Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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A small bivalve mollusk previously only known from the Pleistocene of Los Angeles County has recently been found living intertidally near Santa Barbara, California. The bivalve has been determined to be Cymatioa cooki (Willett, 1937), a member of the Galeommatoidea J.E. Gray, 1840. We document the habitat for the newly discovered C. cooki, and compare it to C. electilis (Berry, 1963), the other extant member of this genus recorded from the region. Cymatioa cooki is rare, and while many galeommatoid species have been shown to be commensal with other invertebrates, we have been unable to determine any specific commensal relationships for it.

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At first glance, the human body seems to be symmetrical: two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, and even the nose and mouth appear to be mirrored on an imaginary axis that divides most people’s faces. Finally, the brain is split into two nearly equal-sized halves, and the furrows and bulges follow a similar pattern. The initial impression, however, is misleading since there are small, functionally relevant differences between the left and right sides of the different brain regions.

The two hemispheres have distinct functional specializations. For instance, most individuals process language mostly in their left hemisphere whereas spatial attention is primarily processed in their right hemisphere. Work can thus be distributed more effectively to both sides, and the overall range of tasks is expanded.

However, this so-called lateralization, or the tendency for brain regions to process certain functions more in the left or right hemisphere, differs between people. And not only in the minority whose brains are mirror-inverted in comparison to the majority. Even people with classically arranged brains have varying degrees of asymmetry. Previous research has indicated that this, in turn, may have an effect on the functions themselves.

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European moles shrink their brains by 11% before the winter and grow them again by 4% by the summer.

European moles face an existential crisis in the depths of winter. Their high-limit mammal metabolisms need more food than is available during the coldest months. Instead of migrating or hibernating to deal with the seasonal challenge, moles have devised an unexpected energy-saving strategy: shrinking their brains.

In a recent study, a group from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior headed by Dina Dechmann found that European moles shrink their brains by 11% before the winter and grow them back by 4% by summer. They are a new group of mammals known for reversibly shrinking their brains through a process known as Dehnel’s phenomenon.

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Turing’s machine should sound familiar for another reason. It’s similar to the way ribosomes read genetic code on ribbons of RNA to construct proteins.

Cellular factories are a kind of natural Turing machine. What Leigh’s team is after would work the same way but go beyond biochemistry. These microscopic Turing machines, or molecular computers, would allow engineers to write code for some physical output onto a synthetic molecular ribbon. Another molecule would travel along the ribbon, read (and one day write) the code, and output some specified action, like catalyzing a chemical reaction.

Now, Leigh’s team says they’ve built the first components of a molecular computer: A coded molecular ribbon and a mobile molecular reader of the code.

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One can split an atomic nucleus to produce energy, but can you also split water to create environment-friendly hydrogen fuel? Doing so currently has two drawbacks: It is both time and energy intensive.

But now, researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa have taken a different path. BGU environmental physicist Prof. Arik Yochelis and Technion materials science professor Avner Rothschild believe they have identified new pathways that would speed up the catalytic process they think will reduce the invested electrical energy costs significantly.

Their splitting process is assisted by solar energy, which is known scientifically by the term photoelectrochemistry, and lowers the amount of the invested electrical energy needed to break the chemical bonds in the water molecule to generate hydrogen and oxygen. Oxygen evolution – the process of generating molecular oxygen (O2) by a chemical reaction, usually from water – requires the transfer of four electrons to create one oxygen molecule and then the adding of two hydrogen molecules to make water.

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Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have engineered a virtual reality (VR) remote collaboration system which lets users on Segways share not only what they see but also the feeling of acceleration as they move. Riders equipped with cameras and accelerometers can feedback their sensations to a remote user on a modified wheelchair wearing a VR headset. User surveys showed significant reduction in VR sickness, promising a better experience for remote collaboration activities.

Virtual reality (VR) technology is making rapid headway, letting users experience and share an immersive, 3D environment. In the field of remote work, one of the major advances it offers is a chance for workers in different locations to share what they see and hear in real-time.

An example is users on personal mobility devices in large warehouse facilities, factories, and construction sites. Riders can cover large areas with ease while highlighting issues in real-time to a remote co-worker. However, one major drawback can ruin the whole experience: VR sickness is a type of which comes from users seeing “motion” through their headsets without actually moving. Symptoms include headaches, nausea, and sometimes vomiting. The problem is particularly acute for the example above, when the person sharing the experience is moving about.

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