Lifeboat Foundation

How a tiny marine invertebrate distinguishes its own cells from competitors’ bears striking similarities to the human immune system, according to a new study led by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers.

The findings, published now in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the building blocks of our immune system evolved much earlier than previously thought and could help improve understanding of transplant rejection, one day guiding development of new immunotherapies.

“For decades, researchers have wondered whether self-recognition in a marine creature called Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus was akin to the processes that control whether a piece of skin can be successfully grafted from one person to another,” said senior author Matthew Nictora, Ph.D., assistant professor of surgery and immunology at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute. “Our study shows for the first time that a special group of proteins called the immunoglobulin superfamily— which are important for adaptive immunity in mammals and other vertebrates—are found in such a distantly-related animal.”

Is science destined to crack the code of—and how would we even go about it?

Jülich researchers have been able to demonstrate an exotic electronic state, so-called Fermi Arcs, for the first time in a 2D material. The surprising appearance of Fermi arcs in such a material provides a link between novel quantum materials and their respective potential applications in a new generation of spintronics and quantum computing. The results have recently been published in Nature Communications.

The newly detected Fermi arcs represent special—arc-like—deviations from the so-called Fermi surface. The Fermi surface is used in condensed matter physics to describe the momentum distribution of electrons in a metal. Normally, these Fermi surfaces represent closed surfaces. Exceptions such as the Fermi arcs are very rare and often are associated with exotic properties like superconductivity, negative magnetoresistance and anomalous quantum transport effects.

Today’s technology challenge is to develop the “on-demand” control of physical properties in materials. However, such experimental tests have been largely limited to bulk materials and are key grand challenges in condensed matter science. With its groundbreaking paradigm, the findings present a promising new frontier for quantum control of topological states in low-dimensional systems by external means—the external magnetic field that offers unprecedented capabilities on 2D materials for artificial intelligence as well as future information processing.

PRESS RELEASE — There has been a lot of buzz about quantum computers and for good reason. The futuristic computers are designed to mimic what happens in nature at microscopic scales, which means they have the power to better understand the quantum realm and speed up the discovery of new materials, including pharmaceuticals, environmentally friendly chemicals, and more. However, experts say viable quantum computers are still a decade away or more. What are researchers to do in the meantime?

A new Caltech-led study in the journal Science describes how machine learning tools, run on classical computers, can be used to make predictions about quantum systems and thus help researchers solve some of the trickiest physics and chemistry problems. While this notion has been shown experimentally before, the new report is the first to mathematically prove that the method works.

“Quantum computers are ideal for many types of physics and materials science problems,” says lead author Hsin-Yuan (Robert) Huang, a graduate student working with John Preskill, the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics and the Allen V. C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair of the Institute for Quantum Science and Technology (IQIM). “But we aren’t quite there yet and have been surprised to learn that classical machine learning methods can be used in the meantime. Ultimately, this paper is about showing what humans can learn about the physical world.”

Epitaxy on nanopatterned graphene enables the realization of a broad spectrum of freestanding single-crystalline membranes with substantially reduced defects.

Military robotics technology is not far behind as our world becomes more advanced. If you have seen Corridor Digital’s parody video, you may know what the future will look like. Don’t worry; the realism of that video is a testament to the advancements in visual effects at the Los Angeles production studio, and not necessarily robotics.

But to be honest, we are not far behind, and in this video, we will explore a company and its line of robots that are leading the charge to make soldiers obsolete.

In the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) made history as it successfully slammed into an asteroid target on Monday. The first ‘attempt’ to move an asteroid in space, the probe tested a way to protect our planet from future hazards and potential impacts.

Interested in learning what’s next for the gaming industry? Join gaming executives to discuss emerging parts of the industry this October at GamesBeat Summit Next. Register today.

It’s not often that you get to hear things from the horse’s mouth. In this case, I was able to do an interview with the guy who came up with the term “metaverse” decades ago. I feel like I’ve been waiting decades to talk to him.

Science fiction author Neal Stephenson recently announced he was teaming up with crypto entrepreneur Peter Vessenes to create Lamina1, a blockchain technology startup dedicated to the open metaverse, the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, as first depicted in Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash, which debuted 30 years ago in 1992. I interviewed both Vessenes and Stephenson yesterday, just a day after McKinsey & Co. predicted the metaverse would be worth $5 trillion by 2030.

Physics is not the first scientific discipline that springs to mind at the mention of DNA, but a group of scientists, including John van Noort from the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION) have discovered a new structure of telomeric DNA.

Longevity. Technology: In every cell of our bodies are chromosomes that carry genes that determine our characteristics. At the ends of these chromosomes are telomeres, which protect the genes from damage. Telomeres are rather like aglets, the plastic tips at the end of a shoelace – they protect the DNA from damage and fraying. However, every time a cell divides, the telomeres become shorter, until eventually the Hayflick Limit is reached, the cell can no longer divide and apoptosis – programmed cell death – occurs.

This means that telomeres are sometimes seen as the key to living longer, and the researchers behind this new discovery hope it will help us to better understand aging and age-related diseases.