Lifeboat Foundation

The National Robotarium at Heriot-Watt University is focused on the development and testing of robotics and AI solutions By Hollie Tye Designing and manufacturing assisted living technologies, Pressalit were asked to contribute to the work being carried out by the Ambient Assisted Living Lab (AAL) at Heriot-Watt University Demonstrating how assisted living technologies can help transform lives, solutions […].

Solar panels often get a bad rap for spoiling the appearance of homes and businesses. Yet, this may be about to change.

Summary: A new study will investigate the genetic and biological mysteries of extreme longevity and healthy aging.

Source: american federation for aging research.

Decades of research will be aided by the results of a study launched today – the most ambitious ever conducted to uncover and understand the genetic and biological mysteries of exceptional longevity and healthy aging.

This is the first time scientists have observed vessels form with such a close resemblance to the complicated structure of naturally occurring blood vessels.

An international research collaboration headed by the University of Sydney has created technology that allows for the production of materials that mirror the structure of living blood vessels, with major implications for the future of surgery.

Preclinical research showed that once the manufactured blood vessel was transplanted into mice, the body accepted it and new cells and tissue began to develop in the appropriate locations, thereby converting it into a “living blood vessel.”

A team of researchers from Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Università di Torino and INFN sezione di Torino, has found evidence that the black hole collision that led to an odd gravitational wave detection in 2019 was due to a unique set of circumstances. In their paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, the group describes modeling and simulating the conditions that could possibly lead to the unique gravitational wave signature.

The development of gravitational wave detectors has led to a better understanding of what happens when black holes collide. In most instances, the data has shown, they occur due to binary stars exploding and then slowly spiraling toward one another until they meet at a gravitational center and merge.

But then, on May 21, 2019, gravitational waves were detected from two black holes merging, but the data showed that neither of the black holes appeared to be spinning and the duration of the signal was shorter than all the others that have been detected. The odd signal left astrophysicists scratching their heads. Now, in this new effort, the researchers believe they have come up with a plausible explanation for the observation.

The “most complicated therapy ever” tailors bespoke, genome-edited immune cells to attack tumors.

About 450 light years away, a star is being born. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has taken an image of a protostar – an object that is massive enough to become a star but hasn’t yet begun the process of nuclear fusion – revealing details that have never been seen before.

This protostar is in an area called the Taurus star-forming region, embedded within a dark cloud of dust and gas called L1527. It is only about 100,000 years old, putting it in the first stage of star formation, in which it is still slightly fluffy and lopsided. Over the next few million years, it will continue to compress under its own gravitational pull and then begin to fuse hydrogen into helium and become a fully fledged star.

Scientists at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have identified molecular profiles of the surrounding matrix of a common type of lung cancer that might indicate which patients are likely to develop aggressive tumors.

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most prevalent type of lung cancer. Yet treatment options for these patients remain limited and have remained largely unchanged over decades. High rates of recurrence and chemotherapy resistance mean that less than one in five patients will survive more than five years after their diagnosis.

In addition to studying cancer cells, Garvan researchers have been turning their attention to the environment that surrounds these cancer cells in the tumor. A major component of this environment is the extracellular matrix, a 3D meshwork of around 300 core molecules. This matrix is present in all tissues in the body, where it normally provides structural and functional support to hold cells together. But in cancers, this matrix is fundamentally altered and these changes can promote tumor growth.

“It’s a novel contribution that uses different methods compared to what most people have been doing,” said Steffen Gielen, a cosmologist at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom.

The provocative conclusion rests on a mathematical trick involving switching to a clock that ticks with imaginary numbers. Using the imaginary clock, as Hawking did in the ’70s, Turok and Boyle could calculate a quantity, known as entropy, that appears to correspond to our universe. But the imaginary time trick is a roundabout way of calculating entropy, and without a more rigorous method, the meaning of the quantity remains hotly debated. While physicists puzzle over the correct interpretation of the entropy calculation, many view it as a new guidepost on the road to the fundamental, quantum nature of space and time.