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Feb 25, 2023

The First Atomic Bomb Created This ‘Forbidden’ Quasicrystal

Posted by in category: military

Scientists once thought their structures impossible. Now, the discovery of the oldest man-made quasicrystal could expand the world of nuclear forensics.

Feb 25, 2023

NASA Issues Award for Greener, More Fuel-Efficient Airliner of Future

Posted by in categories: space, sustainability

NASA announced Wednesday it has issued an award to The Boeing Company for the agency’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project, which seeks to inform a potential new generation of green single-aisle airliners.

Under a Funded Space Act Agreement, Boeing will work with NASA to build, test, and fly a full-scale demonstrator aircraft and validate technologies aimed at lowering emissions.

Over seven years, NASA will invest $425 million, while the company and its partners will contribute the remainder of the agreement funding, estimated at about $725 million. As part of the agreement, the agency also will contribute technical expertise and facilities.

Feb 24, 2023

Testing shows people generate more respiratory aerosols during endurance exercise than resistance exercise

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

A team of biology researchers from Universität der Bundeswehr, Technische Universität München and the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, has found that people exhale more aerosols when engaging in endurance exercise than they do when engaging in resistance exercise. The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

As the global pandemic has progressed, scientists across the globe have studied various aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread. One such area of study has been comparison of types of activities that are more or less conducive to transmission of the .

In this new study, the researchers looked at exercise options and their related risk. Going to gyms to exercise is a popular way to keep in shape. But doing so can put people at risk from both airborne and surface viral and bacterial infections.

Feb 24, 2023

Meta unveils a new large language model that can run on a single GPU

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, robotics/AI

On Friday, Meta announced a new AI-powered large language model (LLM) called LLaMA-13B that it claims can outperform OpenAI’s GPT-3 model despite being “10x smaller.” Smaller-sized AI models could lead to running ChatGPT-style language assistants locally on devices such as PCs and smartphones. It’s part of a new family of language models called “Large Language Model Meta AI,” or LLAMA for short.

“Unlike Chinchilla, PaLM, or GPT-3, we only use datasets publicly available, making our work compatible with open-sourcing and reproducible, while most existing models rely on data which is either not publicly available or undocumented,” tweeted project member Guillaume Lample.

Feb 24, 2023

Planning for AGI and beyond

Posted by in categories: economics, robotics/AI

Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence—AI systems that are generally smarter than humans— benefits all of humanity.

If AGI is successfully created, this technology could help us elevate humanity by increasing abundance, turbocharging the global economy, and aiding in the discovery of new scientific knowledge that changes the limits of possibility.

AGI has the potential to give everyone incredible new capabilities; we can imagine a world where all of us have access to help with almost any cognitive task, providing a great force multiplier for human ingenuity and creativity.

Feb 24, 2023

Psychedelics may help people reinvent themselves

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Researchers from the University of Cincinnati examined the post-treatment journals kept by participants in a 2014 smoking cessation study that found psychedelics were effective in helping some people quit smoking for years.

In a new paper published in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, researchers analyzed the participants’ own words and found that psychedelics combined with talk therapy often helped longtime smokers see themselves as nonsmokers. This new core identity might help explain why 80% of participants were able to stop for six months and 60% remained smoking-free after five years.

Continue reading “Psychedelics may help people reinvent themselves” »

Feb 24, 2023

Extinct in the wild: The precarious state of Earth’s most threatened group of species

Posted by in category: genetics

A review explains that species extinct in the wild may recover after reintroduction if ex situ populations maintain genetic diversity.

Feb 24, 2023

Human Mini-Brains Grafted Into Injured Rats Restored Their Sight

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

A study published in Cell Stem Cell this month concluded that they can. Using brain organoids made from human cells, a team led by Dr. Han-Chiao Isaac Chen at the University of Pennsylvania transplanted the mini-brains into adult rats with substantial damage to their visual cortex—the area that supports vision.

In just three months, the mini-brains merged with the rats’ brains. When the team shone flashing lights for the animals, the organoids spiked with electrical activity. In other words, the human mini-brain received signals from the rats’ eyes.

Continue reading “Human Mini-Brains Grafted Into Injured Rats Restored Their Sight” »

Feb 24, 2023

Unusual atom helps in search for universe’s building blocks

Posted by in categories: mathematics, particle physics

An unusual form of cesium atom is helping a University of Queensland-led research team unmask unknown particles that make up the universe.

Dr. Jacinda Ginges, from UQ’s School of Mathematics and Physics, said the unusual atom—made up of an ordinary cesium atom and an called a muon—may prove essential in better understanding the universe’s fundamental building blocks.

“Our universe is still such a mystery to us,” Dr. Ginges said.

Feb 24, 2023

Look! Hubble Spots a Space Caterpillar in the Carina Nebula

Posted by in category: futurism

This adorable little nebula makes its home in the cloudscape of the much larger Carina Nebula, about 7,500 light years away from Earth.


The tiny nebula is about 7,500 light years away, with no nice green leaves in sight.