Lifeboat Foundation

Astronomers have observed the outer edge of a disk of matter surrounding a feeding supermassive black hole for the first time.

These observations could help scientists better measure the structures that surround these cosmic monsters, understand how black holes feed on those structures and put together how this feeding influences the evolution of galaxies that house such phenomena.

Male fruit flies don’t usually like each other. Socially, they reject their fellow males and zero in on the females they discern via chemical receptors—or so scientists thought.

New research from Cornell University biologists suggests the fruit fly’s visual system, not just chemical receptors, are deeply involved with their social behaviors. The work sheds light on the possible origin of differences in human social behaviors, such as those seen in people with bipolar disorder and autism.

The paper is published in Current Biology.

National University of Singapore (NUS) scientists demonstrated a conceptual breakthrough by fabricating atomically precise quantum antidots (QAD) using self-assembled single vacancies (SVs) in a two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD).

Quantum dots confine electrons on a nanoscale level. In contrast, an antidot refers to a region characterized by a potential hill that repels electrons. By strategically introducing antidot patterns (“voids”) into carefully designed antidot lattices, intriguing artificial structures emerge.

These structures exhibit periodic potential modulation to change 2D electron behavior, leading to novel transport properties and unique quantum phenomena. As the trend towards miniaturized devices continue, it is important to accurately control the size and spacing of each antidot at the atomic level. This control together with resilience to environmental perturbations is crucial to address technological challenges in nanoelectronics.

Graphene-based two-dimensional materials have recently emerged as a focus of scientific exploration due to their exceptional structural, mechanical, electrical, optical, and thermal properties. Among them, nanosheets based on graphene-oxide (GO), an oxidized derivative of graphene, with ultrathin and extra wide dimensions and oxygen-rich surfaces are quite promising.

Functional groups containing oxygen, such as carboxy and acidic hydroxy groups, generate dense negative charges, making GO nanosheets colloidally stable in water. As a result, they are valuable building blocks for next-generation functional soft materials.

In particular, thermoresponsive GO nanosheets have garnered much attention for their wide-ranging applications, from smart membranes and surfaces and recyclable systems to hydrogel actuators and biomedical platforms. However, the prevailing synthetic strategies for generating thermoresponsive behaviors entail modifying GO nanosheet surfaces with thermoresponsive polymers such as poly (N-isopropylacrylamide). This process is complex and has potential limitations in subsequent functionalization efforts.

North Korea-linked hackers have stolen hundreds of millions of crypto to fund the regime’s nuclear weapons programs, research shows.

So far this year, from January to Aug. 18, North Korea-affiliated hackers stole $200 million worth of crypto — accounting for over 20% of all stolen crypto this year, according to blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs.

“In recent years, there has been a marked rise in the size and scale of cyber attacks against cryptocurrency-related businesses by North Korea. This has coincided with an apparent acceleration in the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” said TRM Labs in a June discussion with North Korea experts.

While regulators move to create the rules and regulations for personal air vehicles, eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) crafts and flying taxis, the ecosystem of managing all aspects of those flying vehicles on the ground is getting underway.

The flying vehicles, despite not needing a traditional runway since they take off straight up and land vertically, still need a place to do that and be serviced and maintained.

Since most are electric, the flying vehicles need battery charging or changing between flights. They also need a facility for passengers to get on and off and a place to leave their car or have Uber drop them off or pick them up.

A comprehensive review in the journal Cell outlines a unified framework for classifying and validating aging biomarkers, aiming to streamline their integration into clinical research and practice. The study categorizes biomarkers into types like molecular, functional, and clinical, and sets criteria for their feasibility, validity, and applicability, all with the goal of better understanding and intervening in the aging process.

“Operating and navigating in home environments is very challenging for robots. Every home is unique, with a different combination of objects in distinct configurations that change over time. To address the diversity a robot faces in a home environment, we teach the robot to perform arbitrary tasks with a variety of objects, rather than program the robot to perform specific predefined tasks with specific objects. In this way, the robot learns to link what it sees with the actions it is taught. When the robot sees a specific object or scenario again, even if the scene has changed slightly, it knows what actions it can take with respect to what it sees.

We teach the robot using an immersive telepresence system, in which there is a model of the robot, mirroring what the robot is doing. The teacher sees what the robot is seeing live, in 3D, from the robot’s sensors. The teacher can select different behaviors to instruct and then annotate the 3D scene, such as associating parts of the scene to a behavior, specifying how to grasp a handle, or drawing the line that defines the axis of rotation of a cabinet door. When teaching a task, a person can try different approaches, making use of their creativity to use the robot’s hands and tools to perform the task. This makes leveraging and using different tools easy, allowing humans to quickly transfer their knowledge to the robot for specific situations.

Continue reading “Toyota Robots That Do Housework!” »

A groundbreaking medical procedure for those with kidney stones will soon be offered at the University of Washington after more than two decades of research.