Lifeboat Foundation

Morphological study of open clusters can provide observational evidence for tracing the formation mechanism of star clusters and help to explore the evolution of star clusters.

The morphology of open clusters on the two-dimensional (2D) projection planes mostly conforms to the core-shell structure. However, whether this layered structure actually exists in three-dimensional (3D) space is not known.

Recently, researchers from the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory (XAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed a rose diagram overlaying method based on Gaia data to study the 3D layered structure of open cluster samples within 500 parsec (pc) near the sun.

Astronomers have captured the first direct image of a black hole as it blasts out a powerful jet.

The new photo features the monstrous supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87), the first black hole ever directly imaged by humanity.

Israeli company Steakholder Foods has announced that it successfully 3D printed the first ready-to-cook cultivated grouper fish product.

Credit: Steakholder Foods.

Continue reading “World’s first cultivated grouper fillet” »

University of Alberta researchers have developed a new catalyst that could revolutionize how we generate power and purify water. When placed in any type of water and provided with a small amount of power, the catalyst produces hydrogen that can be fed into a fuel cell to generate electricity along with distilled water that is safe to drink.

The catalyst was discovered almost entirely by chance when Robin Hamilton was creating an electrode for an undergraduate student working on a waste biomass upcycling project. He mixed up a combination of powders and allowed them to sit overnight in water, intending to finish the cell the following day. When he returned in the morning, the mixture was bubbling—a reaction that was extremely out of the ordinary.

“It ends up being that when you mix these two things together, they interact, they work together and hydrogen comes off. It floored us,” says Hamilton, a senior research associate in the Department of Chemistry.

The supermassive black hole has a mass billions of times that of the sun and is around 55 million light-years from Earth. Scientists used data gathered from more than a dozen telescopes worldwide to compile the picture.

Suvorexant (Belsomra), a dual orexin receptor antagonist approved for insomnia, reduced levels of tau phosphorylation and amyloid beta, a small clinical trialopens in a new tab or window showed.

The ratio of phosphorylated tau-threonine-181 (p-tau-181) to unphosphorylated tau-threonine-181 decreased 10% to 15% in cognitively normal adults treated with suvorexant 20 mg compared with placebo, reported Brendan Lucey, MD, MSCI, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and co-authors.

Amyloid-beta levels fell 10% to 20% compared with placebo starting 5 hours after suvorexant administration, the researchers wrote in Annals of Neurologyopens in a new tab or window.

Continue reading “Alzheimer’s Proteins Reduced by Sleep Drug” »

In this video I discuss new Photonic Chip for Quantum Computing.

The Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-023-01193-1
The mentioned Video — Million Qubit Quantum Computer from Intel: https://youtu.be/j9eYQ_ggqJk.
Support me at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AnastasiInTech

Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC have discovered that being exposed to a mixture of synthetic chemicals commonly present in the environment affects multiple crucial biological processes in both children and young adults. These processes include the metabolism of fats and amino acids.

<div class=””> <div class=””><br />Amino acids are a set of organic compounds used to build proteins. There are about 500 naturally occurring known amino acids, though only 20 appear in the genetic code. Proteins consist of one or more chains of amino acids called polypeptides. The sequence of the amino acid chain causes the polypeptide to fold into a shape that is biologically active. The amino acid sequences of proteins are encoded in the genes. Nine proteinogenic amino acids are called “essential” for humans because they cannot be produced from other compounds by the human body and so must be taken in as food.<br /></div> </div>

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have unraveled the processes that give astrocytes, the most abundant glial cell in the brain, their special bushy shape, which is fundamental for brain function. They report in the journal Nature that neuronal activity is necessary and sufficient for astrocytes to develop their complex shape, and interrupting this developmental process results in disrupted brain function.

“Astrocytes play diverse roles that are vital for proper brain function,” said first author Yi-Ting Cheng, a graduate student in Dr. Benjamin Deneen’s lab at Baylor. “For instance, they support the activity of other essential brain cells, neurons; participate in the formation and function of synapses, or neuron-to-neuron connections; release neurotransmitters, chemicals that mediate neuronal communication; and make the blood-brain barrier.”

In the adult brain, the bushy shape of astrocytes is fundamentally linked to effective brain function. The ends of the branched-out astrocyte structure interact with neurons and regulate synaptic activity.