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Jan 10, 2023

What’s inside the ‘world’s ugliest animal,’ the blobfish

Posted by in category: futurism

The blobfish was crowned the world’s ugliest animal in 2013 — a title it still defends today. But drop it 9,200 feet below sea level, and the water holds up all that flab like a push-up bra, making the fish a little more handsome.

Jan 10, 2023

Fruit flies help researchers decode genetic link to Alzheimer’s disease

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience

Researchers have used fruit flies to decipher an unexplained connection between Alzheimer’s disease and a genetic variation, revealing that it causes neurons to die.

The findings from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI)-led team uncover a possible cause of neurodegeneration in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and open the door for the future development of new treatments for cognitive diseases.

The study, “An increase in mitochondrial TOM activates apoptosis to drive retinal neurodegeneration,” with collaborators from Australian National University, is published in Scientific Reports.

Jan 10, 2023

A new method to evaluate thermoelectric materials

Posted by in categories: materials, nanotechnology

Working with one of the world’s preeminent thermoelectric materials researchers, a team of researchers in the Clemson Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Clemson Nanomaterials Institute (CNI) has developed a new, fool-proof method to evaluate thermoelectric materials.

Department of Physics and Astronomy Research Assistant Professor Sriparna Bhattacharya, Engineer Herbert Behlow, and CNI Founding Director Apparao Rao collaborated with world-renowned researcher H. J. Goldsmid, professor emeritus at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, to create a one-stop method for evaluating the efficiency of .

Goldsmid is considered by many to be the “father of thermoelectrics” for his pioneering work in thermoelectric materials. Bhattacharya first connected with Goldsmid on LinkedIn, telling him she had confirmed one of his theoretical predictions during her graduate studies at Clemson University.

Jan 10, 2023

Deep learning-designed diffractive processor computes hundreds of transformations in parallel

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

In today’s digital age, computational tasks have become increasingly complex. This, in turn, has led to an exponential growth in the power consumed by digital computers. Thus, it is necessary to develop hardware resources that can perform large-scale computing in a fast and energy-efficient way.

In this regard, , which use light instead of electricity to perform computations, are promising. They can potentially provide lower latency and reduced power consumption, benefiting from the parallelism that have. As a result, researchers have explored various optical computing designs.

For instance, a diffractive optical is designed through the combination of optics and deep learning to optically perform complex computational tasks such as image classification and reconstruction. It comprises a stack of structured diffractive layers, each having thousands of diffractive features/neurons. These passive layers are used to control light-matter interactions to modulate the input light and produce the desired output. Researchers train the diffractive network by optimizing the profile of these layers using tools. After the fabrication of the resulting design, this framework acts as a standalone optical processing module that only requires an input illumination source to be powered.

Jan 10, 2023

Top US court backs WhatsApp suit over Pegasus spyware

Posted by in categories: government, law

The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected a bid by NSO Group to block a WhatsApp lawsuit accusing the Israeli tech firm of allowing mass cyberespionage of journalists and human rights activists.

The Supreme Court denied NSO’s plea for legal immunity and ruled that the case, which targets the company’s Pegasus software, can continue in a California , a court filing showed.

Pegasus gives its government customers—which have allegedly included Mexico, Hungary, Morocco and India—near-complete access to a target’s device, including their personal data, photos, messages and location.

Jan 10, 2023

How bio-inspired materials might inform the design of next-generation computers

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biological, computing, health, nanotechnology

Ralph Lydic, professor in the UT Department of Psychology, and Dmitry Bolmatov, a research assistant professor in the UT Department of Physics and Astronomy, are part of a UT/ORNL research team studying how bio-inspired materials might inform the design of next-generation computers. Their results, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could have big implications for both edge computing and human health.

Scientists at ORNL and UT discovered an artificial is capable of long-term potentiation, or LTP, a hallmark of biological learning and memory. This is the first evidence that a cell alone—without proteins or other biomolecules embedded within it—is capable of LTP that persists for many hours. It is also the first identified nanoscale structure in which memory can be encoded.

“When facilities were shut down as a result of COVID, this led us to pivot away from our usual membrane research,” said John Katsaras, a biophysicist in ORNL’s Neutron Sciences Directorate specializing in neutron scattering and the study of biological membranes at ORNL. “Together with postdoc Haden Scott, we decided to revisit a system previously studied by Pat Collier and co-workers, this time with an entirely different electrical stimulation protocol that we termed ‘training.’”.

Jan 10, 2023

Variety of healthy eating patterns linked with lower risk of premature death

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, health

A variety of healthy eating patterns are linked to reduced risk of premature death, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers. They found that participants who scored high on adherence to at least one of four healthy eating patterns were less likely to die during the study period from any cause and less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, cancer, or respiratory disease, compared with people with lower scores. The findings are consistent with the current Dietary Guidelines for America, which recommend multiple healthy eating patterns.

“The Dietary Guidelines for Americans are intended to provide science-based dietary advice that promotes and reduces major chronic diseases. Thus, it is critical to examine the associations between DGAs-recommended dietary patterns and long-term outcomes, especially mortality,” said corresponding author Frank Hu, Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology and chair of the Department of Nutrition.

The study will be published online January 9, 2023, in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Jan 9, 2023

China Preparing for World War III With Biological Weapons

Posted by in categories: biological, existential risks

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Jan 9, 2023

Mouse model shows obesity in early life promotes later inflammatory disease, even after weight loss

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

A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in Canada has found that obesity in young mice can lead to inflammatory disease later in life even if the mouse is no longer overweight. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes studying early life obesity in test mice and the development of age-related macular degeneration. Kevin Mangum and Katherine Gallagher with the University of Michigan have published a Perspectives piece in the same journal issue outlining the research.

Age-related (AMD) in older people can lead to permanent blindness. Prior research has shown obesity plays a major role in its development. Other research has also shown that AMD is a neuroinflammatory condition. It is believed that the inflammation in the eyes is related to obesity, but the exact connection has not been identified. In this new effort, the researchers sought to find the connection by studying obesity and macular degeneration in mice.

The work involved feeding a and studying the impact on adipose tissue macrophages (types of white blood cells that are part of the immune system). They found that obesity in mice led to epigenetic changes in the macrophages that resulted in an increase in expression of genes that incite an inflammatory response. They also found that the increased expression continued even after the test mice were put on a reduced diet that allowed them to return to their normal weight.

Jan 9, 2023

Creepy ultrarealistic AI Xoxe sensed my anxiety as we discussed end of the world

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

Needs work.


AN ultrarealistic AI robot has opinions about the afterlife and can even sense anxiety with her advanced technology, The U.S. Sun has learned.

Through a camera in her eyes, the amazing bot called “Xoxe” (pronounced Zo-zie) can detect if anybody in her presence has committed any illegal activities.

Continue reading “Creepy ultrarealistic AI Xoxe sensed my anxiety as we discussed end of the world” »