NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has completed the deepest X-ray image ever obtained, made with over 7 million seconds of observing time revealing the best picture ever at the growth of black holes over billions of years beginning soon after the Big Bang. The central region of the image contains the highest concentration of supermassive black holes ever seen, equivalent to about 5,000 objects that would fit into the area of the full Moon and about a billion over the entire sky.
Hey folks, want to help the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation get dr. Michio Kaku’s attention? Like this comment on Kaku’s page by Keith Comito:
https://www.facebook.com/michiokaku/posts/10154741076206203
Thanks!
#aging #crowdfundthecure
Jan. 04, 2017 — 4:52 — Theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku discusses ‘digital immortality’ and how technology could bring loved ones back to life.
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Interesting and I remember coming across similar research a few years ago.
Brain stimulation might sound like some Frankensteinian demonstration from a Victorian science fair. But in reality, it is a contemporary technique making a huge impact in neuroscience by addressing a longstanding limitation of traditional methods for investigating human brain function. Such techniques, like EEG and fMRI, can only be used to infer the effects of a stimulus or task on brain activity, and not vice versa. For example, a scientist might use EEG to study the effect of a task like arm movement on brain activity, but how can one study the effect of brain activity on arm movement?
Today, noninvasive brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) are offering alternatives to old paradigms. TMS can excite or suppress underlying brain tissue safely and ethically, allowing researchers to study causal relationships between brain circuits and behavior. What’s more, TMS may have therapeutic value in treating brain disorders such as depression.
Luv this.
Proteins are the workhorse molecules of life. Among their many jobs, they carry oxygen, build tissue, copy DNA for the next generation, and coordinate events within and between cells. Now scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have developed a method to control proteins inside live cells with the flick of a switch, giving researchers an unprecedented tool for pinpointing the causes of disease using the simplest of tools: light.
The work, led by Klaus Hahn and Nikolay Dokholyan and spearheaded by Onur Dagliyan, a graduate student in their labs, builds on the breakthrough technology known as optogenetics. The technique, developed in the early 2000s, allowed scientists, for the first time, to use light to activate and deactivate proteins that could turn brain cells on and off, refining ideas of what individual brain circuits do and how they relate to different aspects of behavior and personality.
Multiplexed optogenetic control, using Photo-inhibitable Vav2 (PA-Vav2) and Photo-inhibitable Rac1 (PI-Rac1) in the same cell.
Very cool.
A few nanoscale adjustments may be all that is required to make graphene-nanotube junctions excel at transferring heat, according to Rice University scientists.
The Rice lab of theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson found that putting a cone-like “chimney” between the graphene and nanotube all but eliminates a barrier that blocks heat from escaping.
The research appears in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Physical Chemistry C.
Samuel Sia, a professor of biomedical engineering at New York City’s Columbia University, has developed a 3D printed biobot that can be implanted in the body to release controlled doses of drugs. The amazing device can be controlled from outside the body using only magnets.
For patients who have been diagnosed with cancer, treatment options are often few and far between, and in many serious cases, starting an intense course of chemotherapy becomes a necessity rather than a choice. But despite being a powerful weapon against cancer, chemotherapy takes its toll on the body in a number of ways: chronic pain, nausea, fatigue, hair loss, and the chance of infertility are just some of the adverse effects that chemotherapy can present. Fortunately, scientists are working hard to develop more effective ways of delivering chemotherapy drugs, including a new 3D printing method that involves fabricating squishy, “clockwork” micromachines that deliver precise drug doses from within the body.
The revival of the Cold War attitudes between the U.S. and Russia are just the beginning of the an expanding scene of digital vulnerabilities and shocks to the system that could shut down the grid, cut off grocery and supply lines or leave millions without power in the cold. With global tension, the pretext could come from anywhere:
From Mac Slavo:
The coming era could be the age of electronic disruption, as ATMs, power grids, bank accounts, Internet servers and other important entities in society are intercepted, taken down, hacked or shut off by criminals and commandos in the ongoing cyberwar. Dissidents will be flagged and cut off from their accounts. Natural disasters will compound with these factors, testing the infrastructure and the integrity of the people themselves, who are in danger of devolving into civil unrest.
