Lifeboat Foundation

AI machine learning presents a roadmap to define new materials for any need, with implications in green energy and waste reduction.

Scientists and institutions dedicate more resources each year to the discovery of novel materials to fuel the world. As natural resources diminish and the demand for higher value and advanced performance products grows, researchers have increasingly looked to nanomaterials.

Nanoparticles have already found their way into applications ranging from energy storage and conversion to quantum computing and therapeutics. But given the vast compositional and structural tunability nanochemistry enables, serial experimental approaches to identify new materials impose insurmountable limits on discovery.

The long-acting injectable HIV medications cabotegravir and rilpivirine, which are administered by a healthcare provider once a month, can be successfully implemented in health practises in the United States, according to a study presented at the 11th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2021). What’s more, providers and people with HIV encountered few barriers to giving or receiving the injections despite changes in health services during COVID-19.

“Over the course of a year, even with the added challenges of COVID-19, the barriers that providers and patients thought they would face turned out not to be as concerning as originally thought,” Dr Maggie Czarnogorski of ViiV Healthcare said in a press release.

Continue reading “Long-acting injectable HIV treatment is feasible, even during COVID-19” »

Summary: Neurons in the primary olfactory cortex play a role in encoding spatial maps, a new study reports.

Source: champalimaud centre for the unknown.

Smell has the power to transport us across time and space. It could be the sweet fragrance of jasmine, or the musty scent of algae. Suddenly, you are back at your childhood home, or under the burning sun of a distant shore.

Summary: A new computational method sheds light on the intricacies of brain structure and function.

Source: Baylor College of Medicine.

To better appreciate how a complex organ such as the brain functions, scientists strive to accurately understand both its detailed cellular architecture and the intercellular communications taking place within it.

At least 70 free-floating planets were found in a nearby star-forming region.

Astronomers discover 70 free-floating planets, the largest group of rogue planets ever found. The planets may have formed on their own or been ejected by a star.

A Rice University-led study is forcing physicists to rethink superconductivity in uranium ditelluride, an A-list material in the worldwide race to create fault-tolerant quantum computers.

Uranium ditelluride crystals are believed to host a rare “spin-triplet” form of superconductivity, but puzzling experimental results published this week in Nature have upended the leading explanation of how the state of matter could arise in the material. Neutron-scattering experiments by physicists from Rice, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of California, San Diego and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University revealed telltale signs of antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations that were coupled to superconductivity in uranium ditelluride.

Continue reading “A-list candidate for fault-free quantum computing delivers surprise” »

Tsinghua Unigroup Co, one of China’s biggest semiconductor giants and a key server supplier to the Chinese government entities is burdened with debt default.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) yet again finds itself in the middle of a battle with the private sector and tech entrepreneurs. This time over the all-important semiconductors. Tsinghua Unigroup Co., one of China’s biggest semiconductor giants and a key server supplier to the Chinese government entities, is burdened with debt defaults and undergoing rescue process.

Without naming the CCP, Zhao is promising to stand up to Communist Party leadership. In Xi’s enterprise-hating China, a private entity doesn’t simply rise out of nowhere and take over a leading semiconductor giant. And if any entity can dare to do that, it must be having the informal backing of the Communist Party.

Continue reading “Chinese chip giant Tsinghua Unigroup publicly picks a fight with CCP” »

BOSTON (AP) — A Harvard University professor charged with hiding his ties to a Chinese-run recruitment program was found guilty on all counts Tuesday.

Solar and wind resources are the lowest marginal cost sources of electricity in most of the world. Solar, wind, and other forms of green energy produce power as and when it’s available. And as the world starts to transition away from cheap, responsive, and heavily polluting energy sources like coal, the electric grid now faces a challenge: how to manage the multi-day variability of renewable energy, even in periods of multi-day weather events, without sacrificing energy reliability or affordability.

In 2017, Tesla built and installed the world’s largest lithium-ion battery at Hornsdale in South Australia, which was a huge success. But there are inherent issues with lithium batteries; they are expensive, better suited to quick turnaround than long-term storage.

However, Form Energy is focused on developing low-cost energy storage technology to enable a reliable, secure, and fully renewable electric grid year-round. The Massachusetts-based startup recently unveiled a new rechargeable iron-air battery capable of delivering electricity for 100 hours at system costs competitive with conventional power plants and at less than 1/10th the cost of lithium-ion.