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Feb 19, 2024

Quasar with black hole at its center may be brightest object in the universe, astronomers say

Posted by in category: cosmology

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronomers have discovered what may be the brightest object in the universe, a quasar with a black hole at its heart growing so fast that it swallows the equivalent of a sun a day.

The record-breaking quasar shines 500 trillion times brighter than our sun. The black hole powering this distant quasar is more than 17 billion times more immense than our sun, an Australian-led team reported Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

While the quasar resembles a mere dot in images, scientists envision a ferocious place.

Feb 19, 2024

Living Longer, Living Better: Gene Therapy’s Stunning Progress For Longevity

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

This is all good but I really like the telomeres results.


Liz Parrish presents the stunning progress of gene therapies and how to collaborate to cure aging in this clip.

Continue reading “Living Longer, Living Better: Gene Therapy’s Stunning Progress For Longevity” »

Feb 19, 2024

To appreciate music, the human brain listens and learns to predict

Posted by in categories: media & arts, neuroscience

What is happening in the cerebral cortex when someone hears a melody?


Music has been central to human cultures for tens of thousands of years, but how our brains perceive it has long been shrouded in mystery.

Continue reading “To appreciate music, the human brain listens and learns to predict” »

Feb 19, 2024

Stanford Medicine-led study finds way to predict which of our organs will fail first

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

A new study led by Stanford Medicine scientists demonstrates a simple way of studying organ aging by analyzing distinct proteins, or sets of them, in blood, enabling the prediction of individuals’ risk for diseases.

Feb 19, 2024

A chatbot for autism support and breaking the web accessibility barrier

Posted by in categories: government, internet, robotics/AI

Polireddi developed a chatbot to help detect autism spectrum disorder and evaluates the accessibility of private and government websites.

Feb 19, 2024

New tech turns CO2 into chemicals with 93% efficiency, runs record 5000 hrs

Posted by in categories: chemistry, sustainability

Using spent lead acid batteries, Chinese researchers have achieved two goals in one move, finding a way to recycle them and fix CO2 at the same time.

Feb 19, 2024

Chemists produce all eight possible variants of polypropionate building blocks from one starting material

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry

To synthesize potential drugs or natural products, you need natural substances in specific mirror-image variants and with a high degree of purity. For the first time, chemists at the University of Bonn have succeeded in producing all eight possible variants of polypropionate building blocks from a single starting material in a relatively straightforward process. Their work has now been published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Polypropionates are that can help save lives. They are needed to make reserve antibiotics, compounds that are only ever used to treat infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria. In nature, chiral compounds exist in two different variants that share the same molecular formula but are of each other, like a right and a left hand. Chemists call this “chirality,” which literally means “handedness.”

“What’s interesting is that the mirror-image forms can have very different properties,” explains Professor Andreas Gansäuer from the Kekulé Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Bonn. “One well known example is undoubtedly carvone. The dextro-, or ‘right-handed,’ form of this molecule smells of caraway, while its levo-, or ‘left-handed,’ form is what gives peppermint its distinctive odor.”

Feb 19, 2024

A new rotary electric contact method could radically change the way wind turbines generate electricity

Posted by in category: sustainability

Sandia National Laboratories researchers have developed a fundamentally new type of rotary electrical contact. The technology is called Twistact, and it will eliminate the need for expensive rare-earth magnets in large wind turbines.

Sandia is now ready to partner with the energy industry to develop the next generation of direct-drive wind turbines.

Sandia’s Twistact is a novel approach to transmitting electrical current between a stationary and rotating frame, or between two rotating assemblies having different speeds or rotational directions. This method is ideal for use in wind turbines.

Feb 19, 2024

Sam Altman’s $7 trillion AI chip project might not be very realistic

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

The scale of the OpenAI CEO’s chip ambitions requires a vast amount of resources.

Feb 19, 2024

Life Spreads Through Universe in Cosmic Dust, Paper Suggests

Posted by in categories: alien life, particle physics

New research posits that life originated somewhere in the cosmos — and that it traveled through space on tiny particles of cosmic dust.