Summary: SARS_CoV_2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 infects and replicates in astrocytes, reducing neural viability.
Source: FAPESP
A Brazilian study published in the journal PNAS describes some of the effects infection by SARS-CoV-2 can have on the central nervous system.
Tata Motors, an India-based automaker, has launched a new small hatchback all-electric vehicle starting at just over $10,000.
The Indian auto market has been lagging behind its peers when it comes to electrification.
This is due to many factors, but not the least of which is the fact that the country has strong protectionist laws when it comes to its auto industry and it makes it hard for foreign automakers to launch new vehicles in the country without producing them there.
The Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) collaboration has announced the discovery of three new exotic particles.
Exotic particles, such as these, had only been theorized but not observed until recently. These exotic particles are built out of quarks.
Hossenfelder lists several theories that fall under her critique including Penrose’s cyclic cosmology, the ekpyrotic universe that postulates colliding membranes, and the no-boundary proposal by Jim Hartle and Stephen Hawking. Stephen Meyer also critiqued these theories in his book Return of the God Hypothesis. But Meyer came to starkly different conclusions.
Hossenfelder concludes that “we are facing the limits of science itself.” And the question of the universe’s origin “we’ll never be able to answer.” In contrast, Meyer argues that the evidence for a beginning and the required fine tuning of the universe to support life point to a mind behind our world. The fact that all alternative cosmological theories require highly specific initial conditions to explain our present life-friendly universe only reinforces the fine-tuning argument and by extension the God Hypothesis.
In a discovery with wide-ranging implications, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that uniformly charged macromolecules—or molecules, such as proteins or DNA, that contain a large number of atoms all with the same electrical charge—can self-assemble into very large structures. This finding upends our understanding of how some of life’s basic structures are built.
Traditionally, scientists have understood charged polymer chains as being composed of smaller, uniformly charged units. Such chains, called polyelectrolytes, display predictable behaviors of self-organization in water: They will repel each other because similarly charged objects don’t like to be close to each other. If you add salt to water containing polyelectrolytes, then molecules coil up, because the chains’ electrical repulsion is screened by the salt.
However, “the game is very different when you have dipoles,” says Murugappan Muthukumar, the Wilmer D. Barrett Professor in Polymer Science and Engineering at UMass Amherst, the study’s senior author.
In the 20th century, many options abounded as to our cosmic origins. Today, only the Big Bang survives, thanks to this critical evidence.
An interdisciplinary team of University of Minnesota Twin Cities scientists and engineers has developed a first-of-its-kind, plant-inspired extrusion process that enables synthetic material growth. The new approach will allow researchers to build better soft robots that can navigate hard-to-reach places, complicated terrain, and potentially areas within the human body.
The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, high-impact scientific journal.
LAS CRUCES, N.M., May 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — In four weeks of continuous live-fire exercises, an industry team led by Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX) business, and Kord, a wholly owned subsidiary of KBR, defeated multiple 60mm mortar rounds with a 50kW-class high energy laser integrated on a Stryker combat vehicle.
The directed energy weapon system — part of the U.S. Army’s Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense, or DE M-SHORAD — acquired, tracked, targeted and defeated multiple mortars and successfully accomplished multiple tests simulating real-world scenarios.
Continuing to put the DE M-SHORAD system to the test, the recent operational assessment at White Sands Missile Range also included defeating several small, medium and large drones.
Aiming to become the world’s largest operator of supersonic aircraft fleet, American Airlines (A1G) (AAL) has signed an agreement with Boom Supersonic for the purchase of what will be the world’s fastest commercial airliners.
American Airlines (A1G) (AAL) committed to purchasing up to 20 Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft with an option for an additional 40 jets, it announced on August 16, 2022. Showing its intent, the Texas-based air carrier said it has already transferred a non-refundable payment to the manufacturer for first 20 planes. However, it did not specify the worth of the recent deal.
According to the terms of the deal, the manufacturer must meet industry-standard operating, performance, and safety requirements, as well as other American Airlines’ (A1G) (AAL) requirements, before any Overture jets are delivered to the airline.
