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Sep 19, 2022

Geothermal Energy May Be Key to Lithium Battery Technology Sustainability

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability

The rapid development of geothermal energy can contribute not only to reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also to the production of environmentally sustainable lithium for EV batteries.


Jane Marsh describes how a Salton Sea project is producing both geothermal energy and lithium salts suitable for EV batteries.

Sep 19, 2022

Reverse-engineering the brain to decode input signals from output neuron firing

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

The brain is an extremely complex organ whose exact functioning remains difficult to understand. On average, the human brain contains 100 billion neurons that fire upon receiving input signals from multiple sensory organs. But, what is truly remarkable about our brain is the synchronization of this neural firing when triggered by a common input. Put simply, common inputs can generate a collective response in neurons that are not only spatially separated but also have different firing characteristics.

The neural synchronization has been observed before in experiments, and is commonly demonstrated during rest and activities involving tasks. However, the common inputs which produce this are typically unknown in real-world situations. This raises an interesting question: is it possible to reconstruct this input by looking at the output of the ?

In a new study published in Physical Review E on September 12, 2022, a team of researchers from Japan, led by Professor Tohru Ikeguchi from Tokyo University of Science (TUS), set out to answer this question. The team, including Associate Professor Ryota Nomura of Waseda University (formerly TUS), and Associate Professor Kantaro Fujiwara of The University of Tokyo, looked at the firing rates of neurons and managed to reconstruct the using a method called “superposed recurrence plot” (SRP).

Sep 19, 2022

The Perseverance rover is finding more and more organic matter on Mars

Posted by in categories: materials, space

NASA’s Perseverance rover is exploring a long-dry river delta on Mars, and it has seen signs that indicate that the region is full of organics – molecules containing carbon that are widely considered to be the building blocks of life.

The rover has taken measurements and samples in an area called Skinner Ridge made of layered sedimentary rocks, some of which contain materials that were most likely transported from hundreds of kilometres away by running water billions of years ago.

“With the samples we’re taking now in this more sedimentary area, we’re of course right at the heart of what we wanted to do to start with,” said NASA science lead Thomas Zurbuchen during a press conference on 15 September. The goal was to look at areas similar to those on Earth that harbour signs of ancient life, he said.

Sep 19, 2022

How Australia is Regreening its Deserts Back into a Green Oasis

Posted by in categories: employment, existential risks

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on planet earth, and is home to The Great Australian Desert which is the 4th largest desert in the world after The Antarctic, The Arctic and The Sahara.
Australia is comparable in size to The United States however its population is significantly less than America’s, the whole of Australia has about the same number of people living in it as the state of Texas. Despite the low population Australia is one of the worst developed countries in the world for broadscale deforestation, wiping out endangered forests and woodlands. In fact, they have cleared nearly half of all forest cover in the last 200 years!

It began in around the early 1800s when the British colonized Australia in search of land and fortunes. At that time Britain had already been completely stripped of trees for centuries by intensive agriculture and war, even today The United Kingdom has one of the lowest percentages of forest cover in Europe. British timber companies were granted free access to vast areas of virgin forest in Australia and trees were felled for agriculture and railway tracks which were constructed alongside other transit infrastructure such as roads, bridges and jetties.

Continue reading “How Australia is Regreening its Deserts Back into a Green Oasis” »

Sep 19, 2022

A WiFi Deauthentication Project in a Sleek Package

Posted by in categories: education, internet, security, wearables

Wearable tech has seen an explosion of creativity and applications in the last decade; especially with circuit components getting smaller and cheaper, and batteries getting better and better. Whereas taking phone calls on your wrist was impressive just a few years ago, now, you can experiment with deauthentication attacks on WiFi networks just from this watch: the DSTIKE Deauther Watch SE.

Based on the ESP8266 WiFi microcontroller, this watch is the latest generation of a project to give you a wearable interface for pen testing local WiFi networks. The watch only works on 2.4GHz networks, due to the restrictions of the ESP8266. It comes pre-flashed with the latest ESP8266 Deauther firmware, which is an open-source project! The watch supports four main functions: a deauther attack, which disconnects all local 2.4GHz networks; deauther beacon, used for creating fake networks; deauther probe, to confuse any nearby WiFi trackers; and packet monitoring, which lets you display local WiFi traffic. As you can see, there’s a lot to appreciate in this slick and discreet package.


