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“We’ve assembled the most accurate list of Kepler planet candidates and their properties to date,” said Dr. Jack Lissauer. “NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered the majority of known exoplanets, and this new catalog will enable astronomers to learn more about their characteristics.”

Though NASA’s Kepler space telescope officially “retired” in October 2018, scientists are still pouring over data from the iconic exoplanet hunter that operated for more than nine years. Most recently, scientists came upon data that added four more exoplanets to the Kepler-385 system, which is located approximately 4,700 light-years from Earth and had previously been known to contain three exoplanets, all of which were discovered in 2014.

Artist’s illustration displaying two of the seven planets within the Kepler-385 system. (Credit: NASA/Daniel Rutter)

The data shows the sizes of all seven planets are between Earth and Neptune, also known as Super-Earths, with the two inner planets hypothesized to be rocky while the remaining five are hypothesized to be gaseous. All the planets are hypothesized to be exposed to greater amounts of radiation per area than all the planets in our solar system. This is due to its parent star being approximately 10 percent larger and 5 percent hotter than our own Sun. This finding comes as NASA is about to release an updated Kepler catalog, which contains almost 4,400 exoplanet candidates.

Continue reading “Seven Sweltering Exoplanets Found in Kepler Data” | >

Researchers have discovered that patterns of activity in our neurons are more influenced by the shape of the brain – its grooves, contours, and folds – than by its complex interconnections. ⁠

“The conventional view is that specific thoughts or sensations elicit activity in specific parts of the brain. However, our study reveals structured patterns of activity across nearly the entire brain, relating to thoughts and sensations in much the same way that a musical note arises from vibrations occurring along the entire length of a violin string, not just an isolated segment.”⁠

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Neural activity may be more influenced by the shape of the brain – its grooves, contours, and folds – than by its complex interconnections.

Continue reading “Have we got the brain all wrong? Study shows its shape is more important than its wiring” | >

The study, led by Jimo Borjigin, associate professor of molecular and integrative physiology and neurology at Michigan, was very small, featuring only four patients. But the findings echo animal model studies, where the presence of gamma waves in dying brains has also been observed, including in a previous study in rats that Borjigin and colleagues ran a decade earlier.

“These data demonstrate that the surge of gamma power and connectivity observed in animal models of cardiac arrest can be observed in select patients during the process of dying,” the researchers wrote in their paper, published in PNAS.

What are gamma waves? Gamma waves are high-frequency brain waves researchers believe represent multiple areas of the brain working together in complex thoughts. Take, for example, combining the sight, sound, and smell of a car to get a full picture of the vehicle, Ajmal Zemmar, a neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville uninvolved with the study, told Science.

Researchers have also found patterns of gamma waves in healthy people while dreaming, learning, and recalling lessons, Science reported, with some researchers associating them with consciousness itself. But the exact mechanisms behind gamma waves are “one of the biggest mysteries in neuroscience,” Zemmar said.

Continue reading “Complex brain activity detected in dying patients” | >

Summary: A new speech prosthetic offers hope for those with speech-impairing neurological disorders.

By converting brain signals into speech using high-density sensors and machine learning, the technology represents a significant advancement over current slower communication aids.

Though still in early stages, the device has achieved a 40% accuracy in decoding spoken data during limited trials and is moving towards a cordless design.

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Summary: Researchers challenge a 75-year-old neuroscience hypothesis, suggesting dendrites play a crucial role in brain computation, not just the neuronal soma.

Experiments conducted under non-physiological conditions revealed that neuron features like firing frequency and stimulation threshold are controlled by dendrites.

This groundbreaking discovery implies that dendrites could be pivotal in learning processes and may even influence our understanding of brain states and degenerative diseases.

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A team of archaeologists, geophysicists, geologists, and paleontologists affiliated with multiple institutions in Indonesia has found evidence showing that Gunung Padang is the oldest known pyramid in the world. In their paper published in the journal Archaeological Prospection, the group describes their multi-year study of the cultural heritage site.

Gunung Padang has for many years been considered a megalithic structure—it sits on top of an extinct volcano in West Java, Indonesia, and is considered by locals to be a sacred site. In 1998, it was declared to be a cultural heritage site. For many years there has been disagreement regarding the nature of the hill. Some have suggested it was made naturally with humans adding some adornments on top, while others have argued that evidence has suggested the hill was all or mostly man-made.

For this new study, the research team conducted a long-term, scientific study of the structure. Over the years 2011 to 2015, they studied the structure using seismic tomography, electrical resistivity tomography and ground-penetrating radar. They also drilled down into the hill and collected that allowed them to use radiocarbon dating techniques to learn the ages of the layers that make up the hill.

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Equivalent to an 80-year-old human reverting to the age of 26.

A groundbreaking study into anti-aging has reported significant rejuvenation effects using exosomes, tiny particles which can be extracted from biological fluids such as blood plasma.

Old and young rat. Image generated by DALL·E 3

In recent years, the prospect of being able to halt or even reverse aging has begun to seem less like science fiction and more like a scientific milestone that could emerge in the relatively near future.

Continue reading “New treatment reverses epigenetic age of rats by 67.4%” | >

The space shuttle Endeavour’s twin giant rockets will be hoisted by crane next week and affixed into place atop the craft’s aft skirts in a first step of assembling a full-stack configuration of the shuttle at the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.

The two solid rocket motors—each weighing 104,000 pounds and the size of a Boeing 757 fuselage—were transported by truck in early October from Mojave Air and Space Port to the science center in South Los Angeles.

“It’s actually pretty exciting. This is the first big tall pieces of the stack going into the building,” California Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph said. Each measures 116 feet and makes up most of the length of the 149-foot solid rocket boosters. At liftoff, the white solid rocket boosters were set underneath Endeavour’s wings and produced more than 80% of the lift during takeoff.

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01. AI’s model outperforms Meta’s Llama 2 on certain metricsStartup to offer open-source model; proprietary options laterA Chinese startup founded by computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee has become a unicorn in less than eight months on the strength of a new open-source artificial-intelligence model that outstrips Silicon Valley’s best, on at least certain metrics.

The company, 01.AI, has reached a valuation of more than $1 billion after a funding round that included Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s cloud unit, Lee said in an interview. The chief executive officer of venture firm Sinovation Ventures will also be CEO of the new startup. He began assembling the team for 01.AI in March and started… More.

Bloomberg connects decision makers to a dynamic network of data, delivering business and financial information, news and insights globally.

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When summarizing facts, ChatGPT technology makes things up about 3 percent of the time, according to research from a new start-up. A Google system’s rate was 27 percent.

When the San Francisco start-up OpenAI unveiled its ChatGPT online chatbot late last year.

When Google introduced a similar chatbot several weeks later, it spewed nonsense about the James Webb telescope. The next day, Microsoft’s new Bing chatbot offered up all sorts of bogus information about the Gap, Mexican nightlife and the… More.

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