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We are all ultimately overtaken by age, yet for some people, the correct genes can make the journey into old age rather slow.

Italian researchers made a unique discovery regarding people who survive well into their 90s and beyond a few years ago: they frequently possess a variant of the gene BPIFB4 that guards against cardiovascular disease and maintains the heart in excellent condition for a longer period of time.

Swiss startup Sirius Aviation has unveiled what it says is the world’s first hydrogen VTOL (vertical take off and landing) aircraft — and an ambitious plan to have it in the air by 2025.

The challenge: Electric VTOLs (eVTOLs) are widely promoted as the next big thing in aviation, and dozens of companies developing their own versions of the vehicles — fleets of flying electric taxis planned to zip around cities and over traffic jams.

Like helicopters, eVTOLs can lift off and land without a runway, which means they can operate without airports or runways.

It’s not often you encounter a device that looks like it came straight out of a movie set. But Lenovo’s Project Crystal, supposedly the world’s first laptop with a transparent microLED display, is an example of sci-fi come to life.

Currently there are no plans to turn Project Crystal into a retail product. Instead Lenovo’s latest concept device was commissioned by its ThinkPad division to explore the potential of transparent microLED panels and AI integration. The most obvious use case would be sharing info somewhere, like a doctor’s office or a hotel desk. Instead of needing to flip a screen around, you could simply reverse the display via software, allowing anyone on the other side to see it while getting an in-depth explanation.

What can the night sky tell us about the expansion of the universe?

It’s a loaded question, one that researchers across the globe have been trying to answer for decades. Since 2013, they’ve been helped by the Dark Energy Survey (DES), a collaboration of more than 400 scientists at 25 institutions. At Penn, this includes Masao Sako, Arifa Hasan Ahmad and Nada Al Shoaibi Presidential Professor of Physics and Astronomy; Bhuvnesh Jain, Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Natural Sciences; Gary Bernstein, Reese W. Flower Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics; and a handful of others from the Department of Physics & Astronomy.

In 2019, the DES finished collecting data, but analysis and discoveries continue, including one that Sako and colleagues announced recently in which they validated the “cosmic acceleration” model and dark energy’s role in it. That research is one of five recent studies detailed below, in this second iteration of Omnia’s new research roundup.

Passengers who book a special Delta flight will have the chance to witness the total solar eclipse in April from a unique vantage point: 30,000 feet in the air.

The airline announced Monday that it will operate a flight on April 8 from Dallas-Fort Worth to Detroit, timed to give people on board the chance to spend as much time as possible within the eclipse’s “path of totality.”

The eclipse is expected to be a major event because it will pass over several densely populated areas of North America, crossing Mexico, the continental U.S. and a small part of eastern Canada. In the U.S. alone, millions of skywatchers from Texas to Maine will have the chance to witness the rare astronomical event.