The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s premier observatory of the next decade, successfully launched to space Saturday morning. The telescope will study exoplanets in new ways and look deeper into the universe than we’ve ever been able to before.
Analysis of ancient DNA from one of the best-preserved Neolithic tombs in Britain by a team involving archaeologists from Newcastle University, UK, and geneticists at the University of the Basque Country, University of Vienna and Harvard University, has revealed that most of the people buried there were from five continuous generations of a single extended family. Credit: Newcastle University/Fowler, Olalde et al.
Although the right to use the tomb ran through patrilineal ties, the choice of whether individuals were buried in the north or south chambered area initially depended on the first-generation woman from whom they were descended, suggesting that these first-generation women were socially significant in the memories of this community.
There are also indications that ‘stepsons’ were adopted into the lineage, the researchers say — males whose mother was buried in the tomb but not their biological father, and whose mother had also had children with a male from the patriline. Additionally, the team found no evidence that another eight individuals were biological relatives of those in the family tree, which might further suggest that biological relatedness was not the only criterion for inclusion. However, three of these were women and it is possible that they could have had a partner in the tomb but either did not have any children or had daughters who reached adulthood and left the community so are absent from the tomb.
CRISPR-based cures will soon help combat all kinds of disease, from UTIs to leukemia. But terrifying implications of gene editing are abound as well.
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The results of a meta-analysis suggest that probiotic supplementation may improve cognitive function in people with mild cognitive impairment.
Security researchers have uncovered a malicious campaign that relies on a valid code-signing certificate to disguise malicious code as legitimate executables.
One of the payloads that the researchers called Blister, acts as a loader for other malware and appears to be a novel threat that enjoys a low detection rate.
The threat actor behind Blister has been relying on multiple techniques to keep their attacks under the radar, the use of code-signing certificates being only one of their tricks.
The hidden water was found at a site as large as the Netherlands.
The water likely exists as ice, making the region ripe for future exploration.
The uncharted nature of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused uncertainty globally, resulting in many health care professionals and key-workers being left with supply shortages in medical consumables and personal protective equipment, exacerbated by supply line issues and in some cases delays resulting from governmental policies. 3D printing (3DP) has played an important role in providing essential items to hospitals and the wider communities, such as visors, face masks, and ventilator components. This short-review article covers the potential of antimicrobial materials in the manufacturing of 3DP essential products, as an approach for added protection against pandemics.
How is Cuba’s one dose vaccine working 🤔
HAVANA, Dec 20 (Reuters) — Cuba has vaccinated more of its citizens against COVID-19 than most of the world’s largest and richest nations, a milestone that will make the poor, communist-run country a test case as the highly contagious Omicron variant begins to circle the globe.
The Caribbean island has vaccinated over 90% of its population with at least one dose, and 83% of the population is now fully inoculated, placing it second globally behind only the United Arab Emirates among countries of at least 1 million people, according to official statistics compiled by ‘Our World in Data.’
Continue reading “Cuba soars to near top of COVID vaccination charts on decades-old bet” »
WASHINGTON, December 24, 2021 – Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says that further use of artificial intelligence will call into question what it means to be human, and that the technology cannot solve all those problems humans fail to address on their own.
Kissinger spoke at a Council on Foreign Relations event highlighting his new book “The Age of AI: And Our Human Future” on Monday along with co-author and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a conversation moderated by PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff.
Schmidt remarked throughout the event on unanswered questions about AI despite common use of the technology.
