The fascinating stories and secrets behind hit Japanese products, plus parts and machines that boast the top share of niche markets. In the first half: the story behind canned bread developed by a Japanese bakery in 1996 which doesn’t go stale easily and has a long shelf-life. In the second half: a machine that makes dorayaki, a Japanese sweet with red bean paste sandwiched by pancakes. We introduce this unique machine that’s also being used to make other sandwich pancakes around the world.
A new study suggests there might be a way to prove the notorious Anthropic Principle false.
Asus is only teasing its new Zenbook at this time, so we’ll have to wait until its formal introduction at the Always Incredible launch event on January 7 to get the full scoop. Given the battery life claims, however, it is likely that this new Copilot+ PC will be powered by a Snapdragon X chip.
You may not know that it was a 2017 Google research paper that kickstarted modern generative AI by introducing the Transformer, a groundbreaking model that reshaped language processing.
In the words of one of the researchers: “Black holes are not as destructive as we thought”
To make this record-breaking pass, the nearly 10-foot-long probe has made 22 orbits around the sun, allowing it to swoop ever deeper into the corona. And while doing so, the spacecraft has been continually picking up speed. When you repeatedly swing by such a massive and gravitationally powerful object — the sun is a sphere of hot gas 333,000 times as massive as our planet — you accrue lots of speed. Out in space, there’s nothing to stop this motion.
On this close flyby, the probe reached some 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 kilometers per hour).
“That’s like going from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. in one second,” marveled Raouafi. “It’s fascinating. It’s the fastest human-made object ever.”
LLM models are already capable of diagnosing scientific outputs, but, until now, had no physical agency to actually perform’ experiments.
Tiny, ant-inspired magnetic microbots are capable of scaling obstacles, transporting heavy loads, and redefining medical technology.
The sun released over 50 X-class solar flares in 2024! Here we take a look at some of the best.
The standard medication levodopa does not always work against tremors in Parkinson’s disease, especially in stressful situations. Propranolol, however, does work during stress, providing insight into the role of the stress system in tremors. MRI scans reveal that propranolol directly inhibits activity in the brain circuit that controls tremors. Doctors may consider this medication when levodopa is ineffective.
People with Parkinson’s disease report that tremors worsen during stressful situations. “Tremors act as a sort of barometer for stress; you see this in all people with Parkinson’s,” says neurologist Rick Helmich from Radboud university medical center.
The commonly used drug levodopa usually helps with tremors, but it tends to be less effective during stress, when tremors are often at their worst. Helmich and his team wanted to investigate whether a medication targeting the stress system could help and how this effect of stress on tremors works in the brain. The work is published in the journal Annals of Neurology.
