In a recent study in mice, researchers have experimented with a potential vaccine that might help lower levels of bad cholesterol.
Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.
Researchers create first functional semiconductor made from graphene
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created the world’s first functional semiconductor made from graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms held together by the strongest bonds known. Semiconductors, which are materials that conduct electricity under specific conditions, are foundational components of electronic devices. The team’s breakthrough throws open the door to a new way of doing electronics.
Their discovery comes at a time when silicon, the material from which nearly all modern electronics are made, is reaching its limit in the face of increasingly faster computing and smaller electronic devices.
Walter de Heer, Regents’ Professor of physics at Georgia Tech, led a team of researchers based in Atlanta, Georgia, and Tianjin, China, to produce a graphene semiconductor that is compatible with conventional microelectronics processing methods—a necessity for any viable alternative to silicon.
There are certain ancient Egyptian texts from long before Set of Avaris and his later monotheist avatars (Aten, Jehovah, Allah) known as Resurrection texts‘
This track by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, Prof Steve Nichols, is inspired by Utterance 437 from the Old Kingdom Egyptian Pyramid Texts.\
Samsung unveils its first robot vacuum-mop that uses AI to detect stains and can steam clean floors
Samsung is planning to release what might be the most advanced cleaning robot yet: a robot vacuum and mopper that will steam clean floors and use AI to detect stains.
The upcoming “Bespoke Jet Bot Combo” cleaner will have a charging base that will auto wash, clean, and dry the robot’s mop pads.
The device will also use AI to detect floor types, objects, and spot stains. When the robot detects a stain, “it goes back to the clean station to heat the mop pads with high-temperature steam and water and then returns to the area,” says a press release on Samsung’s website.
Consciousness is a Big Suitcase
“[People] like themselves just as they are,” says Marvin Minsky. “Perhaps they are not selfish enough, or imaginative, or ambitious. Myself, I don’t much like how people are now. We’re too shallow, slow, and ignorant. I hope that our future will lead us to ideas that we can use to improve ourselves.”
Marvin believes that it is important that we “understand how our minds are built, and how they support the modes of thought that we like to call emotions. Then we’ll be better able to decide what we like about them, and what we don’t—and bit by bit we’ll rebuild ourselves.”
Marvin Minsky is the leading light of AI—artificial intelligence, that is. He sees the brain as a myriad of structures. Scientists who, like Minsky, take the strong AI view believe that a computer model of the brain will be able to explain what we know of the brain’s cognitive abilities. Minsky identifies consciousness with high-level, abstract thought, and believes that in principle machines can do everything a conscious human being can do.
Novel switch turns genes on/off on cue, a promising step toward safer gene therapy
Just like a doctor adjusts the dose of a medication to the patient’s needs, the expression of therapeutic genes, those modified in a person to treat or cure a disease via gene therapy, also needs to be maintained within a therapeutic window. Staying within the therapeutic window is important as too much of the protein could be toxic, and too little could result in a small or no therapeutic effect.
Although the principle of therapeutic window has been known for a long time, there has been no strategy to implement it safely, limiting the potential applications of gene therapy in the clinic.
In their current study published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine report on a technology to effectively regulate gene expression, a promising solution to fill this gap in gene therapy clinical applications. A Research Briefing on the breakthrough has been published in the same journal issue.
Bionic artificial skin with a fully implantable wireless tactile sensory system for wound healing and restoring skin tactile function
Although artificial skins can facilitate the healing of damaged skin, the restoration of tactile functions remain a challenge. Here, Kang et al. report an artificial skin with an implantable tactile sensor that can simultaneously replace the tactile function by nerve stimulation and promote skin regeneration.