Lifeboat Foundation

It replaces the idle fee where available.

On Tuesday, Stability AI released Stable Video Diffusion. The first implementation for private users is now available.

The makers of the Stable Diffusion tool “ComfyUI” have added support for Stable AI’s Stable Video Diffusion models in a new update. ComfyUI is a graphical user interface for Stable Diffusion, using a graph/node interface that allows users to build complex workflows. It is an alternative to other interfaces such as AUTOMATIC1111.

According to the developers, the update can be used to create videos at 1,024 × 576 resolution with a length of 25 frames on the 7-year-old Nvidia GTX 1,080 with 8 gigabytes of VRAM. AMD users can also use the generative video AI with ComfyUI on an AMD 6,800 XT running ROCm on Linux. It takes about 3 minutes to create a video.

Natural products collection reveals novel enzymes with surprising properties. Scientists have discovered two enzymes that enable bacteria to target and break up DNA. This chemical defense likely evolved to help the organism fight off germs. The chemical riches were found within the institute’s one-of-a-kind Natural Products Discovery Center collection.

Slumbering among thousands of bacterial strains in a collection of natural specimens at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology, several fragile vials held something unexpected, and possibly very useful.

Writing in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, a team led by chemist Ben Shen, Ph.D., described discovery of two new enzymes, ones with uniquely useful properties that could help in the fight against human diseases including cancer. The discovery, published last week, offers potentially easier ways to study and manufacture complex natural chemicals, including those that could become medicines.

Transistors are crucial electronic components that regulate, amplify and control the flow of current inside most existing devices. In recent years, electronics engineers have been trying to identify materials and design strategies that could help to further improve the performance of transistors, while also reducing their size.

Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides have some advantageous properties that could help to enhance the capabilities of transistors. While past studies have demonstrated the potential of these materials in individual transistors, their use for developing entire integrated circuits (ICs) that operate at high frequencies has proved challenging.

Researchers at Nanjing University in China recently created new ICs that can operate at GHz frequencies, based on the 2D semiconducting material monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). Their devices, presented in a Nature Electronics paper, rely on MoS2-based field-effect transistors (FETs).

To identify potential therapeutic targets and preclinical drug candidates for the treatment of ovarian cancer, researchers led by Tan Li from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed novel small molecule inhibitors of CPSF3, a key module of the cleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor (CPSF) complex that catalyzes pre-mRNA splicing and regulates transcription termination.

This work was published in Science Advances on Nov. 22.

Ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynecological cancer and is often diagnosed at a late stage. In treating ovarian cancer, surgery and systemic chemotherapy can modestly improve the survival rate, while targeted therapies with PARP inhibitors are effective in a limited number of ovarian cancer patients.

Microbial sequence databases contain a wealth of information about enzymes and other molecules that could be adapted for biotechnology. But these databases have grown so large in recent years that they’ve become difficult to search efficiently for enzymes of interest.

Now, scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Institutes of Health have developed a new search algorithm that has identified 188 kinds of new rare CRISPR systems in bacterial genomes, encompassing thousands of individual systems. The work appears in Science.

The algorithm, which comes from the lab of CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang, uses big-data clustering approaches to rapidly search massive amounts of genomic data. The team used their algorithm, called Fast Locality-Sensitive Hashing-based clustering (FLSHclust) to mine three major public databases that contain data from a wide range of unusual bacteria, including ones found in coal mines, breweries, Antarctic lakes, and dog saliva.

The fourth quarter is past its midway point, and Tesla’s Megafactory in Lathrop, California, seems like it’s still going full speed ahead. During a recent drone flyover of the site, a fleet of 332 Megapack batteries was spotted in the facility’s staging areas.

The Tesla Megapack may not be as visually compelling as the Cybertruck or the Model 3 Highland, but it is a key product in Tesla’s portfolio. Designed for grid use, the Megapack has the potential to disrupt the energy sector. The battery has been performing well so far, as it has been deployed successfully in high-profile projects like the 182 MW/730 MWh battery farm in Moss Landing, California, and the 150 MW/300 MWh system in New South Wales, Australia.

The Megapack is available in two variants: a 2-hour version that offers 1.9 MW of power and 3.9 MWh of energy and a 4-hour variant that features 1 MW of power and 3.9 MWh of energy. The grid-scale battery is priced at $1,908,590 for the four-hour variant with installation and $2,123,590 for the two-hour variant with installation. Without installation charges, the Megapack is priced at $1,321,390 for the two-hour variant and $1,270,310 for the four-hour version.

The Australian Space Agency has revealed its shortlist of names for the country’s first lunar rover — and you can help choose the winner by casting your vote.

In partnership with NASA, the agency’s Australian-made, semi-autonomous rover is slated to launch to the moon as part of a future Artemis mission by as early as 2026. The rover will have the ability to pick up lunar rocks and dust, then bring the specimens back to a moon lander operated by NASA.

The extinct arthropods date back at least 490 million years.