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A newly processed image, comprising 41 observations by NASA’s retired Cassini mission, provides insights into the origins of Saturn’s rings.

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Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have identified a particular protein network that is necessary for cell regeneration to restore hearing in zebrafish. Researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) led the research, which may help in the creation of human hearing loss treatments. The findings were recently published in the journal Cell Genomics.

Many animals, like zebrafish, may recover their hearing after injury through the regeneration of hair cells, however, human hair cell loss cannot be restored. The regenerating properties of zebrafish hair cells inspired researchers to use this species to better understand certain fundamental properties of regeneration.

SITTING at the intersection of microscopy and art, these dazzling images are some of the best entries for the Nikon Small World 2022 Photomicrography competition, a global contest that showcases the beauty of science on the microscale.

A fly is clasped by its eyes under the chin of a tiger beetle in the image above, the 10th place entry taken by Murat Öztürk. But this is no tender embrace. Thanks to their strong jaws and ability to run at up to 8 kilometres per hour, tiger beetles make for formidable predators for their prey, which also include ants, spiders and caterpillars.

New research from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute can help robots feel layers of cloth rather than relying on computer vision tools to only see it. The work could allow robots to assist people with household tasks like folding laundry.

Humans use their senses of sight and touch to grab a glass or pick up a piece of cloth. It is so routine that little thought goes into it. For robots, however, these tasks are extremely difficult. The amount of data gathered through touch is hard to quantify and the sense has been hard to simulate in robotics—until recently.

Continue reading “Robots that can feel cloth layers may one day help with laundry” »

After a short period of relative silence, the metaverse became a hot topic again in no small part thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s and Meta’s most recent buzz, which, unsurprisingly, split people into camps again. Some say or are hoping that the metaverse is already dead and, along with it, the more controversial NFTs. If that were the case, it seems that nobody told luxury luggage maker RIMOWA about it because it seems that the marque will be diving right into this mess when others seem to be silently stepping out. RIMOWA has partnered with Nike-owned digital fashion brand RTFKT to bring its iconic luggage brand to the metaverse via two NFT drops, but RIMOWA fans can rest assured that they can still get this upcoming limited edition luggage in physical form as well.

Designer: RIMOWA x RTFKT.

The Chinese government has been accused of establishing at least two undeclared “police stations” in the Netherlands.

Dutch media found evidence that the “overseas service stations”, which promise to provide diplomatic services, are being used to try to silence Chinese dissidents in Europe.

Continue reading “China accused of illegal police stations in the Netherlands — BBC News” »

A recent gamma-ray burst known as the BOAT — “brightest of all time” — appears to have produced a high-energy particle that shouldn’t exist. For some, dark matter provides the explanation.

Berkeley Lab scientists have developed new machine learning algorithms to accelerate the analysis of data collected decades ago by HERA, the world’s most powerful electron-proton collider that ran at the DESY national research center in Germany from 1992 to 2007.

Researchers claim to have built a “decoder” algorithm that can reconstruct what somebody is thinking just by monitoring their brain activity using MRI.