The Peace Warby Vernor VingeRead by Bruce HunteyThis book was first published in 1984Audio originally issued by NLS on cassette in 1988 The Peace Authority g…
AI is driving a dramatic new need for electricity, and while tech execs have long trumpeted their commitment to a green energy future, the urgency of that need presents them with a difficult path forward.
Questions about fueling the AI boom took center stage earlier this month at the CERAWeek by S&P Global, The Wall Street Journal reported. The annual energy conference draws thousands of executives to Houston to discuss topics ranging from geopolitics to the energy transition.
No one knows how much electricity will be needed to power the AI boom. AI requires massive computing power and energy loads and has triggered an explosion of data centers. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates said at the conference that the amount of power AI is bound to consume is mind-blowing.
A significant geomagnetic solar storm is currently in progress, sparked by recent solar eruptions that have hurled plasma towards Earth.
This atmospheric phenomenon is set to illuminate skies with the Northern Lights, extending unusually far south to regions including Alabama and Northern California as early as Monday.
The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warns of an extended period of heightened geomagnetic activity, known as a Geomagnetic K-index of 5.
Mammals aren’t the only animals that nurse their young. Cockroaches, spiders, and some fish and birds feed their offspring a milklike liquid.
Now, researchers have discovered the first amphibian that does so:
Caecilians are the first-known amphibians to engage in this form of parental care.
The 2024 total solar eclipse could have rare phenomena you cannot see anytime else, but some only last for a few seconds. Here’s what to look for.
In a new paper in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, leading computer scientists from around the world review recent machine learning advances converging towards creating a collective machine-learned intelligence.
The immune system is a complex network of various cell types all working cohesively to identify and eliminate foreign invaders. Unfortunately, if a disease is strong enough or our immune system is not well equipped to accurately target the disease, we get sick until the immune system builds a strong enough immune response toward it. A great example includes vaccine biology. We are given an attenuated form of a disease and our body, not exposed to it before, will recognize the markers on the outside of the virus and make antibodies against it. Consequently, the immune system will build up a strong enough immune response to completely eradicate the disease from the body and also maintain memory cells that will instantly recognize future exposures of the same disease.
Different immune cells play various roles that effectively elicit an immune response. Innate immunity is the first barrier against disease. Cells in this barrier are non-specific and target a broad range of diseases but are less potent. Additionally, they take the protein or antigen from the disease and present it to more specific and effective immune cells in the adaptive immune system. These highly specific cells are mainly responsible for killing or lysing the disease. Cells in the adaptive immune system include T cells and B cells. T cells are a broad cell population with different responsibilities within each T cell subset. However, CD8+ T cells are the classic T cell subtype solely responsible for lysing foreign or invading cells. The field of T cell biology is ever expanding as scientists discover new ways to improve their function and effectively target disease.
A recent article published in the Journal of Immunology, by Dr. Tadashi Matsuda and others, discovered that a new protein, known as STAP-1, improves T cell activation. Matsuda, senior author on the paper, is a Professor and Principal Investigator at Hokkaido University in Japan. His work focuses on T cell biology and intracellular components of cellular immunity. Signal-Transducing Adaptor Protein-1 or STAP-1 was implicated as a mediator between intracellular proteins and eliciting an immune response. Interestingly, STAP-1 upregulates T cell receptor (TCR)-mediated T cell function and increased inflammatory response. Matsuda and others found that STAP-1 generates the activation of downstream signaling pathways associated with stronger T cell activity. While this may have seemed like a great marker to improve immune response, the team also discovered that knocking out STAP-1 reduces autoimmune disorder symptoms. Therefore, treatment application is context dependent.
Webb’s infrared views of Cepheids agreed with Hubble’s optical-light data.
Webb confirmed that the Hubble’s keen eye was right all along, erasing any lingering doubt about Hubble’s measurements.
The bottom line is that the Hubble Tension between what happens in the nearby Universe compared to the early Universe’s expansion remains a nagging puzzle for cosmologists.
