Lifeboat Foundation

University of Saskatchewan (USask) researchers have developed a new method of killing brain cancer cells while preserving the delicate tissue around it. The technique also has a remarkable side-benefit: making chemotherapy treatment of brain cancer suddenly possible.

The technique involves placing long needles through the skull and sending pulses of electrical current into a glioblastoma tumor—the pernicious variety of brain cancer that caused Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie’s death.

“A safer and more effective cancer treatment may be clinically possible,” said Dr. Mike Moser (MD), USask College of Medicine general surgery researcher and co-author of a study published recently in the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has peered into the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole.

Webb’s powerful infrared gaze produced this detailed image of the Cartwheel and two smaller companion galaxies against a backdrop of many other galaxies. This image provides a new view of how the Cartwheel Galaxy has changed over billions of years.

The Cartwheel Galaxy, located about 500 million light-years away in the Sculptor constellation, is a rare sight. Its appearance, much like that of the wheel of a wagon, is the result of an intense event – a high-speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy not visible in this image. Collisions of galactic proportions cause a cascade of different, smaller events between the galaxies involved; the Cartwheel is no exception.

The discovery of a completely new mineral this week by the precious stone mining company Shefa Yamim in northern Israel has both geologists and the general public in awe.

Carmeltazite, often known as “Carmel Sapphire,” may be advertised as a mineral more precious than diamonds.

The mineral was discovered encrusted with sapphire during mining in volcanic rock in northern Israel’s Zevulun Valley near Mt. Carmel, and it was aptly named “carmeltazite” after its discovery site. During density tests, it was determined to be harder than diamond.

With a Bose–Einstein condensate in a magnetic field, researchers can see hints of particle production in expanding space—and they can run the experiment more than once.

The test strengthens Russia’s nuclear command and control systems amid rising tensions with the West.

Russian defense officials are claiming a successful test of the Ilyushin Il-80 deep-sea communication system, allowing the Russian ‘Doomsday’ plane to communicate with deep-sea nuclear submarines in the event of a nuclear war.

According to the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, the Il-80 ‘Flying Kremlin’ successfully communicated with Russian nuclear submarines located deep underwater using ultra-long wave signals, enabling the Russian President to communicate and coordinate Russian military activity in the event of nuclear conflict.

Elon Musk announced in a tweet today (Nov .25) that Twitter would launch its delayed color-coded “Verified” service on Friday next week.

The new service would feature a “gold check” for companies, a grey one for government accounts and the existing blue one for individuals, regardless of whether they are celebrities or not. See the tweet for yourself below:

“Painful but necessary”

NASA’s Orion spacecraft will soon fly further than any human-rated spacecraft has ever flown before.

NASA’s Orion spacecraft is now on day 10 of the Artemis I mission after the successful launch of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) on November 16, meaning it has had ample opportunity to capture a wealth of stunning imagery of the moon.

The uncrewed capsule cruised within 81.1 miles (130 kilometers) of the lunar surface during its closest approach to the moon earlier this week, and it is now preparing to enter a distant retrograde orbit (DRO) of the moon that will see it fly farther from Earth than any human-rated spacecraft ever has before.

It accomplished this record-breaking feat in two hours and 49 minutes.

After aeronautical engineer Paul MacCready won the first Kremer Prize in 1977 for the flight of his human-powered Gossamer Condor over a closed circuit course, he decided to cross the English Channel by air on human-power only, according to a report by The Museum of Flight.

He thus built the Gossamer Albatross aircraft from the lessons learned with the Condor. “This light and fragile aircraft was pushed by a propeller connected through a series of gears to a constantly pedaling pilot,” explained an article in The Museum of Flight.

Continue reading “Human-powered aircraft: Gossamer Albatross made history” »

It’s time to go to bed for artificial neurons.

According to a recent study by the University of California, San Diego, neural networks can imitate the sleep patterns of the human brain in order to tackle catastrophic forgetting.

“The brain is very busy when we sleep, repeating what we have learned during the day,” said Maxim Bazhenov, Ph.D., professor of medicine and a sleep researcher at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine in the press release. “Sleep helps reorganize memories and presents them in the most efficient way.”

Continue reading “Like a human? Artificial neural networks need to sleep to learn better” »