Assessing COVID Risk and More with Air Quality Monitors

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October 19, 2021

Dear Reader, As the COVID pandemic continues, and fire season rages on, we are more aware than ever of dangers lurking in the air we breathe. But consumer air quality monitors can help us assess the risk of both airborne viral particles and pollution. This week's lead story is about what these devices do, and how best to use them.

Sophie Bushwick, Associate Editor, Technology @sophiebushwick

Pollution Assessing COVID Risk and More with Air Quality Monitors The consumer devices track pollutants as well as CO2—a proxy for potentially virus-laden human breath By Starre Vartan

Engineering What Is 5G? Here Is a Short Video Primer You see it mentioned in countless phone commercials, and your phone might use it. But do you know how it works? By Michael Tabb,Jeffery DelViscio,Andrea Gawrylewski

Artificial Intelligence 'Small Data' Is Also Crucial for Machine Learning The most promising AI approach you've never heard of doesn't need to go big By Husanjot Chahal,Helen Toner

Medicine Gene Therapy Is Coming of Age Various approaches are approved for treating blood cancers and a few rare disorders—they may soon become standard care By Lauren Gravitz

Nanotechnology Nanotechnology Offers New Ways to Fight an Endless Pandemic A wave of funding focuses on antiviral nanomaterials as COVID countermeasures By Mark Peplow,Nature Biotechnology

Quantum Computing 2-D Room-Temperature Magnets Could Unlock Quantum Computing A new magnetic material, just one atom thick, can manipulate electrons' spin for next-generation data storage By Joanna Thompson

Quantum Physics AI Designs Quantum Physics Experiments beyond What Any Human Has Conceived Originally built to speed up calculations, a machine-learning system is now making shocking progress at the frontiers of experimental quantum physics By Anil Ananthaswamy

Privacy A Blank Wall Can Show How Many People Are in a Room and What They're Doing The technique is the latest method to glean a surprising amount of surveillance from a meager source By Sophie Bushwick

Computing The FDA Should Better Regulate Medical Algorithms Most do not require the agency's approval, and those that do often don't require clinical trials By Soleil Shah,Abdul El-Sayed

Animals Save the Right Whales by Cutting through the Wrong Noise New noise-cutting tech could pinpoint North Atlantic right whales and other species By Sam Jones

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 325, Issue 5

QUOTE OF THE DAY "Instead of trying to rebuild the systems and structure of the internet, Professor Buchanan thinks we need to improve the way we use it to store and share data, or risk more mass outages in the future." Joe Tidy, BBC News

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FROM THE ARCHIVE How Coronavirus Spreads through the Air: What We Know So Far The virus that causes COVID-19 can persist in aerosol form, some studies suggest. But the potential for transmission depends on many factors, including infectiousness, dose and ventilation By Tanya Lewis | May 2020

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