Lifeboat Foundation

Just as space holds infinite mysteries, when we zoom in at the level of biomolecules (one trillion times smaller than a meter), there is still so much to learn.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Catherine Royer is dedicated to understanding the conformational landscapes of biomolecules and how they modulate cell function. When biomolecules receive certain inputs, it can cause the atoms to rearrange and the biomolecule to change shape. This change in shape affects their function in cells, so understanding conformational dynamics is critical for drug development.

In research recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Royer and her team examined the conformational dynamics of a human transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) under high hydrostatic pressure. The high pressure led to an increased population of the tRNA-excited states that normally exist at very low levels, allowing new insights into tRNA function.

Most of us don’t think of atoms as having their own unique vibrations, but they do. In fact, it’s a feature so fundamental to nature’s building blocks that a team of University of Washington researchers recently observed and used this phenomenon in their research study. By studying the light atoms emitted when stimulated by a laser, they were able to detect vibrations sometimes referred to as atomic “breathing.”

The result is a breakthrough that may one day allow us to build better tools for many kinds of quantum technologies.

Led by Mo Li, a professor of photonics and nano devices in both the UW Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the UW Physics Department, the researchers set out to build a better quantum emitter, or QE, one that could be incorporated into optical circuits.

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ElevenLabs, a year-old AI startup from former Google and Palantir employees that is focused on creating new text-to-speech and voice cloning tools, has raised $19 million in a series A round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), former Github CEO Nat Friedman and former Apple AI leader Daniel Gross, with additional participation from Credo Ventures, Concept Ventures and an array of strategic angel investors including Instagram’s co-founder Mike Krieger, Oculus VR co-founder Brendan Iribe and many others.

Continue reading “Now hear this: Voice cloning AI startup ElevenLabs nabs $19M from a16z and other heavy hitters” »

A recent study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition determined whether marine omega-3 fatty acid (FA) consumption increases atrial fibrillation (AF) risk among United States military veterans.

Study: Dietary ω-3 fatty acids and the incidence of atrial fibrillation in the Million Veteran Program. Image Credit: Natali _ Mis / Shutterstock.com.

In a remarkable revelation, scientists have observed that our closest supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, has emerged from a prolonged state of dormancy and intensified its luminosity by a factor of a million.

Situated at the core of the Milky Way, this black hole is approximately four million times more massive than the Sun. Previously considered quiescent, it suddenly displayed heightened activity around 200 years ago, devouring cosmic objects that ventured too close, reported the Independent.

The resulting surge in brightness occurred rapidly, analogous to a hidden glow-worm in a forest instantly radiating sunlight, according to researchers. While the precise cause of this awakening remains unknown, scientists are dedicated to studying the black hole’s behaviour in order to unravel the factors that trigger such transitions from quiescence to activity.

“Learn to code.” That three-word pejorative is perpetually on the lips and at the fingertips of internet trolls and tech bros whenever media layoffs are announced. A useless sentiment in its own right, but with the recent advent of code generating AIs, knowing the ins and outs of a programming language like Python could soon be about as useful as knowing how to fluently speak a dead language like Sanskrit. In fact, these genAIs are already helping professional software developers code faster and more effectively by handling much of the programming grunt work.

Two of today’s most widely distributed and written coding languages are Java and Python. The former almost single handedly revolutionized cross-platform operation when it was released in the mid-’90s and now drives “everything from smartcards to space vehicles,” as Java Magazine put it in 2020 — not to mention Wikipedia’s search function and all of Minecraft. The latter actually predates Java by a few years and serves as the code basis for many modern apps like Dropbox, Spotify and Instagram.

They differ significantly in their operation in that Java needs to be compiled (having its human-readable code translated into computer-executable machine code) before it can run. Python, meanwhile, is an interpreted language, which means that its human code is converted into machine code line-by-line as the program executes, enabling it to run without first being compiled. The interpretation method allows code to be more easily written for multiple platforms while compiled code tends to be focused to a specific processor type. Regardless of how they run, the actual code-writing process is nearly identical between the two: Somebody has to sit down, crack open a text editor or Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and actually write out all those lines of instruction. And until recently, that somebody typically was a human.

NASA and other space agencies have captured vivid images of galaxies, planets, moons, stars, and beyond in 2023. Here are some of the most stunning cosmic photos, so far.

If those two examples didn’t make you feel like an underachiever, we now have news of yet another child prodigy. AP reported on Alena Wicker, a 12-year-old who has been accepted to Arizona State University (ASU) and who aims to become a NASA engineer by age 16.

Researchers have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells, according to media reports. Remarkably, these embryos have reportedly been created from embryonic stem cells, meaning they do not require sperm and ova.

This development, widely described as a breakthrough that could help scientists learn more about human development and genetic disorders, was revealed this week in Boston at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

The research, announced by Professor Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz of the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology, has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But Żernicka-Goetz told the meeting these human-like embryos had been made by reprogramming human embryonic stem cells.