According to a study published in the journal Nature Water, Neolithic people living in China were capable of complex engineering feats without the need for a centralised state authority.
Last year, NASA undertook its first planetary defense mission with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). The goal was to divert the moonlet Dimorphos from its orbit, demonstrating that an asteroid could be redirected in the case of a catastrophic course toward Earth.
The spacecraft’s impact, while altering the moonlet’s orbit, also resulted in the dispersal of 37 boulders from its surface. Some of these space rocks are as wide as 22 feet off its surface.
The DART mission was watched intently across the globe on September 26, 2022. The spacecraft successfully shifted Dimorphos’s orbit from an original 11 hours and 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes post-impact.
The protons and neutrons making up atomic nuclei are made up of a trio of even smaller fundamental particles known as quarks.
A new study has now mapped out in unprecedented detail the distribution of the different kinds of quark inside a proton, expanding on our understanding of this all-important part of an atom.
Although the quantum landscape within protons is a seething mess of quarks and their opposing antiquarks popping in and out of existence, there is a general dominance of two ‘flavors’ over the others; two up-flavor quarks and a single down-flavor quark.
These and other missions on the horizon will face the same obstacle that has plagued scientists since they first attempted to search for signs of Martian biology with the Viking landers in the 1970s: There is no definitive signature of life.
That might be about to change. In 2021, a team led by Lee Cronin of the University of Glasgow in Scotland and Sara Walker of Arizona State University proposed a very general way to identify molecules made by living systems—even those using unfamiliar chemistries. Their method, they said, simply assumes that alien life forms will produce molecules with a chemical complexity similar to that of life on Earth.
Called assembly theory, the idea underpinning the pair’s strategy has even grander aims. As laid out in a recent series of publications, it attempts to explain why apparently unlikely things, such as you and me, even exist at all. And it seeks that explanation not, in the usual manner of physics, in timeless physical laws, but in a process that imbues objects with histories and memories of what came before them. It even seeks to answer a question that has perplexed scientists and philosophers for millennia: What is life, anyway?
The origin and early evolution of life is generally studied under two different paradigms: bottom up and top down. Prebiotic chemistry and early Earth geochemistry allow researchers to explore possible origin of life scenarios. But for these “bottom–up” approaches, even successful experiments only amount to a proof of principle. On the other hand, “top–down” research on early evolutionary history is able to provide a historical account about ancient organisms, but is unable to investigate stages that occurred during and just after the origin of life. Here, we consider ancient electron transport chains (ETCs) as a potential bridge between early evolutionary history and a protocellular stage that preceded it. Current phylogenetic evidence suggests that ancestors of several extant ETC components were present at least as late as the last universal common ancestor of life. In addition, recent experiments have shown that some aspects of modern ETCs can be replicated by minerals, protocells, or organic cofactors in the absence of biological proteins. Here, we discuss the diversity of ETCs and other forms of chemiosmotic energy conservation, describe current work on the early evolution of membrane bioenergetics, and advocate for several lines of research to enhance this understanding by pairing top–down and bottom–up approaches.
Watch the full episode and view show notes here: https://bit.ly/3Oo9mE5
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In this “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) episode, Peter delves into the realm of genetics, unraveling its connection to disease and emphasizing the value of understanding one’s genetic risks. He elucidates essential background knowledge on genetics before delving into the myriad reasons why individuals might consider genetic testing. Peter differentiates scenarios where genetic testing provides genuine insights from those where it may not be as useful. From there, Peter explores a comprehensive comparison of commercial direct-to-consumer genetic tests, providing insights on interpreting results and identifying the standout options for gaining insights into personal health.
In this sneak peek, we discuss:
00:00 — Intro.
02:09 — Defining the term “genetics” and why it’s important.
04:03 — What is DNA, and how does it impact our biology and traits?
07:13 — How are genetics passed down from parent to child?
11:44 — How much do genes vary across individuals?
16:22 — Which traits are determined by genetics versus experience or environmental factors?
22:30 — Reasons for genetic testing.
In the full episode, we also discuss:
Findings at Fermilab show discrepancy between theory and experiment, which may lead to new physics beyond the Standard Model.
Physicists now have a brand-new measurement of a property of the muon called the anomalous magnetic moment that improves the precision of their previous result by a factor of 2.
An international collaboration of scientists working on the Muon g-2 experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced the much-anticipated updated measurement on August 10. This new value bolsters the first result they announced in April 2021, and sets up a showdown between theory and experiment over 20 years in the making.
The innovative tweak will allow scientists to directly observe molecular behavior over a much longer period, opening a window onto pivotal biological processes like cell division.
“The living cell is a busy place with proteins bustling here and there,” explains University of Michigan biomedical engineer Guangjie Cui. “Our superresolution is very attractive for viewing these dynamic activities.”
Physicist Michio Kaku explains how quantum computing works and why it will outpace artificial intelligence as the next frontier in technological breakthroughs. #CNN #News
For the second time, scientists have taken one significant step forward toward a future that runs on clean, sustainable nuclear fusion-powered energy.