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Oct 9, 2022

China used advanced satellite to monitor Nord Stream leak

Posted by in category: futurism

The Gaofen-5 2 satellite provided the first accurate estimate of the leak from the suspected act of sabotage, scientists involved in the project say.

Oct 9, 2022

First Experimental Proof That Quantum Entanglement Is Real

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

A Q&A with Caltech alumnus John Clauser on his first experimental proof of quantum entanglement.

When scientists, including Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger, first discovered the phenomenon of entanglement in the 1930s, they were perplexed. Disturbingly, entanglement required two separated particles to remain connected without being in direct contact. In fact, Einstein famously called entanglement “spooky action at a distance,” because the particles seemed to be communicating faster than the speed of light.

Born on December 1, 1942, John Francis Clauser is an American theoretical and experimental physicist known for contributions to the foundations of quantum mechanics, in particular the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt inequality. Clauser was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.”

Oct 9, 2022

Two Intelsat video relay satellites ride to orbit on SpaceX rocket

Posted by in category: satellites

SpaceX launched a pair of four-ton Intelsat communications spacecraft from Cape Canaveral at twilight Saturday evening, two days later than planned after back-to-back scrubs, on the third flight of a Falcon 9 rocket this week.

The Falcon 9 rocket lit nine kerosene-fueled Merlin 1D engines and thundered away from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) Saturday. Thrust vector controls pivoted nine main engines to steer the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket due east from pad 40, and the Falcon 9 raced through the speed of sound in less than a minute.

Saturday’s mission, carrying Intelsat’s Galaxy 33 and 34 video relay satellites, marked the third Falcon 9 flight in a little more than three days, following back-to-back launches Wednesday.

Oct 9, 2022

An Unlikely Source Provides New Hope for Heart Disease Patients

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Time halted during the European Football Championship last summer. When football player Christian Eriksen unexpectedly fell, passed away, and was resuscitated on live television, the buzzing anxiety that had filled the air vanished in a matter of seconds. And in no time, millions of people all over the globe were aware of the danger posed by cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of mortality in the western world, according to the World Health Organization.

When the heart fails in young athletes, the condition ARVC is often to blame. Half of all cases of sudden cardiac arrest in athletes occurring during physical activity are thought to be caused by ARVC.

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen provide new insights into a process involved in the development of the disease in a recent study. In fact, they also present a viable treatment method, according to Professor Alicia Lundby, whose research team led the new study.

Oct 9, 2022

Cambridge researchers have discovered how cancer spreads

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Metastasis, the deadliest and most notorious hallmark of the disease, gives cancer the ability to spread throughout the body, often overwhelming immune defenses and even the…

Oct 9, 2022

Hubble finds a wall of hot plasma acting like a shield for two nearby galaxies

Posted by in categories: materials, space

In the southern sky shine two smudges, known as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. They are satellite galaxies of the much larger Milky Way, and one of their qualities has puzzled scientists. As the Clouds tumble through space, the Milky Way should be exerting enough gravitational force to knock loose their star-making material. But the smaller galaxies are still building new stars. A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature finally explains it.

What they did — “A lot of people were struggling to explain how these streams of material could be there,” Dhanesh Krishnarao, assistant professor at Colorado College and lead author of the new study, says in a NASA description of the paper. “If this gas was removed from these galaxies, how are they still forming stars?”

Oct 9, 2022

Think Lab Grown Meet is a Big Deal, What About Lab-Made Milk?

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

Microbrewery may be where your glass of milk will come from in the near future.


Precision fermentation produces milk and dairy products without cows. This can be a far more environmentally sustainable food source.

Oct 9, 2022

Brain size vs. body size and the roots of intelligence

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Behavior that we’d consider intelligent is oddly widespread in the animal kingdom. Animals with very different brains from ours—a species of octopus and various birds—engage with tools, to give just one example. It seems intuitive that a brain needs a certain level of size and sophistication to enable intelligence. But figuring out why some species seem to have intelligence while closely related ones don’t has proven difficult—so difficult that we don’t really understand it.

One of the simplest ideas has been that size is everything: have a big enough brain, and you at least have the potential to be smart. But lots of birds seem to be quite intelligent despite small brains—possibly because they cram more neurons into a given volume than other species. Some researchers favor the idea that intelligence comes out of having a large brain relative to your body size, but the evidence there is a bit mixed.

This week, a team of researchers published a paper arguing that the answer is a little of both: relative and absolute size matter when it comes to the brain. And they argue that a specific approach to brain development helps enable it.

Oct 9, 2022

Combination of Rapamycin and Acarbose Extends Lifespan

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension

28 to 34% lifespan increase in mice. I wonder if there would be side effects as a recent study showed Rapamycin and Metformin canceled each other’s side effects.


In a new study published in Aging Cell, researchers have tested several individual drugs and a combination of rapamycin plus acarbose as potential life extension agents in genetically heterogeneous mice [1].

Identification of successful anti-aging interventions is arguably one of the most challenging research problems to date. In addition to the complexity of aging, researchers have to deal with the biological heterogeneity of animals even within the same species and research reproducibility issues due to different experimental designs and approaches.

Continue reading “Combination of Rapamycin and Acarbose Extends Lifespan” »

Oct 9, 2022

Human Brain is as Powerful as Digital & Analog Computers Combined; Uses 90 Percent of its Capacity

Posted by in categories: computing, neuroscience

A new study challenges the common belief that human brain’s functions such as learning, memory, and perception occur in the central part of neurons called soma. In a brain structure, neurons’ three-like feature has soma in the middle and branches called dendrites. Soma will spike whenever there is data that needs processing and dendrites will communicate with each other — but not until the University of California, Los Angeles discovered the opposite.

UCLA team tested the theory of “soma to dendrites” and found a contradicting result. Dendrites are electrically active and generate 10 times more spikes that somas. Scientists are now on to new finding that dendrites’ role is to form and store memories.

Continue reading “Human Brain is as Powerful as Digital & Analog Computers Combined; Uses 90 Percent of its Capacity” »