Kelso Harper: Hey science nerds, happy Monday. It’s Kelso Harper, multimedia editor here at Scientific American. I’m filling in for our esteemed host Rachel Feltman while she takes a well-deserved break. But don’t worry—she’ll be back on Wednesday to talk about a culinary delicacy that may take you by surprise: cicadas. But for now, it’s time to catch up on some science news! For Science Quickly, I’m Kelso Harper.
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Alrighty, let’s kick off Pride Month by remembering one of our favorite queer science heroes. This Friday marks 70 years since, well, the rather sad and untimely death of British mathematician Alan Turing. Turing is now famous for leading the effort to decrypt Nazi coded messages during World War II and is often called one of the fathers of modern computing. You may remember him being played by none other than Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game, which came out—almost 10 years ago? Wow, time really flies.
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[Clip: The Imitation Game]
Benedict Cumberbatch: It turns out that’s the only German you need to know to break enigma.
Harper: Unfortunately, Turing didn’t receive any of this recognition during his lifetime. He, unfortunately, died in disgrace and was brutally punished for his sexuality and didn’t receive a formal pardon until 2013.
But, on a lighter note Turing was once quoted as saying something quite lovely, which “One day ladies will take their computers for walks in the park and tell each other, ‘My little computer said such a funny thing this morning!’” So we have to imagine he’d feel pretty vindicated by our last news episode about the hilariously creepy antics of the latest OpenAI model. Also, I just said that in the park the other day, how did he know?
Speaking of taking our funny little computers out for walks, despite the widespread belief that our phones inflict psychological damage on us, a new study found that we sure love using them anyway. More specifically the study looked at how smartphone usage changed the moods of teenage participants. As smartphone ownership and use have gone up among teens, so have rates of depression and other mood disorders. Many suspect this isn’t a coincidence, but previous research on the subject had largely been inconclusive or produced conflicting results. So, this new study found that teens reported better moods while using their phones and said that their moods improved from their phone usage. The researchers were quick to point out that these findings aren’t necessarily inconsistent with the theory that phones contribute to depression, anxiety and other issues in teens, and while using your phone as a mood-boosting tool can go awry, for some teens, it may actually be a fairly innocuous and even healthy way of self-soothing.
In other tech news, last Thursday a new paper examined the impact of not-quite-misinformation on social media. You’ve probably heard a lot about misinformation and all the dangers it poses, and you’ve likely seen various social platforms flag some content as containing misinformation. But in this new study researchers looked at stories that weren’t technically false but were framed in a misleading way.
For example, one story the researchers tracked was published in the Chicago Tribune in 2021 with the headline: “A ‘healthy’ doctor died two weeks after getting a COVID-19 vaccine; CDC is investigating why.” While it was true that a doctor died during that time frame after getting vaccinated, there was absolutely no evidence to suggest their death was related to the vaccination—let alone that this provided proof of some larger issues with COVID vaccines. The researchers found that misleadingly factual information like this was 46 times more consequential for driving vaccine hesitancy than content flagged as misinformation.
Figuring out how to combat misleading and incorrect information about public health should be a top priority right now because we’ve got plenty of contagions to keep an eye on. While the CDC is no longer requiring hospitals to report their COVID data, California’s Department of Public Health says cases appear to be slowly rising in the state. Australia has also reported an uptick in cases. Let’s all try to remember that even mild cases of COVID can leave people with debilitating long-term symptoms. So don’t forget to stay home if you feel sick, wear a mask in crowded settings and test yourself as needed.
On the bird flu front—and, yes, unfortunately that is also still a thing. In late May the CDC said that while the risk of cow-to-human transmission of H5N1 is considered low, the agency is preparing for “developments that could increase the risk to human health,” noting that three human cases have now been confirmed—including one that involved upper respiratory symptoms.
The virus causing the current bird flu outbreak recently showed up in beef for the first time too, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture says cooking meat to an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit will kill the virus. But maybe just lay off the steak tartare for now. And in case our last report on the dangers of raw milk didn’t persuade you, a new study found that drinking unpasteurized milk infected with H5N1 led to quick-onset flu symptoms in lab mice. So, cook your cow products, folk!
Okay, let’s end with something a little brighter: if you missed those wildly bright auroral displays a few weeks back because of cloudy skies like me (I’m still devastated), you might just be in luck. Those incredible light shows occurred when several solar flares and so-called coronal mass ejections hit us at the same time, creating a powerful solar storm. And that part of the sun that was filled with sunspots, rotated out of our sight in the days that followed, but now it’s coming back around. In fact, it should be facing us during the new moon on Thursday—which will provide the same extra-dark skies that helped make last month’s solar storm so very magical…for everyone who saw it, which was not me, but it’s ok!
We can’t know for sure that we’ll get hit with enough space weather for auroras to venture as far from the poles as they did last time. But keep an eye out for reports of solar storms this week and try to get yourself to an area without clouds or light pollution if you can! I certainly will be making a run for it.
And that is it for this week’s news roundup. Rachel will be back on Wednesday with that surprisingly delicious story about cicadas. And don’t forget to tune in on Friday for the last episode in our latest Fascination series, which is all about Cape Cod’s “number one” problem. Get it? Well, if not, you should go listen to the last two Friday episodes to get up to speed on how a “yellow tide” is turning the waters of Cape Cod green.
Also, before you go, we want to hear from you! How do you like the new episode formats? Are there any stories or subjects you’d like us to cover? E-mail us any of your thoughts or ideas at ScienceQuickly@sciam.com. Seriously, we read them. I read them personally! And I really appreciate hearing your thoughts.
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Thanks for tuning in to this week’s news roundup! I’ll catch you next time Rachel needs a breather. But, until then, I’m Kelso Harper, and you’re listening to Science Quickly.
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Science Quickly is produced by me, Kelso Harper, along with Rachel Feltman, Carin Leong, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio.
Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada edit our show, with fact-checking from Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
For Science Quickly, once again,I’m Kelso Harper, and I will catch you next time.
