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The push for the smartest web browser is officially on. Just a month after Microsoft announced an AI-powered version of its search engine Bing, Google has announced it will be also be adding AI functionality to allow users to interact with it in more human ways. Right now, the substance of the announcement is all speculation. There is no known release date (yet) for its AI-powered engine, and no specific AI model has been chosen. Still, Google, which has invested billions on AI in just the past few years, is throwing its hat in the ring as a clear sign that the race for AI leadership is far from over. Its recent announcement merging its DeepMind and Brain divisions further reiterates that.

The addition of Generative AI capabilities to Google Search will be critical if Google intends to remain the top search engine globally. And while there are more questions than answers at this time, Google is going to be adding conversational to its search platform and it should be well received.

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Morphological study of open clusters can provide observational evidence for tracing the formation mechanism of star clusters and help to explore the evolution of star clusters.

The morphology of open clusters on the two-dimensional (2D) projection planes mostly conforms to the core-shell structure. However, whether this layered structure actually exists in three-dimensional (3D) space is not known.

Recently, researchers from the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory (XAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed a rose diagram overlaying method based on Gaia data to study the 3D layered structure of open samples within 500 parsec (pc) near the sun.

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Israeli company Steakholder Foods has announced that it successfully 3D printed the first ready-to-cook cultivated grouper fish product.

Credit: Steakholder Foods.

The grouper is a species of fish that belongs to the subfamily Epinephelinae and is known for its large size and unique appearance. There are various species found in different parts of the world, including the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and the Indo-Pacific region.

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University of Alberta researchers have developed a new catalyst that could revolutionize how we generate power and purify water. When placed in any type of water and provided with a small amount of power, the catalyst produces hydrogen that can be fed into a fuel cell to generate electricity along with distilled water that is safe to drink.

The catalyst was discovered almost entirely by chance when Robin Hamilton was creating an electrode for an undergraduate student working on a waste biomass upcycling project. He mixed up a combination of powders and allowed them to sit overnight in water, intending to finish the cell the following day. When he returned in the morning, the mixture was bubbling—a reaction that was extremely out of the ordinary.

“It ends up being that when you mix these two things together, they interact, they work together and hydrogen comes off. It floored us,” says Hamilton, a senior research associate in the Department of Chemistry.

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Suvorexant (Belsomra), a dual orexin receptor antagonist approved for insomnia, reduced levels of tau phosphorylation and amyloid beta, a small clinical trialopens in a new tab or window showed.

The ratio of phosphorylated tau-threonine-181 (p-tau-181) to unphosphorylated tau-threonine-181 decreased 10% to 15% in cognitively normal adults treated with suvorexant 20 mg compared with placebo, reported Brendan Lucey, MD, MSCI, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and co-authors.

Amyloid-beta levels fell 10% to 20% compared with placebo starting 5 hours after suvorexant administration, the researchers wrote in Annals of Neurologyopens in a new tab or window.

— Both amyloid and tau levels fell in early trial.

Continue reading “Alzheimer’s Proteins Reduced by Sleep Drug” | >

Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC have discovered that being exposed to a mixture of synthetic chemicals commonly present in the environment affects multiple crucial biological processes in both children and young adults. These processes include the metabolism of fats and amino acids.

<div class=””> <div class=””><br />Amino acids are a set of organic compounds used to build proteins. There are about 500 naturally occurring known amino acids, though only 20 appear in the genetic code. Proteins consist of one or more chains of amino acids called polypeptides. The sequence of the amino acid chain causes the polypeptide to fold into a shape that is biologically active. The amino acid sequences of proteins are encoded in the genes. Nine proteinogenic amino acids are called “essential” for humans because they cannot be produced from other compounds by the human body and so must be taken in as food.<br /></div> </div>

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