Best of Last Week–Flaw in emergent gravity, Earth at risk of moving into hothouse state and probiotics causing problems
It was a good week for physics as a pair of researchers, Zhi-Wei Wang and Samuel Braunstein, found a flaw in emergent gravity—holographic screen surfaces described by the theory, they discovered, do not actually behave thermodynamically. Also, Aakash Sahai with Imperial College London reported evidence suggesting that mini antimatter accelerators could rival the likes of the Large Hadron Collider. And a team at the University of Cambridge made headlines when they announced that a household phenomenon observed by Leonardo da Vinci was finally explained—they figured out why water splays when it hits the sink before it heads down the drain.
It was a good week for technology, too, as a team of engineers at Caltech taught a drone to herd birds away from airports autonomously, preventing the birds from colliding with airplanes. And a team at King Abdulaziz University, in Saudi Arabia, reported finding that big data analytics could be used for automatic event detection in smart cities. Also, a team at the University of Pittsburgh demonstrated the feasibility of using machine learning to generate persuasive faces for advertisements.
In other news, a team with members from the University of Copenhagen, the Australian National University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, made headlines by announcing evidence showing that the Earth risks tipping into a 'hothouse' state in which average global temperatures could rise by four to five degrees Celsius and sea levels could rise from 10 to 60 meters, all within just a few decades. Also, a team at the Salk Institute found that common dietary elements can cure lethal infections, eliminating the need for antibiotics. And a team of chemists at the University of Toledo discovered how blue light speeds blindness by causing macular degeneration.
And finally, if you are among the millions of people hoping to gain health benefits by consuming probiotics, you might be causing yourself some unexpected grief—a team at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University found a link between probiotic use and brain fogginess and severe bloating.
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