December 16, 2020 at 6:00 am
Nationwide protests in response to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other unarmed Black men and women in the first part of 2020 inspired calls to action within academia’s ivory tower.
Social media movements such as #BlackInSTEM brought attention to discrimination faced by Black students and professionals throughout the science, technology, engineering and mathematics pipelines. U.S. Black residents studying and working in STEM fields are underrepresented at every level, from undergraduate degree programs to the workforce.
The academic environment fails to support Black students, says economist Gary Hoover of the University of Oklahoma in Norman. “Black students in STEM are some of the most talented people around, and if the environment isn’t going to be welcoming, these folks just take their talents elsewhere.”
Credit: IOP Publishing
The group comprises 16 societies: the Acoustical Society of America, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Astronomical Society, the American Crystallographic Association, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, AVS Science & Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processes, the Chinese Physical Society, European Physical Society, Institute of Physics, Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, the Laser Institute of America, The Optical Society (OSA), The Society of Rheology.
In a joint statement Achieving greater open access in physics , the societies detail how they have long embraced open science and OA to research results. Their proactive engagement, such as the launch of high-quality OA journals, switching hybrid journals to full OA and establishing transformative agreements, has contributed to a
Scientists have used a computational model to further our knowledge of how face masks impact airflow. In a new study, published this month in the journal
Physics of Fluids, from the American Institute of Physics, a team of scientists from the University of Massachusetts Lowell and California Baptist University explains how not all masks protect the same from COVID-19 transmission. They conclude that old masks may be worse than not wearing a mask at all. These findings will likely influence the guidance on mask-wearing and potentially mask design.
Pressure and particle motions with and without a mask. Image Credit: Jinxiang Xi
Risk of COVID-19 transmission increases when walking through corridors
New research has found that COVID-19 infected individuals breathe out water droplets laden with the virus that can form into long streams that trail behind them when walking through narrow corridors. These findings have significant implications on the guidelines in place to protect people from airborne transmission.
The cough-generated droplets from a walking individual disperse differently in a narrow corridor and an open space. Image Credit: Xiaolei Yang
Those infected with COVID-19 create a trail of infected droplets
A team of scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have researched how droplets are dispersed in different environments to understand more about how COVID-19 is transmitted. While countries across the globe have enforced some kind of social distancing restrictions for most of the year, scientists continue to investigate how the virus is transmitted to control the pandemic, which is still s
Achieving Open Access in Physics miragenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from miragenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.