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Blog – Page 3604

Helmeted and harnessed directly behind my pilot, I prepare for takeoff as the cockpit canopy shuts over us. It could be a scene from Top Gun: Maverick save for the fact that we’re not launching from an aircraft carrier but pulling out of pit lane at the Thermal Club’s track in a final prototype of the Czinger 21C hypercar.

The $2 million, carbon-fiber-bodied, tandem-seat Czinger 21C astounds with specs—1,250 hp, zero to 62 mph in 1.9 seconds, a claimed top speed of 253 mph—and recently blew away the McLaren P1’s production-car track record at Circuit of the Americas by six seconds. But more impressive—seriously—is the hybrid’s build process: The main structural components are designed by Czinger’s proprietary AI software and then 3D-printed. “These structures cannot be made more perfect for the requirements inputted,” says Kevin Czinger, who, along with his son Lukas, cofounded Los Angeles–based Czinger Vehicles. “You could have 1,000 engineers and they would never get to this solution.”

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Dementia is a brain disease that affects around 55 million people worldwide and is characterized by the loss of cognitive functions like memory and reasoning.

The classic, early cognitive symptoms of dementia – like misplacing valuable objects, forgetting names, and finding planning difficult – can creep up slowly over time.

But there are other, more noticeable changes to the body that correlate with dementia risk and can be picked up over a decade before diagnosis. Recent research has found that hearing difficulties may be a warning sign of dementia that arises years before other symptoms of the disease.

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Using non-invasive techniques to manipulate our emotions, it might be possible to curtail the screaming horrors that plague our sleep.

A study last year conducted on 36 patients diagnosed with a nightmare disorder showed that a combination of two simple therapies reduced the frequency of their bad dreams.

Scientists invited the volunteers to rewrite their most frequent nightmares in a positive light and then played sound associated with positive experiences as they slept.

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Researchers at the University of Toronto have developed an artificial intelligence system that can create proteins not found in nature using generative diffusion, the same technology behind popular image-creation platforms such as DALL-E and Midjourney.

The system will help advance the field of generative biology, which promises to speed by making the design and testing of entirely new therapeutic proteins more efficient and flexible.

“Our model learns from image representations to generate fully new proteins, at a very high rate,” says Philip M. Kim, a professor in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. “All our proteins appear to be biophysically real, meaning they fold into configurations that enable them to carry out specific functions within cells.”

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On May 5, 1961, Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard made history by becoming the first American to fly into space aboard the Freedom 7 capsule. To honor his pioneering achievement, we celebrate National Astronaut Day on the anniversary of his historic flight. This day provides an opportunity to recognize American astronauts’ accomplishments and inspire the next generation to reach for the stars.

Sierra Space is proud to commemorate National Astronaut Day as we democratize space travel and make it accessible to all. Looking toward the future of space travel, we want to acknowledge the role of commercial space companies that are reimagining human spaceflight in the Orbital Age. With the advancement of space technology, we can now explore space in ways that were once impossible, making it accessible to everyone.

To pave the way for the Orbital Age, Sierra Space is privileged to have three veteran NASA astronauts on our leadership team, including Dr. Janet Kavandi, Steve Lindsey, and Dr. Tom Marshburn.

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Researchers at the KIT Institute of Nanotechnology (INT) now managed to characterize the formation of the SEI with a multi-scale approach. “This solves one of the great mysteries regarding an essential part of all liquid electrolyte batteries – especially the lithium-ion batteries we all use every day,” says Professor Wolfgang Wenzel, director of the research group “Multiscale Materials Modelling and Virtual Design ” at INT, which is involved in the large-scale European research initiative BATTERY 2030+ that aims to develop safe, affordable, long-lasting, sustainable high-performance batteries for the future.

The KIT researchers report on their findings in the journal Advanced Energy Materials.

To examine the growth and composition of the passivation layer at the anode of liquid electrolyte batteries, the researchers at INT generated an ensemble of over 50 000 simulations representing different reaction conditions. They found that the growth of the organic SEI follows a solution-mediated pathway: First, SEI precursors that are formed directly at the surface join far away from the electrode surface via a nucleation process.

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