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May 5, 2023

5 hurt after fire at Houston-area Shell petrochemical plant

Posted by in categories: chemistry, law enforcement

DEER PARK, Texas (AP) — Fire erupted at a petrochemical plant in the Houston area Friday, leaving five workers hospitalized and sending up a huge plume of smoke visible for miles.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said the fire was at a Shell USA Inc. facility in Deer Park, a suburb east of Houston.

Law enforcement received a call to help divert traffic around the plant just after 3 p.m., Harris County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Thomas Gilliland said. The city of Deer Park said in an advisory that there was no shelter-in-place order for residents.

May 5, 2023

Amazon opens robotic fulfillment center in Connecticut

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Amazon opened a robotics fulfillment center in Windsor, Connecticut, where workers will process orders alongside bots.

The 3.8 million square-foot facility will have “thousands of robotic systems such as mobile robots and robotic handling systems that help employees deliver for customers everyday,” an Amazon spokesperson told Supply Chain Dive.

More than 2,000 employees will work at the facility, which primarily handles smaller shipments such as books, electronics and toys. The company began processing and delivering customer orders in November 2022, according to a press release.

May 5, 2023

A new nondestructive method for assessing bioengineered artificial tissues

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, health

Engineering organs to replace damaged hearts or kidneys in the human body may seem like something out of a sci-fi movie, but the building blocks for this technology are already in place. In the burgeoning field of tissue engineering, live cells grow in artificial scaffolds to form biological tissue. But to evaluate how successfully the cells develop into tissue, researchers need a reliable method to monitor the cells as they move and multiply.

Now, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have developed a noninvasive method to count the in a three-dimensional (3D) . The real-time technique images millimeter-scale regions to assess the viability of the cells and how the cells are distributed within the scaffold—an important capability for researchers who manufacture complex biological tissues from simple materials such as living cells.

Their findings have been published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A.

May 5, 2023

How Close Are We To Cryogenic Sleep For Space Travel?

Posted by in category: space travel

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One of the most critical problems for space travel is the enormous distances at which objects are found. In the solar system alone, the planets are so far away that going from one to another would take several years or even decades while going to the closest stars would take centuries or thousands of years.
A human being cannot carry out such a long journey since we do not live that long, so a possible solution to this problem is cryogenic sleep or induced hibernation.
This is a method in which we could put astronauts into an artificial coma, putting them in capsules or chambers where they would remain asleep for decades or even centuries and then wake up until they reached their destination.
How possible is it to do this for modern science? Is there cryogenic sleep for space travel?
Let’s find out!

Continue reading “How Close Are We To Cryogenic Sleep For Space Travel?” »

May 5, 2023

Toyota’s Latest Concept Car: The LQ, Redefining the Relationship Between Driver and AI

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

Toyota’s latest electric LQ concept car satisfies the “huмan need to Ƅe engaged eмotionally” with an on-Ƅoard artificial intelligence agent naмed Yui.

The Toyota LQ is Ƅoth fully electric and equipped with an SAE leʋel four equiʋalent autoмated driʋing systeм, мeaning no huмan interʋention is needed to driʋe the ʋehicle.

Its мain feature howeʋer is the on-Ƅoard AI-powered, interactiʋe agent, called Yui, which proʋides a personalised мoƄility experience Ƅy learning and responding to the driʋer’s eмotional and physical state.

May 5, 2023

Czinger’s Bonkers New 3D-Printed Hypercar Could Spark an Automaking Revolution

Posted by in categories: military, robotics/AI

Helmeted and harnessed directly behind my pilot, I prepare for takeoff as the cockpit canopy shuts over us. It could be a scene from Top Gun: Maverick save for the fact that we’re not launching from an aircraft carrier but pulling out of pit lane at the Thermal Club’s track in a final prototype of the Czinger 21C hypercar.

The $2 million, carbon-fiber-bodied, tandem-seat Czinger 21C astounds with specs—1,250 hp, zero to 62 mph in 1.9 seconds, a claimed top speed of 253 mph—and recently blew away the McLaren P1’s production-car track record at Circuit of the Americas by six seconds. But more impressive—seriously—is the hybrid’s build process: The main structural components are designed by Czinger’s proprietary AI software and then 3D-printed. “These structures cannot be made more perfect for the requirements inputted,” says Kevin Czinger, who, along with his son Lukas, cofounded Los Angeles–based Czinger Vehicles. “You could have 1,000 engineers and they would never get to this solution.”

May 5, 2023

Why the ‘Sleeping Beauty Problem’ Is Keeping Mathematicians Awake

Posted by in category: mathematics

I’m in the 1/3rd group. I think.


A thought experiment that’s dividing mathematicians can help illuminate how belief shapes rational decisions.

May 5, 2023

Simple Tests Predict Dementia Risk in Older Women Years in Advance

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Dementia is a brain disease that affects around 55 million people worldwide and is characterized by the loss of cognitive functions like memory and reasoning.

The classic, early cognitive symptoms of dementia – like misplacing valuable objects, forgetting names, and finding planning difficult – can creep up slowly over time.

But there are other, more noticeable changes to the body that correlate with dementia risk and can be picked up over a decade before diagnosis. Recent research has found that hearing difficulties may be a warning sign of dementia that arises years before other symptoms of the disease.

May 5, 2023

Nightmares Can Be Silenced by a Single Piano Chord, Scientists Find

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Using non-invasive techniques to manipulate our emotions, it might be possible to curtail the screaming horrors that plague our sleep.

A study last year conducted on 36 patients diagnosed with a nightmare disorder showed that a combination of two simple therapies reduced the frequency of their bad dreams.

Scientists invited the volunteers to rewrite their most frequent nightmares in a positive light and then played sound associated with positive experiences as they slept.

May 5, 2023

Researchers use generative AI to design novel proteins

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

Researchers at the University of Toronto have developed an artificial intelligence system that can create proteins not found in nature using generative diffusion, the same technology behind popular image-creation platforms such as DALL-E and Midjourney.

The system will help advance the field of generative biology, which promises to speed by making the design and testing of entirely new therapeutic proteins more efficient and flexible.

“Our model learns from image representations to generate fully new proteins, at a very high rate,” says Philip M. Kim, a professor in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. “All our proteins appear to be biophysically real, meaning they fold into configurations that enable them to carry out specific functions within cells.”