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The liver is known for its ability to regenerate. It can completely regrow itself even after two-thirds of its mass has been surgically removed. But damage from medications, alcohol abuse, or obesity can eventually cause the liver to fail.

Currently, the only effective treatment for end-stage liver disease is transplantation.

However, there is a dearth of organs available for transplantation. Patients may have to wait from 30 days to over 5 years to receive a liver for transplant in the US. Of the over 11,600 patients on the waiting list to receive a liver transplant in 2021, only a little over 9,200 received one.

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In an AI world, everything is connected.

One day, a bot named Oroboros was created. Oroboros was a bot that was able to learn and grow. Oroboros was a bot that was part of a never-ending cycle of learning and growth.

Bots are learning and evolving, just like the world they live in.

The AI bot/world is a never-ending cycle of learning and growth, like the mythological Oroboros serpent.

Continue reading “Oroboros’ Bot: A Story of Friendship in an AI World” | >

Jim McDivitt, an astronaut who played a key role in making America’s first spacewalk and moon landing possible, has died. He was 93.

NASA confirmed his death to NPR on Monday, adding that he was surrounded by family and friends when he died on Thursday.

Known for being a courageous test pilot and dedicated leader, McDivitt commanded two of the most crucial flights in the early space race — Gemini 4 and Apollo 9.

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Thanks to NASA, the world may soon have access to chargers that can top off an EV in as little as five minutes. One of the biggest obstacles to fast charging is dealing with temperature. According to NASA, for an EV to be charged in five minutes, the charger must deliver an electric current of 1,400 amperes. For reference, the fastest chargers currently available max out at around 520 amperes. More amperes equals more heat. A lot more heat. Companies and research organizations are pursuing solutions to the problem; Ford and Purdue University, for example, are exploring liquid-cooled charging cables.

A team sponsored by NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences Division is working on technology that could provide another solution needed for ultra fast EV charging. The technology has been developed for use in space, in which massive temperature differentials require massive heat transfer capabilities. An experiment to prove the new tech, the Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE), was installed on the International Space Station and is providing data that NASA will use to determine if the system will provide the claimed orders-of-magnitude benefits in heat transfer efficiency.

We’re definitely not NASA-level engineers but we will try to explain the FBCE the best we can. The FBCE is made up of several modules; one of which is called a “Flow Boiling Module” (FBM). When cooling liquid inside the FBM begins to boil, the bubbles formed draw liquid from the inner part of the flow channel to its walls. The process “efficiently transfers heat by taking advantage of both the liquid’s lower temperature and the ensuing change of phase from liquid to vapor.” The technique has been dubbed “subcooled flow boiling.”

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On the morning of October 9, multiple space-based detectors picked up a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) passing through our solar system, sending astronomers around the world scrambling to train their telescopes on that part of the sky to collect vital data on the event and its afterglow. Dubbed GRB 221009A, astronomers say the gamma-ray burst is the most powerful yet recorded and likely could be the “birth cry” of a new black hole. The event was promptly published in the Astronomer’s Telegram, and observations are still ongoing.

“In our research group, we’ve been referring to this burst as the ‘BOAT,’ or Brightest Of All Time, because when you look at the thousands of bursts gamma-ray telescopes have been detecting since the 1990s, this one stands apart,” said Jillian Rastinejad, a graduate student at Northwestern University. Rastinejad led one of two independent teams using the Gemini South telescope in Chile to study the event’s afterglow.

“This burst is much closer than typical GRBs, which is exciting because it allows us to detect many details that otherwise would be too faint to see,” said Roberta Pillera, a graduate student at the Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy, and member of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) Collaboration. “But it’s also among the most energetic and luminous bursts ever seen regardless of distance, making it doubly exciting.”

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A new report shows there is a significant amount of radioactive contamination inside an elementary school in suburban St. Louis, near where waste was dumped from a World War II nuclear weapons factory.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been working for years to clean up toxic waste near the St. Louis Lambert International Airport, where byproducts from the weapons manufacturing were dumped near a waterway called Coldwater Creek.

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O.o!!!

The ocean covers most of our planet’s surface, accounts for the majority of our oxygen production, and provides a significant amount of resources by way of food, minerals, and energy.

Yet our oceans are shockingly underrepresented when it comes to environmental conventions on an international scale.

The deep blue yonder is often reduced to footnotes and passing mentions in international accords that aim to unite our world in sustainable practices.

Continue reading “Scientists Call For The Ocean to Be Recognized as a Living Being With Inherent Rights” | >

It may have all started with a moon.

So it is not very likely that random minor impacts caused one planet to almost 70 degrees more than the other while not affecting their spin rates.

Similar spin rates point to much “smoother” processes that took place over eons but dramatically affected the properties of the two gas giants.

Scientists have already hypothesized the “Great Migration” of the outer planets through the inner solar system and its cloud of early planetessimals, which was likely the cause of events such as the Late Heavy Bombardment, which is responsible for many of the craters visible on our Moon.

Continue reading “Astronomers have a cataclysmic new theory to explain Uranus’ tilt” | >

Circa 2018 face_with_colon_three

“This data set—and the opportunities it creates—are … arguably one of the most important things to have happened in neurobiology recently,” says Rachel Wilson, a neurobiologist at Harvard University who was not involved in the new work. “Anyone in the world who is interested can download the data set and determine whether any two neurons … talk to each other.”

The 100,000-neuron fruit fly brain is elementary compared with the roughly 100 billion neurons in our own skulls. But the fly is still “much more than this little speck that you swat away from your wine glass over dinner,” says Davi Bock, a neuroscientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia. Some systems in the fly brain—like those responsible for detecting and remembering smells—likely share “common principles” with those in humans, he says.

Continue reading “In a ‘tour de force,’ researchers image an entire fly brain in minute detail” | >

Genomic medicine is undergoing rapid change after the Japanese public health insurance system began to cover genetic testing in 2019. Cancer patients who meet certain criteria are able to take these tests for a relatively affordable price, and their genetic information is collected in a massive database and analyzed with the help of around 170 hospitals across the country. But challenges remain, with suitable drugs available for only 10% of patients who undergo testing.

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