Lifeboat Foundation

Genomes contain regions between protein-coding genes that produce lengthy RNA molecules that never give rise to a protein. These long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) are thought to have important functions, such as regulating responses to environmental change. However, a paucity of well-annotated lincRNA data, especially for crop plants, has precluded a deeper understanding of their roles.

Up until now, there have been no systematic genome-wide studies that both confirmed DNA sequences that produce lincRNAs and proposed functions for those lincRNAs. Plus, data are reported differently across studies, making direct comparisons among them difficult.

These barriers inspired researchers at the Boyce Thompson Institute to take a comprehensive look at the identity, production and function of lincRNAs in four species in the mustard family, including the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana, and Brassica rapa, a species that produces boy choy, turnips and other food crops.

There is a reserve of water the size of 140 trillion oceans lurking in a faraway supermassive black hole, the universe’s largest deposit of water and 4,000 times the amount found in the Milky Way.

This amount of water was discovered by two teams of astronomers 12 billion light-years away, where it appears as vapor dispersed across hundreds of light-years.

The reservoir was discovered in a quasar’s gaseous area, which is a brilliant compact region in the heart of a galaxy powered by a black hole. This finding demonstrates that water may be present throughout the cosmos, even at the start.

Researchers at the SketchX, University of Surrey have recently developed a meta learning-based model that allows users to retrieve images of specific items simply by sketching them on a tablet, smartphone, or on other smart devices. This framework was outlined in a paper set to be presented at the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), one of the top three flagship computer vision conferences along with CVPR and ICCV.

Researchers at the SketchX, University of Surrey have recently developed a meta learning-based model that allows users to retrieve images of specific items simply by sketching them on a tablet, smartphone, or on other smart devices. This framework was outlined in a paper set to be presented at the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), one of the top three flagship computer vision conferences along with CVPR and ICCV.

“This is the latest along the line of work on ‘fine-grained image retrieval,’ a problem that my research lab (SketchX, which I direct and founded back in 2012) pioneered back in 2015, with a paper published in CVPR 2015 titled ‘Sketch Me That Shoe,’” Yi-Zhe Song, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “The idea behind our paper is that it is often hard or impossible to conduct image retrieval at a fine-grained level, (e.g., finding a particular type of shoe at Christmas, but not any shoe).”

In the past, some researchers tried to devise models that can retrieve images based on text or voice descriptions. Text might be easier for users to produce, yet it was found only to work at a coarse level. In other words, it can become ambiguous and ineffective when trying to describe details.

Summary: A new study using 3D-MINFLUX technology allowed researchers to image the active zone of synapses with the precision of a few nanometers.

Source: University of Gottingen.

Scientists at the Institute for Auditory Neuroscience, UMG, the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences and the Abberior Instruments GmbH have applied high-resolution 3D-MINFLUX technology for precise 3D representation of the molecular organization in the active zone of rod photoreceptor cells.

Vulnerability researchers have found security issues in a GPS tracker that is advertised as being present in about 1.5 million vehicles in 169 countries.

A total of six vulnerabilities affect the MiCODUS MV720 device, which is present in vehicles used by several Fortune 50 firms, governments in Europe, states in the U.S., a military agency in South America, and a nuclear plant operator.

The risks stemming from the findings are significant and impact both privacy and security. A hacker compromising an MV720 device could use it for tracking or even immobilizing the vehicle carrying it, or to collect information about the routes, and manipulate data.

Penn State agricultural engineers have developed, for the first time, a prototype “end-effector” capable of deftly removing unwanted apples from trees—the first step toward robotic, green-fruit thinning.

The development is important, according to Long He, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering, because manual thinning is a labor-intensive task, and the shrinking labor force in apple production makes manual thinning economically infeasible. His research group in the College of Agricultural Sciences conducted a new study that led to the end-effector.

The apple crop is a high-value agricultural commodity in the U.S., with an annual total production of nearly 10 billion pounds and valued at nearly $3 billion, according to He, who is a leader in agricultural robotics research, previously developing automated components for mushroom picking and apple tree pruning. Green-fruit thinning—the process of discarding excess fruitlets in early summer, mainly to increase the remaining fruit size and quality—is one of the most important aspects of apple production.

An extraordinary image of the centre of the spiral galaxy NGC 628 taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has drawn comparisons to a Doctor Who vortex, but it could reveal important clues about how dust behaves in galaxies.

The image is a composite of three sets of data at different wavelengths taken by JWST’s mid-infrared instrument team. Gabriel Brammer at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, who isn’t affiliated with the team, downloaded the data and translated each of the infrared wavelengths to red, green and blue before combining them to produce one image.

NGC 628 has been imaged with visible light by other telescopes, including Hubble, and looks similar to our own Milky Way if viewed from above the galactic plane. But JWST’s ability to observe infrared light in high resolution reveals a hidden structure. “If our eyes could see in these mid-infrared wavelengths, the night sky would look a lot more like this picture, which I think would be spectacular, maybe a little terrifying,” says Brammer.

Scientists report that damage to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) caused by a micrometeoroid impact in late May 2022 may be more severe than previously believed.

A group of scientists evaluated the performance of the space telescope throughout its commissioning phase in a new report released last week following Webb’s amazing first photographs.