Dark photons, a hypothetical form of dark matter, could explain the heating discrepancy in intergalactic gas. Read on to discover the exciting potential of dark photons in explaining the mysteries of the universe!
Expand (PITTSBURGH, Pa.) — One of the most consistent issues that disaster response teams face is blood shortages. These headaches, caused by short supply and perishability, make blood donations a constant push across the nation. CBS News reports that in Pennsylvania, scientists from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC are making progress, and could see results within the decade.
According to scientific reports, this study relies on studying the DNA of the bird known as “Dodo”, which lived on the island of Mauritius in the middle of the Indian Ocean until the late seventeenth century, and was unable to fly. It may seem like a fantasy, because the animal has been extinct for centuries, but scientists make it clear that their quest is based on very carefully studied steps.
The Question of Free Will
Posted in ethics, neuroscience
Do we make conscious decisions? Or are all of our actions predetermined? And if we don’t have free will, are we responsible for what we do? Modern neurotechnology is now allowing scientists to study brain activity neuron by neuron to try to determine how and when our brains decide to act. In this program, experts probe the latest research and explore the question of just how much agency we have in the world, and how the answer impacts our ethics, our behavior, and our society.
This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.
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Original Program Date: May 30, 2015
Tesla’s data library as well as training and inference tools should help position it to “build other autonomous machines that navigate the physical world”, according to Ark.
Start using AnyDesk, the blazing-fast Remote Desktop Software, today at https://anydesk.com/en/downloads/windows?utm_source=brand&am…tm_term=en.
Written by Joseph Conlon.
Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford.
Author, Why String Theory? https://www.amazon.com/Why-String-Theory-Joseph-Conlon/dp/14…atfound-20
Edited and Narrated by David Kelly.
Thumbnail Art by Ettore Mazza.
Animations by Jero Squartini https://fiverr.com/freelancers/jerosq.
Huge thanks to Jeff Bryant for his Calabi-yau animation.
Footage from Videoblocks, Artlist. Footage of galaxies from NASA and ESO.
Music from Epidemic Sound, Artlist, Silver Maple and Yehezkel Raz.
Image Credits:
Rogue Putin is the biggest risk of 2023. Here are the other 9, explained by global political expert Ian Bremmer.
Read more of Eurasia Group’s top risks for 2023 ► https://www.eurasiagroup.net/issues/top-risks-2023
Today’s world is facing large-scale problems, from wars to water shortages to a looming global recession. It’s not easy to accurately conceptualize the risks posed by these issues. This is especially true when people on social media or in the news inaccurately overblow certain problems and discount others, or when problems become so emotionally or politically charged that it seems impossible to work toward a solution.
That’s one reason why the Eurasia Group publishes a detailed analysis of the top risks facing our world each year. As political scientist Ian Bremmer explains, the top risks for 2023 include water stress, inflation shockwaves, and the uncertain future of a “rogue Russia.”
Transhumanism is the idea that technology and evidence-based science can and should be used to augment and improve humans in order to overcome the limitations that evolution has left us with. As the name suggests, it stems from humanism, but it adds an optimism that cognitive and physical improvement is both possible and desirable.
On the face of it, the idea that humans should be permitted to use technology to live healthier and happier lives does not sound dangerous, or even contentious. But it does provoke strong opposition: in 2004, Francis Fukuyama called transhumanism “the world’s most dangerous idea”. The force of that claim is somewhat undermined when you consider how wildly wrong his previous big idea turned out to be: in 1992 he declared that because the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, history had come to an end. Nevertheless, Fukuyama is not alone in fearing transhumanism.
Some people object to transhumanism because they think we should strive to be “natural”, and to be content with what evolution – or their god — have given us. But of course the definition of what is “natural” changes over time. Nature didn’t endow us with spectacles, and few people now argue they should be banned. Now we have cochlear implants, and many people feel that their smartphones are extensions of themselves. In the future we will have the option of raising our IQ with smart drugs or with gene therapy, and these will be hotly debated.
A team of researchers from Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Washington is trying to change the way that the field of biology understands how muscles contract.
In a paper published on January 25, 2023, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled “Structural OFF/ON Transition of Myosin in Related Porcine Myocardium Predict Calcium Activated Force,” Illinois Tech Research Assistant Professor Weikang Ma and Professor of Biology and Physics Thomas Irving—working in collaboration with Professor of Bioengineering Michael Regnier’s group at Washington—make the case for a second, newly discovered aspect to muscle contraction that could play a significant role in developing treatments for inherited cardiac conditions.
The consensus for how muscle contraction occurs has been that the relationship between the thin and thick filaments that comprise muscle tissue was a more straightforward process. When targets on thin filaments were activated, it was thought that the myosin motor proteins that make up the thick filaments would automatically find their way to those thin filaments to start generating force and contract the muscle.