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Jul 30, 2023

Magnetic and acoustic levitation to protect bioprint heart models against radiation

Posted by in categories: bioprinting, biotech/medical, health, space travel

Reducing reliance of aninmal experimentation. 🐀

According to the team, this new unparalleled technology facilitates the precise manipulation of biological materials, enabling the creation of highly sophisticated and realistic organoids that closely mimic the complexity of the corresponding human organs.


The cutting-edge magnetic and acoustic levitation will bioprint heart models to improve protection against radiation both in space and on Earth.

Continue reading “Magnetic and acoustic levitation to protect bioprint heart models against radiation” »

Jul 30, 2023

Retina cell breakthrough could help treat blindness

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, nanotechnology, neuroscience

When the scaffold is treated with a steroid called fluocinolone acetonide, which protects against inflammation, the resilience of the cells appears to increase, promoting growth of eye cells. These findings are important in the future development of ocular tissue for transplantation into the patient’s eye.


Scientists have found a way to use nanotechnology to create a 3D ‘scaffold’ to grow cells from the retina-paving the way for potential new ways of treating a common cause of blindness.

Researchers, led by Professor Barbara Pierscionek from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), have been working on a way to successfully grow retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells that stay healthy and viable for up to 150 days. RPE cells sit just outside the neural part of the retina and, when damaged, can cause vision to deteriorate.

It is the first time this technology, called ‘electrospinning’, has been used to create a scaffold on which the RPE cells could grow, and could revolutionise treatment for one of age-related macular degeneration, one of the world’s most common vision complaints.

Jul 30, 2023

NASA’s iconic Voyager 2 spacecraft silent after antenna misalignment

Posted by in category: space travel

Read more about NASA’s iconic Voyager 2 spacecraft silent after antenna misalignment on Devdiscourse.

Jul 30, 2023

Hubble watches extreme exoplanet being stripped by its star

Posted by in category: space

A Neptune-sized planet orbits close enough to its star that it is bombarded by dramatic flares which cook the planet with radiation and strip its atmosphere.

Jul 30, 2023

Researchers find multiple ways to bypass AI chatbot safety rules

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Preventing artificial intelligence chatbots from creating harmful content may be more difficult than initially believed, according to new research from Carnegie Mellon University which reveals new methods to bypass safety protocols.

Popular AI services like ChatGPT and Bard use user inputs to generate useful answers, including everything from generating scripts and ideas to entire pieces of writing. The services have safety protocols which prevent the bots from creating harmful content like prejudiced messaging or anything potentially defamatory or criminal.

Jul 30, 2023

GravityLab wants to tackle the artificial gravity problem

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, space travel

Living without gravity spells disaster for the human body. Even a few weeks in microgravity can lead to issues with circulation and vision; over the longer term, the complications compound even further. The heart begins to degenerate and atrophy. Bones turn thin and brittle.

But what about Martian gravity, which is around 0.38 that of Earth? Or somewhere in-between — 0.16 G on the moon, or 0.91 on Venus? How do these gravity levels affect the body, plants and other organisms, even manufacturing processes? We have astonishingly few answers to these questions.

gravityLab wants to find some. The company is developing a spinning spacecraft that will be able to generate what co-founder and CEO Grant Bonin calls “programmable gravity.” The spacecraft will be equipped with a motorized boom that can extend and retract a counterweight. By dynamically varying the length of the boom and the rotation rate, the company says it will be able to control the acceleration of gravity inside the spacecraft.

Jul 30, 2023

Heart rate variability biofeedback training can enhance positive memory recall

Posted by in category: neuroscience

New research provides evidence that training our heart rate can indirectly influence our emotional memory, making us more likely to remember positive experiences. The study has been published in the journal Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.

The study aimed to explore whether certain brain circuits are responsible for regulating both heart rate and emotion, specifically focusing on the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Additionally, the researchers were interested in understanding how biofeedback training, which involves providing individuals with real-time physiological feedback and training them to modify their own physiological responses, could impact emotional memory biases.

“There have been many studies showing that people with higher resting HRV tend to experience less negative emotions,” study author Mara Mather told PsyPost. “But most of the research has been correlational and so it is not clear if the individual differences in HRV play any direct role in the emotional differences. Thus, we were interested in whether manipulating HRV could affect people’s emotional biases.”

Jul 30, 2023

Extremely distant galaxy reveals stories of stars from their cradles to their graves

Posted by in category: cosmology

A galaxy located 13.2 billion light years away that existed just 600 million years after the Big Bang is the home of the most distant sites of star birth and stellar death ever seen.

Jul 30, 2023

The Challenges of Building Human Habitats in Space

Posted by in categories: habitats, space

In October of 2021, NASA’s next-generation infrared observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), will be launched. As the most advanced and complex space telescope ever built, the James Webb will characterize exoplanets, explore our Solar System, and address the deepest cosmological mysteries of all.

Jul 30, 2023

Scientists Use Gene Editing To Create a Better Melon

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

The plant hormone ethylene, in its gaseous state, has long been recognized for its ability to hasten fruit ripening and has a notable impact on shelf-life. In a recent study, scientists used the CRISPR/Cas9 system for gene editing to modify the ethylene production pathway in the luxury Japanese melon (Cucumis melo var. reticulatus “Harukei-3”) to increase its shelf-life.

Their findings were recently published in the journal Frontiers in Genome Editing.

The enzyme 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid.