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Scientists from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Washington in the U.S. have discovered links to Japan’s next “great earthquake” after drilling deep into the underseas.

The researchers found that the tectonic stress in Japan’s Nankai subduction zone is less than expected after studying an earthquake fault, Phys.org reported on Thursday.

“This is the heart of the subduction zone, right above where the fault is locked, where the expectation was that the system should be storing energy between earthquakes,” said Demian Saffer, director of the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG).

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A genetically modified version of the herpes virus has shown great potential in treating advanced cancers, according to a report by the Institute of Cancer Research in London published on Thursday.

A promising therapy

Although the treatment is still in early trials, researchers have found that RP2, a modified version of the herpes simplex virus, managed to kill cancer cells in a quarter of patients. The patients had cancers so advanced and complicated that they had run out of treatments to try.

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Circa 2017 face_with_colon_three

LA JOLLA—Salk scientists have created a new version of the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology that allows them to activate genes without creating breaks in the DNA, potentially circumventing a major hurdle to using gene editing technologies to treat human diseases.

Most CRISPR/Cas9 systems work by creating “double-strand breaks” (DSBs) in regions of the genome targeted for editing or for deletion, but many researchers are opposed to creating such breaks in the DNA of living humans. As a proof of concept, the Salk group used their new approach to treat several diseases, including diabetes, acute kidney disease, and muscular dystrophy, in mouse models.

Continue reading “Salk scientists modify CRISPR to epigenetically treat diabetes, kidney disease, muscular dystrophy” | >

The competition for lithium-ion batteries is heating up in a good way.

And then there are lithium-metal solid-state batteries which promise to be safer, faster charging and last longer than existing lithium-ion technology.

The State of Aluminium-Sulphur Batteries

This type of battery has been around for a while but the main shortcoming of the technology has been durability. The batteries using ambient temperature ionic liquid electrolytes form dendrites over time that interfere with the flow of electrons between the anodes. The results are short circuits. The cure appears to be raising the operating temperature of the battery and switching out the electrolyte. At 110 Celsius (230 Fahrenheit) degrees this new version of the aluminum-sulphur battery doesn’t form dendrites.

Continue reading “The Battery Wars Are Heating Up in a Good Way” | >

By helping scientists control a strange but useful phenomenon of quantum mechanics, an ultrathin invention could make future computing, sensing, and encryption technologies remarkably smaller and more powerful. The device is described in new research that was recently published in the journal Science.

This device could replace a roomful of equipment to link photons in a bizarre quantum effect called entanglement, according to scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. It is a kind of nano-engineered material called a metasurface and paves the way for entangling photons in complex ways that have not been possible with compact technologies.

When photons are said to be entangled, it means they are linked in such a way that actions on one affect the other, no matter where or how far apart the photons are in the universe. It is a spooky effect of quantum mechanics, the laws of physics that govern particles and other very tiny things.

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