In the News

Monday on Political Rewind, a look at how Georgia public schools and the state’s universities continue to grapple with how to hold classes safely as the school year begins. Joshua Weitz, Professor of Biological Sciences and Director of the Weitz Group, joins as a panelist. 

Researchers at Georgia Tech launched an interactive site so that users can visualize and assess the risk that people with Covid-19 will be present at a wedding, party or other event they are planning to attend. Nightly's Myah Ward talked to lead developer Joshua Weitz about the tool and what he wants it to accomplish.

In “2100: A Climate Odyssey,” North America’s largest time machine would teleport the audience to the Puente Hills Landfill in Los Angeles County, the Great Barrier Reef, the Congo Basin, and Siberia, Russia. The drama was advertised to show how climate change would alter these places by the end of the century. As the show came to a close, some real-life science professionals made their way on the stage to answer questions, including Kim Cobb and Carl Parker, a meteorologist from The Weather Channel.

If physical distancing measures in the United States are relaxed while there is still no Covid-19 vaccine or treatment, and while personal protective equipment remains in short supply, the number of resulting infections could be about the same as if distancing had never been implemented to begin with, according to a UCLA-led study that's co-authored by Martin Short.

Shutting off worldwide pollution to see how air quality changes was out of the question for scientists… but then came the pandemic. We discuss the accidental global air experiment. Listen to part 2 of Something in the Air, featuring Sally Ng.

By substituting the low-energy membranes for certain steps in the distillation process, the new technology might one day allow implementation of a hybrid refining system that could help reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption significantly compared to traditional refining processes. "Much in our modern lives comes from oil, so the separation of these molecules makes our modern civilization possible," said M.G. Finn. "The scale of the separation required to provide the products we use is incredibly large. This membrane technology could make a significant impact on global energy consumption and the resulting emissions of petroleum processing." Related coverage: C&EN, Chemical Engineering Online, Oil & Gas Engineering, Machine Design, Science Magazine Podcast, The Engineer, Trade Arabia, Green Car Congress, Business Wire, Yahoo Finance, Science Daily, Tech Explorist, Energy News, American Inno: Atlanta Beat, Invest Chronicle, Nasdaq.

As part of an ongoing three-year research project, a multi-institutional team of scientists is set to embark next month to explore a blue hole called 'Green Banana' situated on the continental shelf off the coast of Florida. Comprising researchers from Mote Marine Laboratory, Florida Atlantic University, the Georgia Institute of Technology (led by Martial Taillefert), and the US Geological Society, the NOAA-sponsored project will deploy divers and monitoring equipment into Green Banana ... The aim is to examine what kind of microbes live in the blue hole, measure nutrient levels in the underwater column, and assess whether the sinkhole is somehow connected to Florida's groundwater system adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico. Related coverage: Daily Mail, IFL Science.

At Georgia Tech in Atlanta, a team led by Joshua Weitz is trying to address that certainty problem by building a risk map that is grounded in data that addresses hazard and risk. Their Covid-19 Event Risk Assessment Tool uses data on new and recent cases, harvested from state health departments and collated by the volunteer Covid Tracking Project, and subjects it to an algorithm that accounts for a predictable level of under-reporting because of the scarcity of tests. It feeds that result into a mathematical model designed to answer this question: What is the probability that someone capable of spreading Covid-19 is attending any large event? Related coverage: Fast Company, WSB Radio, Sacramento Bee, 11Alive, FOX 8, ABC 24, WINK, KDLG, WBRC, ABC7GMW, We Are Iowa, ABC24, FOX6, WKOW, Naples News, WSOCTV, Click Orlando, WSOCTV, WUSA9, Florida Today, WTHR, 10 Tampa Bay, KATC, KREM, KARE11, 11Alive, Farm Journal AgWeb, AgPro, WBTW, NOLA News, Herald Sun, NEWS4SA, WAGM News 12/26, KUTV, FOX35, WOGX, Daily Memphian, WFMZ-TV, Little Village, Caller Times, WFLA.

David Hu is a biologist and engineer at Georgia Tech. He says that oil is a good thing because it coats and protects your hair, and it helps animals waterproof their fur. Well, now scientists in Australia have taken a cue from nature to see how well hair and fur can absorb a different kind of oil - crude oil.

The Permian Basin accounts for twice the average amount of methane emitted from 11 other major U.S. oil and gas production regions in the country, according to an April report from scientists at Harvard University, Georgia Tech (Ruixiong Zhang), the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and the Environmental Defense Fund.