Climate change, mental health and the US election: what scientists are worried about in the wake of Rio Grande do Sul? A survey from Nature

Researchers have been investigating the best ways to help people deal with trauma in the wake of a climate disaster. In April and May devastating floods surged across Rio Grande do Sul in the south of Brazil, affecting two million people and killing hundreds. As people try to put their lives back together scientists have been conducting surveys and investigating how to make sure that any mental health issues don’t become persistent. We hear from some of the affected people and researchers in the region.

A survey of over 2,000 readers from Nature shows that the US election could have big impacts on a variety of things, including climate change and public health. One-third of researchers rooting for Donald Trump said it might affect their plans for where they live or study if the Republican candidate won next week, while a majority of respondents favour Democratic candidateKamala Harris. People who responded said that if a country does not believe in facts it is not a good place to build a career in science.

NaturePodcast: How to mentally recover from an extreme weather event and how to recover from a severe thunderstorm during a winter or winter storm

You never have to miss an episode. Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on

  Apple Podcasts



,



  Spotify



,



  YouTube Music



 or your favourite podcast app. The NaturePodcast has an RSS feed as well.

Reforms by the National Natural Science Foundation of China to help young scientists get research funding could be making it more difficult. The NSFC is based in Beijing and oversees several programmes that provide funding through competitive grants. The rule that applied to people who had been rejected for two years in a row was abolished by the reforms. More than three hundred thousand applications were made this year, but only about a third were successful, compared with the previous year. Cong Cao, a science policy researcher says the competition is very intense.

Source: Daily briefing: How to mentally recover from an extreme weather event

Hidden Maya city in the Mexican jungle: an example of how to help children mental health in the light of recent climate and floods warnings from artemis

NASA identified nine landing regions for the upcoming Artemis III mission, which will be the first crewed Moon landing in over 40 years. The regions are all near the lunar South Pole, an area of the Moon that has never been explored. Criteria for selection included the terrain, lighting and communication capabilities with Earth. “The Moon’s South Pole is a completely different environment than where we landed during the Apollo missions,” says Sarah Noble, Artemis lunar science lead. Some of the Moons oldest terrain and cold, shadowed regions have water and other compounds.

An ancient Maya city has been found “hidden in plain sight” beneath the jungle canopy in the Mexican state of Campeche. The archaeologists used a laser technique to discover the forgotten complex which has pyramids, amphitheatres and sports fields. The site, which is named Valeriana, is thought to have hosted up to 50,000 people, which supports claims that Maya lived in towns than isolated villages, according to Elizabeth Graham.

Studies conducted after recent floods in Brazil offer lessons on how to help people facing mental-health challenges after a climate disaster. Laser technology has found a hidden Maya city in the Mexican jungle.

The past year has seen bans on the use of smartphones in schools in some 60 countries amid worries that social media can harm children’s mental health. Natalia Kucirkova, Director of the International Centre for EdTech Impact, doesn’t want to see educational technology (edtech) caught in the crossfire. She knows first-hand that educational apps can help children learn, particularly in low-income areas. However, any apps marketed as ‘educational’ must be able to back that claim with evidence, which researchers and developers should work together to gather, to avoid disrupting proper learning.

Source: Daily briefing: How to mentally recover from an extreme weather event

John Hopfield and the New Physics: What Do We Really Know About Artificial Intelligence and Why Should We Worry about It? The New Physics of AI: A Talk to Nature

John Hopfield shared the Nobel Prize in Physics this year for his work on the ‘Hopfield network’, a building block of machine learning, which that underpins modern artificial intelligence (AI). If your knowledge from one discipline can help you approach another from a new angle, how about your work in physics, which won you a prize? Hopfield spoke to Nature about his career, whether his work was really physics and why we should worry about artificial intelligence.