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Blog – Page 10398

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a disease associated with critically short telomeres, and it currently lacks a reliable and effective treatment. Researchers at the Telomere and Telomerase Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have cured the disease in mice using telomerase therapy to lengthen short telomeres.

A proof of concept for an effective treatment against pulmonary fibrosis

The authors of this study have stated that this is a “proof of concept that telomerase activation represents an effective treatment against pulmonary fibrosis” in their publication[1].

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The Chinese “Micius” satellite has successfully set up the world’s most secure video conference, using quantum cryptography to connect scientists in Europe and China for an unhackable, intercontinental chat.

The feat marks another milestone for the satellite, officially called Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QESS), which only last year was making headlines for transmitting an “unbreakable” quantum code to the Earth’s surface.

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At least the world knows what it is like to live in the shadow of nuclear weapons. There are much bigger question-marks over how the rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning will affect the way wars are fought, and perhaps even the way people think of war. The big concern is that these technologies may create autonomous weapons systems that can make choices about killing humans independently of those who created or deployed them.

War is still a contest of wills, but technology and geopolitical competition are changing its character, argues Matthew Symonds.

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Imagine a police car that issues tickets without even pulling you over.

What if the same car could use artificial intelligence to find good hiding spots to catch traffic violators and identify drivers by scanning license plates, tapping into surveillance cameras and wirelessly accessing government records?

What if a police officer tapping on your car window asking for your license and registration became a relic of transportation’s past?

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China is hoping to ride the wave of the AI development boom to increase the country’s role in building the chips that will power future AI devices.

China’s increasingly vested interest in developing artificial intelligence (AI) is breathing new life into the country’s semiconductor industry. A new report from MIT Technology Review explains how China’s dedication to becoming a global leader in AI development is giving Chinese chipmakers a new opportunity to reclaim territory in the burgeoning field of hardware development.

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Lasers powerful enough to tear the fabric of matter itself are being developed in a special laboratory in China, potentially giving scientists the chance to create and study experimental environments unlike anything we have on Earth.

The stats behind these lasers are impressive: One has already reached a peak of 5.3 million billion watts or petawatts (PW), which is around 500 times the power of all the world’s electrical grids combined. There are plans to double that figure before 2018 is out, and yet these intense bursts of light last less than one trillionth of a second.

Meanwhile a new 100-PW laser is on the drawing board that could produce a pulse of light capable of ripping electrons and positrons (the antimatter counterparts to electrons) right out of empty space, showing that matter and energy are interchangeable – as Einstein so famously proposed with E=mc^2.

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