the aftershock of the other.” Background events, also known as background seismicity, basically refers to the current rate of seismic activity that’s considered normal for a specific region.
--from CNN
大地震發生後，預計在接下來的幾小時和幾天內可能會發生餘震，但新的研究發現，美國歷史上有記錄的一些最強地震的餘震可能仍在發生，而且延遲近 200 年。 根據最近發表在《Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth》上的一項研究，1811 年至1812 年密蘇里州與肯塔基州邊界附近發生的三場地震以及1886 年南卡羅來納州查爾斯頓的另一場地震所引發的頻繁餘震活動可能仍在持續。 研究人員關注的地區之一被稱為新馬德里地震帶，包括現今的Memphis和周圍的密西西比河谷中部地區，另一個地區包括查爾斯頓和周圍的沿海平原。 研究作者寫道，北美這些相對穩定地區的地震活動尚不清楚，科學家對其性質有爭議。 「你利用事件對的時間、距離和強度，並試圖找到兩個事件之間的聯繫——這就是我們的想法，」主要研究作者、中國武漢大學地球科學家陳宇軒在一份新聞稿中說。 “如果兩次地震之間的距離比背景事件預期的更近，那麼一次地震很可能是另一次地震的餘震。” 背景事件，也稱為背景地震活動，基本上是指特定區域被認為正常的當前地震活動率。
--摘錄翻譯自CNN
Is AI Leading to a Reproducibility Crisis in Science?
人工智慧是否會導致科學的可重複性危機？
Sciences
During the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2020, testing kits for the viral infection were scant in some countries. So the idea of diagnosing infection with a medical technique that was already widespread — chest X-rays — sounded appealing. Although the human eye can’t reliably discern differences between infected and non-infected individuals, a team in India reported that artificial intelligence (AI) could do it, using machine learning to analyse a set of X-ray images. The paper — one of dozens of studies on the idea — has been cited more than 900 times. But the following September, computer scientists Sanchari Dhar and Lior Shamir at Kansas State University in Manhattan took a closer look. They trained a machine-learning algorithm on the same images, but used only blank background sections that showed no body parts at all. Yet their AI could still pick out COVID-19 cases at well above chance level. The problem seemed to be that there were consistent differences in the backgrounds of the medical images in the data set. An AI system could pick up on those artefacts to succeed in the diagnostic task, without learning any clinically relevant features — making it medically useless.
--from Nature
2020 年底 COVID-19 疫情期間，部份國家缺乏病毒感染檢測試劑。 因此，使用一種已經廣泛使用的醫療技術——胸部X光檢查——來診斷感染的想法聽起來是很有吸引力。 儘管人眼無法可靠地辨別感染者和未感染者之間的差異，但印度的一個團隊報告稱，人工智慧 (AI) 可以做到這一點，即使用機器學習來分析一組 X 光影像1。 這篇論文是關於這個想法的數十篇研究之一，已被引用超過 900 次。 但接下來的 9 月，Manhattan Kansas州立大學的電腦科學家 Sanchari Dhar 和 Lior Shamir 進行了更仔細的研究。 他們在相同的圖像上訓練了機器學習演算法，但僅使用了根本不顯示身體部位的空白背景部分。 然而，他們的人工智慧仍然可以以遠高於機率水平識別出 COVID-19 病例。 問題似乎在於資料集中醫學影像的背景存在一致的差異。 人工智慧系統可以利用這些人為因素來成功完成診斷任務，而無需學習任何臨床相關特徵——這使得它在醫學上毫無用處。
--摘錄翻譯自Nature
Approaching 1.5 °C: How Will We Know We’ve Reached This Crucial Warming Mark?
接近 1.5 °C：我們如何知道我們已經達到了這個關鍵的暖化標誌？
Sciences
The world is already more than 1 °C warmer on average than it was before industrial times, owing to greenhouse gases released from human activities. And that value is rising. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that there is at least a 50% chance that long-term global warming will overshoot 1.5 °C in the next decade, even with ambitious emissions cuts. That matters because this target is written into the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Breaching it will trigger questions on what needs to be done to meet the agreement’s goal — to curb human-induced climate change. For example, its aim of “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C” would then mean taking action to reverse global warming, not just stopping it — a much greater demand. A breach will also inevitably prompt assessments of the observed impacts of exceeding 1.5 °C. It might come as a surprise, then, to hear that the Paris statement contains no formally agreed way of defining the present level of global warming. The pact does not even define ‘temperature increase’ explicitly and unambiguously. Without an agreed metric, there can be no consensus on when the 1.5 °C level has been reached. This is likely to result in distraction and delay just at the point when climate action is most urgent.
-- from Nature
由於人類活動釋放的溫室氣體，世界平均氣溫已經比工業時代之前高出1°C以上。 而這個數值正在上升。 政府間氣候變遷專門委員會 (IPCC) 預計，即使採取雄心勃勃的減排措施，全球長期暖化仍有至少 50% 的可能性在未來十年內超過 1.5°C。 這很重要，因為這一目標已寫入 2015 年巴黎氣候協議。 違反該協議將引發人們的疑問，即需要採取哪些措施來實現該協議的目標——遏制人類引起的氣候變遷。 例如，其「努力將氣溫上升限制在1.5°C」的目標意味著採取行動扭轉全球變暖，而不僅僅是阻止暖化——還有更大的需求。若超過 1.5°C的氣溫上升，對於已經觀測的影響將需要進行再評估。 因此，當聽到巴黎聲明中沒有正式商定的方式來定義當前全球暖化水平時，可能會讓人感到驚訝。 該協議甚至沒有明確、不模糊地定義「氣溫升高」。 如果沒有商定的指標，就無法就何時達到 1.5°C 水準達成共識。 這可能會在氣候行動最緊迫的時刻，導致注意力分散和延誤，以致無法完成任務。
--摘錄翻譯自Nature