A cartoon illustrates results from the MICROSCOPE satellite mission, which has measured with astronomical sensitivity the falling rate of different objects under gravity.
—Matthew R. Francis is a physicist and freelance science writer based in Virginia.
—Maki Naro is a science illustrator based in New York.
Direct air electrolyzers could produce hydrogen in arid regions still rich in wind and sun.
Large-scale plants that make seawater drinkable supply urban areas, but the world needs portable versions to serve remote or refugee populations.
A novel hormone combination has been created by a research team from Helmholtz Munich, the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), and Novo Nordisk for the potential treatment of type 2 diabetes in the future. The researchers combined the blood sugar-lowering actions of the medications tesaglitazar and GLP-1 (Glucagon-like peptide-1) to create a new and extremely effective drug.
The benefit of combining Tesaglitazar with GLP-1 is that the Tesaglitazar only penetrates the tissue with GLP-1 receptors. This increases the effects on sugar metabolism while lessening the side effects of tesaglitazar. Scientists have already successfully tested the new drug in animal studies. The study was recently published in the journal Nature Metabolism.
Tesaglitazar enhances glucose and fat metabolism in type 2 diabetic patients. It increases insulin sensitivity by acting on two receptors inside the cell nucleus. This was demonstrated in phase 3 clinical trials. However, tesaglitazar has side effects such as kidney damage.
A team of scientists at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, in Saudi Arabia, says they already have a solution in the works: before land-based lithium runs out, shift lithium mining to the ocean. The team claims they’ve created an affordable method for extracting lithium from the seawater, potentially unlocking a practically infinite supply of lithium.
The challenge: Land-based lithium mining is incredibly damaging to the environment, and it wastes huge amounts of water — up to 500,000 gallons of water per ton of lithium extracted.
Seawater contains 5,000 times the amount of lithium found on land, but only in very low concentrations, which has made previous attempts to extract lithium from the ocean ineffective.
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Kardashev Civilizations are beyond immense, with even the first tier of them making any modern nation look miniscule, and there are many barriers to becoming one.
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Making stem cells from a patient’s adult cells – rather than human embryos – is one of the holy grails in modern medicine treatments. New research brings us two steps closer.
Posted in futurism
Scientists at the University of Cambridge have discovered that water in a one-molecule layer acts like neither a liquid nor a solid, and that it becomes highly conductive at high pressures.
The S2x turbine will be able to generate one megawatt of electricity and will have a total height of 442 feet.
This nebula is about 100 times wider than the Sun is to its nearest star. It is 5,500 light years away and is an active star-forming region.
