Lifeboat Foundation

Bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) serve as natural reservoirs for many zoonotic pathogens worldwide, including vector-borne pathogens. However, bat-associated parasitic arthropods and their microbiota are thus far not thoroughly described in many regions across the globe, nor is their role in the spillover of pathogens to other vertebrate species well understood. Basic epidemiological research is needed to disentangle the complex ecological interactions among bats, their specific ectoparasites and microorganisms they harbor. Some countries, such as Ukraine, are particularly data-deficient in this respect as the ectoparasitic fauna is poorly documented there and has never been screened for the presence of medically important microorganisms. Therefore, the aims of this study were to provide first data on this topic.

A total of 239 arthropod specimens were collected from bats. They belonged to several major groups of external parasites, including soft ticks, fleas, and nycteribiid flies from six chiropteran species in Northeastern Ukraine. The ectoparasites were individually screened for the presence of DNA of Rickettsia spp., Anaplasma/Ehrlichia spp., Bartonella spp., Borrelia spp., and Babesia spp. with conventional PCRs. Positive samples were amplified at several loci, sequenced for species identification, and subjected to phylogenetic analysis.

Rickettsia DNA was detected exclusively in specimens of the soft tick, Carios vespertilionis (7 out of 43 or 16.3%). Sequencing and phylogenetic analysis revealed high similarity to sequences from Rickettsia parkeri and several other Rickettsia species. Bacteria from the family Anaplasma taceae were detected in all groups of the ectoparasites (51%, 122/239 samples), belonging to the genera Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, and Wolbachia. The detection of Bartonella spp. was successful only in fleas (Nycteridopsylla eusarca) and bat flies (Nycteribia koleantii, N. pedicularia), representing 12.1% (29÷239) of the collected ectoparasites. No DNA of Babesia or Borrelia species was identified in the samples.

Geert Lovink is a Dutch media theorist, internet critic, and author of Dark Fiber (2002), My First Recession (2003), Zero Comments (2007), Networks Without a Cause (2012), Social Media Abyss (2016), Sad by Design (2019), Stuck on the Platform (2022) and Extinction Internet (2022). In 2004 he founded the Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. From 2004–2012 he was associate professor in the new media program of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam. In 2005–2006 he was a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin. From 2007–2017 he was Professor of Media Theory at the European Graduate School. In December 2021 Geert Lovink was appointed Professor of Art and Network Cultures at the Art History Department, Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam.

In this interview, we talked with Geert Lovink about his latest essay Extinction Internet, Mark Fisher’s hauntology, the memory of Bernard Stiegler, the XR movement, and the phantoms of accelerationism.

Alessandro Sbordoni: Today, platform realism makes us feel like another internet is no longer possible. In your essay, Extinction Internet, you argue that the internet is ending and that it is time for theorists, artists, activists, designers, and developers to imagine what is after the end of the internet as we know it. What can we do as internet users?

Powered by supermassive black holes swallowing matter in the centers of galaxies, active galactic nuclei are the most powerful compact steady sources of energy in the universe. The brightest active galactic nuclei have long been known to far outshine the combined light of the billions of stars in their host galaxies.

A new study indicates that scientists have substantially underestimated the energy output of these objects by not recognizing the extent to which their light is dimmed by dust.

“When there are intervening small particles along our line of sight, this makes things behind them look dimmer. We see this at sunset on any clear day when the sun looks fainter,” said Martin Gaskell, a research associate in astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz.

By Brookhaven National Laboratory

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have successfully demonstrated that autonomous methods can discover new materials. The artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technique led to the discovery of three new nanostructures, including a first-of-its-kind nanoscale “ladder.” The research was published today in Science Advances…

The newly discovered structures were formed by a process called self-assembly, in which a material’s molecules organize themselves into unique patterns. Scientists at Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) are experts at directing the self-assembly process, creating templates for materials to form desirable arrangements for applications in microelectronics, catalysis, and more. Their discovery of the nanoscale ladder and other new structures further widens the scope of self-assembly’s applications.

Seemingly spontaneously coordinated swarm behavior exhibited by large groups of animals is a fascinating and striking collective phenomenon. Experiments conducted by researchers at Leipzig University on laser-controlled synthetic microswimmers now show that supposed swarm intelligence can sometimes also be the result of simple and generic physical mechanisms.

A team of physicists led by Professor Frank Cichos and Professor Klaus Kroy found that swarms of synthetically produced Brownian microswimmers appear to spontaneously decide to orbit their target point instead of heading for it directly. They have just published their findings in the renowned journal Nature Communications.

“Scientific research on herd and flock behavior is usually based on field observations. In such cases, it is usually difficult to reliably record the internal states of the herd animals,” Kroy said. As a result, the interpretation of observations frequently relies on plausible assumptions as to which individual behavioral rules are necessary for the complex collective groups under observation.

The maximum lifespan varies more than 100-fold in mammals. This experiment of nature may uncover of the evolutionary forces and molecular features that define longevity. To understand the relationship between gene expression variation and maximum lifespan, we carried out a comparative transcriptomics analysis of liver, kidney, and brain tissues of 106 mammalian species. We found that expression is largely conserved and very limited genes exhibit common expression patterns with longevity in all the three organs analyzed. However, many pathways, e.g., “Insulin signaling pathway”, and “FoxO signaling pathway”, show accumulated correlations with maximum lifespan across mammals. Analyses of selection features further reveal that methionine restriction related genes whose expressions associated with longevity, are under strong selection in long-lived mammals, suggesting that a common approach could be utilized by natural selection and artificial intervention to control lifespan. These results suggest that natural lifespan regulation via gene expression is likely to be driven through polygenic model and indirect selection.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEuyA6k7ntc

More Science Fiction Audiobooks : https://bit.ly/3Lx162h.

If you like this book, please buy the paper to support the author.

Continue reading “Death’s End” »

Italian robotics startup Robotor has crafted a machine that is just as good at creating marble masterpieces out of Carrara marble than human artists.

The Three Body Problem series aka The Remembrance of Earth’s Past Trilogy is one of the coolest modern science fiction series that I’ve read. Reading about humanity’s struggle throughout the eons to survive in a hostile cosmos is beyond compelling to me. In this video I’ll pick up where I left off in the last video. At the beginning of the Deterrence Era, which brought peace between the Trisolarans and humanity. Keep in mind this video will have spoilers for the books!

Get This book: https://amzn.to/3xFTS6P

Continue reading “The Terrible Fate of Mankind | Three Body Problem Series” »