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The technology, which was created by Barcelona-based researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), combines high-resolution microscopy with sophisticated computer modeling. It is the most comprehensive technique to date for studying the shape of genes.

The new technique allows researchers to create and digitally navigate three-dimensional models of genes, seeing not just their architecture but also information on how they move or how flexible they are. Understanding how genes function might help us better understand how they influence the human body in both health and disease since almost every human disease has some genetic basis.

Boa, an open-source web server suitable for embedded applications that was discontinued since 2005 is now becoming a security threat because of the complex nature of how it was built into the internet of things (IoT) device supply chain. A recent report by tech major Microsoft said that hackers are exploiting vulnerabilities in the software to target organizations in the energy sector.

Microsoft researchers revealed in an analysis that a vulnerable open-source component in the Boa web server, is used widely in a range of routers and security cameras as well as popular software development kits (SDKs), a set of tools that allow developers to write or use an existing framework to develop applications for a given platform.

Despite the software being discontinued a nearly two decades ago, Microsoft reports that attackers are continuing their attempts to exploit the flaws of the Boa web servers which include a high-severity information disclosure bug (CVE-2021–33558) and another arbitrary file access flaw (CVE-2017–9833). An unauthenticated attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to obtain user credentials and leverage them for remote code execution.

The Higgs boson, the fundamental subatomic particle associated with the Higgs field, was first discovered in 2012 as part of the ATLAS and CMS experiments, both of which analyze data collected at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator in existence. Since the discovery of the Higgs boson, research teams worldwide have been trying to better understand this unique particle’s properties and characteristics.

The CMS Collaboration, the large group of researchers involved in the CMS experiment, has recently obtained an updated measurement of the width of the Higgs boson, while also gathering the first evidence of its off-shell contributions to the production of Z boson pairs. Their findings, published in Nature Physics, are consistent with predictions.

“The quantum theoretical description of fundamental particles is probabilistic in nature, and if you consider all the different states of a collection of particles, their probabilities must always add up to 1 regardless of whether you look at this collection now or sometime later,” Ulascan Sarica, researcher for the CMS Collaboration, told Phys.org. “When analyzed mathematically, this simple statement imposes restrictions, the so-called unitarity bounds, on the probabilities of particle interactions at high energies.”

If we can analyze the organization of neural circuits, it will play a crucial role in better understanding the process of thinking. It is where the maps come into play. Maps of the nervous system contain information about the identity of individual cells, like their type, subcellular component, and connectivity of the neurons.

But how do we obtain these maps?

Volumetric nanometer-resolution imaging of brain tissue is a technique that provides the raw data needed to build these maps. But inferring all the relevant information is a laborious and challenging task because of the multiple scales of brain structures (e.g., nm for a synapse vs. mm for an axon). It requires hours of manual ground truth labeling by expert annotators.

A ground-breaking prototype developed by experts from the Department of Electronics at the University of Malaga and members of the R&D group “Electronics for Instrumentation and Systems,” will allow those with hearing loss to listen to music through the sense of touch.

It consists of an audio-tactile algorithm that transforms monophonic music into tangible stimuli based on vibration utilizing “tactile illusions.” According to the researchers, “It’s like ‘hacking’ the nervous system to receive a different response to the real stimulus sent.”

“What we want to achieve in the long term is for people who do not hear to be able to ‘listen’ to music”, assures researcher Paul Remache, the main author of this paper, who insists on the power of music to influence mood, as well as its possibilities as a therapy for mental disorders and treatment of pain.

Infinite speed helical engine for space travel 😗😁


Copyright © 2019 by David M. Burns. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., with permission.