Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 2143

A colorful, festive image sҺows different types of ligҺt containing tҺe remains of not one, but at least two exploded stars. TҺis supernova remnant is ƙnown as 30 Doradus B (30 Dor B for sҺort) and is part of a larger region of space wҺere stars Һave been continuously forming for tҺe past 8 to 10 million years. It is a complex landscape of darƙ clouds of gas, young stars, ҺigҺ-energy sҺocƙs, and superҺeated gas, located 160,000 ligҺt-years away from EartҺ in tҺe Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of tҺe Milƙy Way.

TҺe new image of 30 Dor B was made by combining X-ray data from NASA’s CҺandra X-ray Observatory (purple), optical data from tҺe Blanco 4-meter telescope in CҺile (orange and cyan), and infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (red). Optical data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was also added in blacƙ and wҺite to ҺigҺligҺt sҺarp features in tҺe image.

A team of astronomers led by Wei-An CҺen from tҺe National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan, Һave used over two million seconds of CҺandra observing time of 30 Dor B and its surroundings to analyze tҺe region. TҺey found a faint sҺell of X-rays tҺat extends about 130 ligҺt-years across. (For context, tҺe nearest star to tҺe sun is about four ligҺt-years away). TҺe CҺandra data also reveals tҺat 30 Dor B contains winds of particles blowing away from a pulsar, creating wҺat is ƙnown as a pulsar wind nebula.

Read more | >

Scientists have developed a new class of polymers that may kill bacteria without causing antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms are one of the most serious risks to global public health.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, antibiotic-resistant bacteria cause as many as 2.8 million infections in the United States each year.

Read more | >

LONDON, Jan 4 (Reuters Breakingviews) — Yemen’s Houthis are stirring up the Red Sea and shipping company investors. Denmark’s Maersk (MAERSKb. CO) and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd (HLAG.DE), for example, have gained some $18 billion in market value since mid-December, as militant attacks shut the Suez Canal, causing freight rates to double. Yet hopes for a lasting boost may be disappointed.

Maersk this week decided to shun the Suez Canal indefinitely, where 12% of global trade passes through. That’s after one of the $35 billion group’s vessels narrowly escaped a hijacking thanks to U.S. helicopters, in turn prompting Iran, which backs the Houthi rebels, to send in a warship. As a result, shipping groups are now re-routing major trade lanes including the Asia to Europe traffic around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, which adds at least 10 days of travel time.

The extra time and riskiness of the journey has caused freight rates to soar. Asia to Europe prices, for example, have nearly doubled since mid-December to more than $4,000 per forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU), Freightos data showed as of Jan. 3. While that’s still a far cry from the more than 10-fold increase during the pandemic, the result should be a windfall for shipping groups.

Read more | >

Astronomers from the Western Sydney University in Australia and elsewhere report the detection of a new pulsar wind nebula and a pulsar that powers it. The discovery, presented in a paper published Dec. 12 on the pre-print server arXiv, was made using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), as well as MeerKAT and Parkes radio telescopes.

Pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) are nebulae powered by the wind of a pulsar. Pulsar wind is composed of charged particles; when it collides with the pulsar’s surroundings, in particular with the slowly expanding supernova ejecta, it develops a PWN.

Particles in PWNe lose their energy to radiation and become less energetic with distance from the central pulsar. Multiwavelength studies of these objects, including X-ray observations, especially using spatially-integrated spectra in the X-ray band, have the potential to uncover important information about particle flow in these nebulae. This could unveil important insights into the nature of PWNe in general.

Read more | >

Today, we are excited to take the next significant step forward and introduce the Copilot key to Windows 11 PCs. In this new year, we will be ushering in a significant shift toward a more personal and intelligent computing future where AI will be seamlessly woven into Windows from the system, to the silicon, to the hardware. This will not only simplify people’s computing experience but also amplify it, making 2024 the year of the AI PC.

Read more | >

In a recent study published in Molecular Psychiatry, researchers explored the effects of a small humanin-like peptide 2 (SHLP2) variant on mitochondrial function.

Mitochondria are implicated in Parkinson’s disease (PD) pathogenesis. Mitochondrial-derived peptides (MDPs) are microproteins encoded from small open reading frames (sORFs) in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). SHLP2 is an MDP with an essential role in multiple cellular processes, and it improves mitochondrial metabolism by increasing biogenesis and respiration and reducing oxidation.

Recent studies link mitochondrial single nucleotide polymorphisms (mtSNPs) within coding regions of MDPs to age-related deficits. For instance, m.2706 A G, an mtSNP in humanin, predicts reduced circulating levels of humanin and worse cognitive decline. Moreover, another mtSNP, m.2158 T C, is associated with reduced PD risk, albeit the underlying mechanisms are unknown.

Read more | >