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Feb 20, 2024

Gene Therapy Makers Struggle to Find Patients for Miracle Cures

Posted by in category: finance

BioMarin’s hemophilia treatment had only one US patient last year, as drug pioneers discover that scientific achievement doesn’t guarantee financial success.

Feb 20, 2024

Microsoft to expand its AI infrastructure in Spain with $2.1 billion investment

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

U.S. software giant Microsoft will expand its artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud infrastructure in Spain through an investment of $2.1 billion in the next two years, the company’s Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said in a post on social media site X.

Feb 20, 2024

Elon Musk shares update on Neuralink’s first human patient

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, Elon Musk, neuroscience

Elon Musk shared an update on Neuralink’s first human patient and their experience with the N1 chip.

The first human Neuralink patient seems to have made a full recovery with no ill effects and is able to control the mouse around the screen just by thinking, said Elon Musk during an apparent on X Spaces.

Musk added that Neuralink continuously observes the patient’s ability to use the N1 brain implant. The patient is currently tasked to click on the mouse button as often as possible.

Feb 20, 2024

Understanding the Moon’s History with Chang’e-5 Sample

Posted by in categories: materials, space travel

The lunar sample returned by China’s 2020 lunar mission contained minerals that provide clues to their origin. China’s Chang’e-5, the first lunar sample return mission since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976, delivered 1.73 kilograms of regolith from the Oceanus Procellarum, a plane named for its vast size. The sample landed with CE-5 in late 2020 and included a new mineral, Changesite-(Y), as well as a perplexing combination of silica minerals. Researchers now compare CE-5’s material composition to other lunar and Martian regolith samples and examine potential causes and origins for the lunar sample’s unique makeup.

Earth’s moon achieved its Swiss cheese appearance from celestial objects crashing into its surface, forming impact craters. But craters weren’t all that was left behind; the intense pressure and temperature of such a collision also impacts the rocks and dust covering the lunar surface, known as regolith, altering its mineral composition and structure. Analyzing the resulting minerals provides modern researchers clues to the moon’s past.

China’s Chang’e-5, the first lunar sample return mission since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976, delivered 1.73 kilograms of regolith from the Oceanus Procellarum, a plane named for its vast size.

Feb 20, 2024

New technique for revealing genetic repeats yields surprising insights into Huntington’s disease

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience

Neurodegenerative diseases are among the most complex human ailments, and their exact causes and mechanisms are the subject of ongoing research and debate. When it comes to Huntington’s disease, steadily accumulating evidence over the past 30 years has led to a model of molecular events that explains several key features of the disease, including why it has an earlier onset in some people and why it causes symptoms such as involuntary movements and mood swings.

But two new complementary papers from The Rockefeller University suggest that this may not be the whole story.

Huntington’s is caused by somatic CAG expansions in which a triplet repeat of DNA bases in a mutated Huntingtin (mHTT) gene increase in number throughout life, leading to . As described in Nature Genetics and in Neuron, the Rockefeller scientists used a custom technique to reveal that these genetic repeats are unstable, and likely producing more toxic proteins, only in select brain . Moreover, some cells they studied proved surprisingly resilient to CAG repeat expansion.

Feb 20, 2024

Neuralink’s first human patient able to control mouse through thinking, Musk says

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, Elon Musk, neuroscience

Feb 20 (Reuters) — The first human patient implanted with a brain-chip from Neuralink appears to have fully recovered and is able to control a computer mouse using their thoughts, the startup’s founder Elon Musk said late on Monday.

“Progress is good, and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with no ill effects that we are aware of. Patient is able to move a mouse around the screen by just thinking,” Musk said in a Spaces event on social media platform X.

Musk said Neuralink was now trying to get as many mouse button clicks as possible from the patient.

Feb 20, 2024

Exclusive: India seeks $26 billion of private nuclear power investments

Posted by in categories: government, nuclear energy

India will invite private firms to invest about $26 billion in its nuclear energy sector to increase the amount of electricity from sources that don’t produce carbon dioxide emissions, two government sources told Reuters.

Feb 20, 2024

Watch this eerily silent vision of the future — where offices are filled with weird, AI-powered robots

Posted by in categories: futurism, robotics/AI

In a new video, 1X’s EVE robots work together in silence in a test environment, performing actions such as sorting mail, handling objects and tidying up a child’s toys.

Feb 20, 2024

Quantum computing engineers perform multiple control methods in just one atom

Posted by in categories: computing, particle physics, quantum physics

Quantum computing engineers at UNSW Sydney have shown they can encode quantum information—the special data in a quantum computer—in four unique ways within a single atom, inside a silicon chip.

The feat could alleviate some of the challenges in operating tens of millions of quantum computing units in just a few square millimeters of a silicon quantum computer chip.

In a paper published in Nature Communications, the engineers describe how they used the 16 quantum ‘states’ of an antimony atom to encode quantum information.

Feb 20, 2024

CERN announces Small Hadron Collider for home use

Posted by in category: particle physics

CERN has announced that they are to release a cut-down version of their popular Hadron Collider for use in the home.

The Large Hadron Collider was built over twenty years ago, is housed in a 27-kilometre tunnel on the Switzerland – France border, and is used to smash particles together to see what happens.

The facility has proven tremendously successful, having smashed over thirty particles together since it was built.