This watch (and its prior iterations) are made and sold by Travis Lin. Much like the seller emphasizes on the product page, this device is meant for educational purposes, and should be only tested on devices and networks you own. But if this has your curiosity piqued, put on your red hat and check out the wearable devices and other security goodies they have for sale!

Sep 18, 2022

Deep Dive into how Predicting Future Weights of Neural Network is used to mitigate Data Staleness while Distributed Training

Posted by in categories: futurism, robotics/AI

Introducing SpecTrain as means to predict future weights of neural network to alleviate data staleness and improve speed of training via distributed training.

Sep 18, 2022

The 2022 Tesla Bot Update Is Here!

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, internet, robotics/AI, space

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Last video: The 2023 Model Y Update Is Here — All New Features!
https://youtu.be/gzh9j0_gzws.

Continue reading “The 2022 Tesla Bot Update Is Here!” »

Sep 18, 2022

Researchers Say It’ll Be Impossible to Control a Super-Intelligent AI

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

The idea of artificial intelligence overthrowing humankind has been talked about for decades, and in 2021, scientists delivered their verdict on whether we’d be able to control a high-level computer super-intelligence. The answer? Almost definitely not.

The catch is that controlling a super-intelligence far beyond human comprehension would require a simulation of that super-intelligence which we can analyze (and control). But if we’re unable to comprehend it, it’s impossible to create such a simulation.

Continue reading “Researchers Say It’ll Be Impossible to Control a Super-Intelligent AI” »

Sep 18, 2022

CIRM awards UCI $2.7 million to create regenerative medicine training program

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

Brian Cummings, UCI professor of physical medicine & rehabilitation and founding member of the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, has received a five-year, $2.7 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to establish a training program that supports first-generation and underserved students pursuing careers in public health and regenerative medicine. The Creating Opportunities Through Mentorship and Partnership Across Stem Cell Science program will pair student scholars with faculty mentors. With their tuition covered and a stipend provided during their two years as scholars, the students will learn hands-on lab skills and human cell culture; be introduced to good manufacturing procedures in UCI’s new GMP facility; and earn a certificate in clinical research coordination. “COMPASS provides the opportunity for students to explore a variety of ways in which their education and research skills can be applied toward improving human health through career paths in the public and private sectors. UCI’s COMPASS scholars program will produce a cadre of well-trained individuals who are ready to contribute to the workforce,” said Cummings, who is also the School of Medicine’s associate dean for faculty development. “A parallel objective is to foster greater awareness and appreciation of diversity, equity and inclusion in trainees, mentors and other program participants.” Administered via the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, the program will train 25 undergraduate and two-year college transfer students.

Sep 18, 2022

Systemic proteomics and miRNA profile analysis of exosomes derived from human pluripotent stem cells

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Increasing studies have reported the therapeutic effect of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-derived exosomes by which protein and miRNA are clearly characterized. However, the proteomics and miRNA profiles of exosomes derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) remain unclear.

In this study, we isolated exosomes from hESCs, hiPSCs, and human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) via classic ultracentrifugation and a 0.22-μm filter, followed by the conservative identification. Tandem mass tag labeling and label-free relative peptide quantification together defined their proteomics. High-throughput sequencing was performed to determine miRNA profiles. Then, we conducted a bioinformatics analysis to identify the dominant biological processes and pathways modulated by exosome cargos. Finally, the western blot and RT-qPCR were performed to detect the actual loads of proteins and miRNAs in three types of exosomes.

Based on our study, the cargos from three types of exosomes contribute to sophisticated biological processes. In comparison, hESC exosomes (hESC-Exos) were superior in regulating development, metabolism, and anti-aging, and hiPSC exosomes (hiPSC-Exos) had similar biological functions as hESC-Exos, whereas hUC-MSCs exosomes (hUC-MSC-Exos) contributed more to immune regulation.