Lifeboat Foundation

Astronomers discovered a mysterious gamma-ray feature outside our galaxy by analyzing 13 years of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

“It is a completely serendipitous discovery,” said Alexander Kashlinsky, a cosmologist at the University of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, who presented the research at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans. “We found a much stronger signal in a different part of the sky than the one we were looking for.”

The gamma-ray signal is unexpected and intriguingly similar to another unexplained feature produced by some of the most energetic cosmic particles ever detected. A paper describing the findings is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The two-step process also produces hydrogen gas as a by-product, which could also be used as a zero-emission fuel.

“We are looking at active sites and how these sites are bonding with the reaction intermediates,” said Ping Liu of Brookhaven’s Chemistry Division. “By determining the barriers, or transition states, from one step to another, we learn exactly how the catalyst is functioning during the reaction.”

The researchers found that the iron-cobalt alloy works sequentially in the second stage and gets pushed to the side as the nanofiber grows. Using this information, the team could leach the catalysts using acid and reuse them again. If the entire process could be fueled by renewable energy, the process would be a carbon-negative approach to CO₂ mitigation.

Continue reading “Researchers trap CO2 from air into nanofibers to prevent its release” »

With better food preservation and factories that are more precise along with more upgrades to the global supply line we could even eliminate poverty with the food that is wasted.

It is estimated that 1.3 billion metric tons of food are lost or wasted annually, translating to a financial loss of $1 trillion (USD) per year. And without significant changes, this problem is expected to grow to 2.1 billion metric tons and $1.5 trillion by 2030.

Staggering as these numbers might be, they do not take into account the hidden costs of food production, including labor, storage and salvage or the costs related to customer dissatisfaction, lost opportunities, and inventory/stocking level imprecision.

Continue reading “Food Waste Costs the World’s Economy $1T Each Year” »

In a preclinical study, researchers led by City of Hope have discovered that a type of immune cell in the human body, known to be important for allergy and other immune responses, can also attack cancer. The cells, called human type 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s), can be expanded outside of the body and applied in larger numbers to overpower a tumor’s defenses and eliminate malignant cells in mouse models with cancer.

The findings are published in Cell in an article titled, “Therapeutic application of human type 2 innate lymphoid cells via induction of granzyme B-mediated tumor cell death.”

“The City of Hope team has identified human ILC2 cells as a new member of the cell family capable of directly killing all types of cancers, including blood cancers and solid tumors,” said Jianhua Yu, PhD, a professor in the department of hematology and hematopoietic cell transplantation at City of Hope and the study’s senior author. “In the future, these cells could be manufactured, preserved by freezing, and then administered to patients. Unlike T cell-based therapies, such as CAR T cells, which necessitate using the patient’s own cells due to their specific characteristics, ILC2s might be sourced from healthy donors, presenting a distinct potential therapeutic approach as an allogeneic and ‘off-the-shelf’ product.”

Prototypes, slideware and vaporware is easy. LG showed a cool prototype self driving concept car at CES 2024. There was also new AI marketing buzzwords and AI promises.

The concept car has swiveling seats so that passengers can look at any direction. There were also great LG screens to immerse passengers with video.

Real AI is emerging this year but there will also be a lot of AI Hype.

In an internal memo, CEO Jason Citron said the company grew headcount too quickly over the past few years.

The company says it’s focusing on ‘quality and reliability’ while also laying off hundreds.

Several “underutilized” Google Assistant features will soon be joining the infamous Google graveyard — such as the ability to use your voice to send an email, video, or audio messages — as the search giant introduces changes it says will make the feature easier to use. The company is also changing how the microphone works in the Google app and Pixel Search bar.

Starting January 26th, users who activate any of the 17 Assistant features being removed will be notified that it’s being discontinued, with most features departing for good on February 26th, according to 9to5Google. This news comes less than a day after Google announced it was laying off around a thousand employees, some of whom worked on Google Assistant.

Continue reading “Google removes 17 features from Google Assistant” »

Last week, researchers at the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute reported that by using focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier, they improved delivery of a new Alzheimer’s treatment and sped up clearance of the sticky plaques that are thought to contribute to some of the cognitive and memory problems in people with Alzheimer’s by 32%.

For this issue of The Checkup, we’ll explore some of the ways scientists are trying to disrupt the blood-brain barrier.

In the West Virginia study, three people with mild Alzheimer’s received monthly doses of aducanumab, a lab-made antibody that is delivered via IV. This drug, first approved in 2021, helps clear away beta-amyloid, a protein fragment that clumps up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. (The drug’s approval was controversial, and it’s still not clear whether it actually slows progression of the disease.) After the infusion, the researchers treated specific regions of the patients’ brains with focused ultrasound, but just on one side. That allowed them to use the other half of the brain as a control. PET scans revealed a greater reduction in amyloid plaques in the ultrasound-treated regions than in those same regions on the untreated side of the brain, suggesting that more of the antibody was getting into the brain on the treated side.

Rice engineers create innovative framework, transforming global 5G network testing standards.

Rice University engineers innovate a testing framework for 5G networks, assessing stability, interoperability, energy efficiency, and communication performance through machine learning.