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Dec 18, 2024

How a Rare Mineral Is Illuminating Four Million Years of Solar History

Posted by in categories: climatology, evolution, nuclear energy, particle physics, sustainability

The LOREX experiment utilizes lorandite ore to gauge historical solar neutrino flux, revealing insights about the Sun’s development and climatic effects through advanced decay rate measurements.

The Sun, Earth’s life-sustaining powerhouse, generates immense energy through nuclear fusion while emitting a steady stream of neutrinos — subatomic particles that reveal its inner workings. While modern neutrino detectors shed light on the Sun’s current behavior, key questions remain about its stability over millions of years — a timeframe encompassing human evolution and major climate changes.

Addressing these questions is the mission of the LORandite EXperiment (LOREX), which depends on accurately determining the solar neutrino cross-section for thallium. An international team of scientists has now achieved this crucial measurement using the unique Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) at GSI/FAIR in Darmstadt. Their groundbreaking results, advancing our understanding of the Sun’s long-term stability, have been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Dec 18, 2024

AI Protein Discovery Unlocks Secrets of Life’s Beginning

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

Research utilizing AI tool AlphaFold has revealed a new protein complex that initiates the fertilization process between sperm and egg, shedding light on the molecular interactions essential for successful fertilization.

Genetic research has uncovered many proteins involved in the initial contact between sperm and egg. However, direct proof of how these proteins bind or form complexes to enable fertilization remained unclear. Now, Andrea Pauli’s lab at the IMP, working with international collaborators, has combined AI-driven structural predictions with experimental evidence to reveal a key fertilization complex. Their findings, based on studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, were published in the journal Cell.

Continue reading “AI Protein Discovery Unlocks Secrets of Life’s Beginning” »

Dec 18, 2024

Red Light Therapy Improves Eye Function: Glen Jeffery, PhD

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension

Join us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/MichaelLustgartenPhD

Discount Links/Affiliates:
Blood testing (where I get the majority of my labs): https://www.ultalabtests.com/partners/michaellustgarten.

Continue reading “Red Light Therapy Improves Eye Function: Glen Jeffery, PhD” »

Dec 18, 2024

SpaceX’s Starship Flight 7 test flight gets FAA launch license. But when will it fly?

Posted by in category: space travel

SpaceX’s next Starship megarocket now has a license to fly.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Tuesday (Dec. 17) issued a launch license for SpaceX’s upcoming Starship Flight 7 test flight, clearing the way for the company’s next launch of the world’s largest rocket from South Texas. The launch license comes on the heels of several Starship engine tests by SpaceX to check the flight readiness of its seventh Ship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket booster.

Dec 18, 2024

The Dark Energy Pushing our Universe Apart may not be what it seems, scientists say

Posted by in categories: cosmology, mathematics

Distant, ancient galaxies are giving scientists more hints that a mysterious force called dark energy may not be what they thought.

Astronomers know that the universe is being pushed apart at an accelerating rate and they have puzzled for decades over what could possibly be speeding everything up. They theorize that a powerful, constant force is at play, one that fits nicely with the main mathematical model that describes how the universe behaves. But they can’t see it and they don’t know where it comes from, so they call it dark energy.

It is so vast it is thought to make up nearly 70% of the universe—while ordinary matter like all the stars and planets and people make up just 5%.

Dec 18, 2024

AI Startup Databricks Hits $62 Billion Valuation In Record VC Round

Posted by in categories: finance, robotics/AI

Databricks has secured a $62 billion valuation after raising a whopping $10 billion in one of the largest venture capital funding rounds in history!

Dec 18, 2024

Beyond AI: Preparing For Artificial Superintelligence

Posted by in categories: business, economics, information science, robotics/AI

In 1956, a group of pioneering minds gathered at Dartmouth College to define what we now call artificial intelligence (AI). Even in the early 1990s when colleagues and I were working for early-stage expert systems software companies, the notion that machines could mimic human intelligence was an audacious one. Today, AI drives businesses, automates processes, creates content, and personalizes experiences in every industry. It aids and abets more economic activity than we “ignorant savages” (as one of the founding fathers of AI, Marvin Minsky, referred to our coterie) could have ever imagined. Admittedly, the journey is still early—a journey that may take us from narrow AI to artificial general intelligence (AGI) and ultimately to artificial superintelligence (ASI).

As business and technology leaders, it’s crucial to understand what’s coming: where AI is headed, how far off AGI and ASI might be, and what opportunities and risks lie ahead. To ignore this evolution would be like a factory owner in 1900 dismissing electricity as a passing trend.

Let’s first take stock of where we are. Modern AI is narrow AI —technologies built to handle specific tasks. Whether it’s a large language model (LLM) chatbot responding to customers, algorithms optimizing supply chains, or systems predicting loan defaults, today’s AI excels at isolated functions.

Dec 18, 2024

UK plans to favour AI firms over creators with a new copyright regime

Posted by in categories: law, robotics/AI

One of the biggest uncertainties in the ongoing AI revolution is whether these systems can legally be trained on copyrighted data. Now, the UK says it plans to clarify the matter with a change to the law.

By Chris Stokel-Walker

Dec 18, 2024

Breakthrough in treatment approach showing promise in the fight against glioblastoma, the deadliest and most aggressive type of brain cancer

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience

PHOENIX — Mayo Clinic announces the results of an innovative treatment approach that may offer improvement in overall survival in older patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma while maintaining quality of life. Glioblastoma is the most lethal type of primary brain cancer due to its aggressive nature and its treatment-resistant characteristics. It is the most common form of primary brain cancer. Each year an estimated 14,500 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with the disease. Results of Mayo Clinic’s phase 2, single-arm study are published in The Lancet Oncology.

Sujay Vora, M.D., radiation oncologist at Mayo Clinic, led a team of researchers investigating the use of short-course hypofractionated proton beam therapy incorporating advanced imaging techniques in patients over the age of 65 with newly diagnosed World Health Organization (WHO) grade 4, malignant glioblastoma.

Results showed that 56% of participants were alive after 12 months and the median overall survival was 13.1 months.” As compared to prior phase 3 studies in an older population having a median survival of only six to nine months, these results are promising,” says Dr. Vora. “In some cases, patients with tumors that have favorable genetics lived even longer, with a median survival of 22 months. We are very excited about these results.”

Dec 18, 2024

Jupiter’s Hellish Moon Isn’t Powered by a Hidden Ocean of Magma, Study Finds

Posted by in category: space

Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active body in our Solar System, with around 400 volcanoes and extensive lava flows spread across its surface – but contrary to what scientists thought, a new study suggests this geological chaos is not powered by a global, moonwide ocean of magma below the surface.

Using images snapped by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, gravitational measurements, and historical data about Io’s tidal deformations, an international team of researchers has determined that the moon’s volcanoes are powered by a scattering of magma chambers in an otherwise solid mantle.

Continue reading “Jupiter’s Hellish Moon Isn’t Powered by a Hidden Ocean of Magma, Study Finds” »

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