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Sep 29, 2024

Why we are finally within reach of a room-temperature superconductor

Posted by in categories: innovation, materials

A practical superconductor would transform the efficiency of electronics. After decades of hunting, several key breakthroughs are inching us very close to this coveted prize.

By Jon Cartwright

Sep 29, 2024

Mitochondrial DNA Evolution: New Study Reveals How Selfish mtDNA Evolve and Thrive

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, evolution, mathematics

Vanderbilt University researchers, led by alumnus Bryan Gitschlag, have uncovered groundbreaking insights into the evolution of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). In their paper in Nature Communications titled “Multiple distinct evolutionary mechanisms govern the dynamics of selfish mitochondrial genomes in Caenorhabditis elegans,” the team reveals how selfish mtDNA, which can reduce the fitness of its host, manages to persist within cells through aggressive competition or by avoiding traditional selection pressures. The study combines mathematical models and experiments to explain the coexistence of selfish and cooperative mtDNA within the cell, offering new insights into the complex evolutionary dynamics of these essential cellular components.

Gitschlag, an alumnus of Vanderbilt University, conducted the research while in the lab of Maulik Patel, assistant professor of biological sciences. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in David McCandlish’s lab. Gitschlag collaborated closely with fellow Patel Lab members, including James Held, a recent PhD graduate, and Claudia Pereira, a former staff member of the lab.

Sep 29, 2024

Hubble Tension Solved? Astronomers Race To Save Standard Model Of Cosmology

Posted by in category: cosmology

The right value for the expansion rate of the universe continues to elude astronomers.

Sep 29, 2024

Consciousness and the Dennett Paradox

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Hoboken, April 20, 2024. Daniel Dennett’s death feels like the end of an era, the era of ultra-materialist, ultra-Darwinian, swaggering, know-it-all scientism. Who’s left? Dawkins? Dennett isn’t as smart as he thinks he is, I liked to say, because no one is. He lacked the self-doubt gene, but he forced me to doubt myself, he made me rethink what I think, and what more can you ask of a philosopher? I first encountered Dennett’s in-your-face brilliance in 1981 when I read The Mind’s I, and his name popped up at a consciousness shindig I attended just last week. To honor Dennett, I’m posting a free, revised version of my 2017 critique of his claim that consciousness is an “illusion.” I’m also coining a phrase, “the Dennett Paradox,” explained below.— John Horgan

Of all the odd notions to emerge from debates over consciousness, the oddest is that it doesn’t exist, at least not in the way we think it does. It is an illusion, like “Santa Claus” or “American democracy.”

Descartes said consciousness is the one undeniable fact of our existence, and I find it hard to disagree. I’m conscious right now, as I type this sentence, and you are presumably conscious as you read it (although I can’t be absolutely sure).

Sep 29, 2024

The Singularity Is Coming Soon. What Will The World Look Like In 2035?

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, singularity

The impacts of the Singularity and AI in the next 10 years.

Sep 29, 2024

Can AI feel distress? Inside a new framework to assess sentience

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI

From artificial-intelligence algorithms to zebrafish, this book take a precautionary approach to assessing how sentient such entities are.

Sep 29, 2024

Two Nobel Prize winners want to cancel their own CRISPR patents in Europe

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

There’s a surprise twist in the battle to control genome editing.

Sep 29, 2024

Earthquake Registering 4.2 Magnitude Hits California South of San Francisco

Posted by in category: futurism

AROMAS, Calif. (AP) — An earthquake registering magnitude 4.2 shook part of central California early Sunday, the United States Geological Survey reported.

The earthquake was detected at 2:47 a.m. local time about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) northwest of Aromas with a depth of 7.4 kilometers (4.59 miles), the science agency said on its website and in a social media post.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or major property damage, according to local media.

Sep 29, 2024

Bosses are firing Gen Z grads just months after hiring them—here’s what they say needs to change

Posted by in category: futurism

A problem we all expected to happen but now it finally comes on the daylight.


Here’s what they say needs to change.

Sep 29, 2024

Newly discovered Gene may Influence Longevity in Humans

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Sleep, fasting, exercise, green porridge, black coffee, a healthy social life—there is an abundance of advice out there on how to live a good, long life. Researchers are working hard to determine why some people live longer than others, and how we get the most out of our increasingly long lives.

Now researchers from the Center for Healthy Aging, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen have discovered that a particular protein known as OSER1 has a great influence on longevity. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.

“We identified this protein that can extend longevity. It is a novel pro-longevity factor, and it is a protein that exists in various animals, such as fruit flies, nematodes, silkworms, and in humans,” says Professor Lene Juel Rasmussen, senior author behind the new study.

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