The world’s first production-ready manned mecha. It can transform. It’s a civilian vehicle.
It weighs ~500kg with you inside.
Please everyone be sure to use the robot in a friendly and safe manner.
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Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease develops over decades — and we are missing the window to prevent it
Although cigarette smoking remains the main driver of COPD, e-cigarettes are also raising concerns. Vaping aerosols can contain nicotine, ultrafine particles and flavouring chemicals that may irritate the lungs and contribute to inflammation. The long-term effects are still unclear because these products are relatively new.
That matters particularly for younger people. In Great Britain, recent survey data suggest that 7% of 11-to 17-year-olds currently vape. While that does not mean they will go on to develop COPD, it does mean more young lungs are being exposed to substances whose long-term effects are not yet fully understood.
COPD is often diagnosed only after major lung damage has already occurred. Because it develops so gradually, people may dismiss early breathlessness, coughing or mucus production as a consequence of getting older, being unfit or smoking. Respiratory organisations warn that symptoms such as cough, phlegm and shortness of breath should not be treated as a normal part of ageing, while studies show that COPD remains widely underdiagnosed, including among people with respiratory symptoms.
Organic luminescent radicals enable bright circularly polarized light in the near-infrared region
Circularly polarized light has properties that make it useful in a growing range of technologies, from next-generation 3D displays to bioimaging tools that can detect signals deep within living tissues. One way to produce this kind of light is with the help of chiral molecules—compounds that have a mirror-image form to which they cannot be perfectly superimposed. Among these, small organic molecules (SOMs) offer tunable emission wavelengths.
Luminescent radicals represent a promising type of SOM for red and near-infrared circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) emission. One particular family of radicals, tris(2,4,6‑trichlorophenyl)methyl (TTM)‑based radicals, is inherently chiral and a natural candidate for CPL.
In practice, however, these molecules fall short on multiple fronts, with tradeoffs between stable chirality, high emission efficiency, and durability under operating conditions.
Method for measuring energy amounts less than a trillionth of a billionth of a joule could boost quantum computing
The fundamentals of quantum mechanics are minuscule. Scientists constantly home in on finer resolutions to measure, quantify, and control these fundamentals, like photons that carry light and have no mass unless they are moving. The more precise the measurement, the more possibilities for better quantum technology or the ability to detect elusive dark-matter axions in deep space.
Now, researchers in Finland have successfully used a calorimeter, a type of ultra-sensitive heat-based energy sensor, to detect energy levels below one zeptojoule, or a trillionth of a billionth of a joule. For context, a zeptojoule is approximately the amount of work it takes for a red blood cell to move a nanometer, or a billionth of a meter, upwards in Earth’s gravity.
The team, led by Academy Professor Mikko Möttönen at Aalto University, together with industry collaborator IQM and the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), used a novel technique to achieve the milestone measurement. The study is published in the journal Nature Electronics.
Gene circuits reshape DNA folding and affect how genes are expressed
Weng et al. investigate the function of polyglutamine (polyQ) in Runx2, demonstrating that the deletion of the polyQ repeat disrupts the interaction with KPNA3. This impairs the steric blocking effects of KPNA3 on Runx2 condensation. They revealed the unique role of polyQ repeat in modulating the liquid-like state of Runx2.
50 Years On: How Inhaled Corticosteroids Have Changed The Treatment of Asthma
Inhaled corticosteroids are the foundation of asthma therapy and now, 50 years on from their introduction, is an appropriate time to summarise some of the key studies that have progressed the field. We can now make better decisions in selecting the optimal inhaled corticosteroid-based regimens and identifying likely responders, based on biomarkers and patient characteristics. Inhaled corticosteroids reduce the risk of asthma attacks, but do not alter the course of the disease. Asthma remission, which is as yet an undefined therapeutic goal, is the aim, but the role of inhaled corticosteroids is unclear.
How Intestinal Aging Encourages Harmful Bacteria
In Aging Cell, researchers have elucidated the relationship between intestinal aging and age-related changes to the gut microbiome.
Two interdependent biologies
The human gut works through the interaction of two entirely different sets of cells. The first is the body’s actual cells, including the intestinal barrier between the gut and the rest of the body, various types of ordinary immune cells, and Peyer’s patches with follicle-associated epithelium (FAE) areas that contain microfold cells (M cells), which perform crucial immunoregulatory tasks [1]. The second is the gut microbiome, the various types of bacteria that help us digest food.