Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 4

Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.

Log in for authorized contributors

When Vera Rubin measured the spin of galaxies

Beginning with the Andromeda galaxy in the late 1960s, the astronomer Vera Rubin and her colleague Kent Ford measured how fast stars and gas clouds orbit at different distances from a galaxy’s centre. They expected the outer material to move slowly. It did not. In Andromeda, and then in galaxy after galaxy, the orbital speed stayed high all the way to the edge of what they could measure. The visible stars, gas and dust could not supply enough gravity to hold matter moving that fast in place.

Rubin and Ford published their Andromeda result in 1970, in a paper in the Astrophysical Journal. Over the following decade they extended the work, and by 1980 had measured the same pattern across twenty-one spiral galaxies. The consistency was the point. One odd galaxy could be explained away. Twenty-one could not.

Human organoids reveal how to reverse “irreversible” nerve damage

Because the brain and spinal cord are separate but connected structures in the body, the team kept the organoids physically apart in the lab. They then observed axons from the brain tissue growing across the gap and connecting with the spinal cord tissue. The resulting neural circuit was functional enough to trigger contractions in tiny clusters of muscle cells.

Nerve Regrowth Declines During Development

The scientists maintained these miniature systems in the lab for more than a year. They discovered that until about day 150 of development, roughly corresponding to the middle stage of pregnancy, damaged axons could still regrow. After that point, the neurons showed a major decline in their ability to regenerate.

A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits

In 1937, a young graduate student named Claude Shannon submitted a master’s thesis with an unassuming title: “A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits.”

A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits is the title of a master’s thesis written by computer science pioneer Claude E. Shannon while attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1937, [ 1 ] [ 2 ] and then published in 1938. In his thesis, Shannon, a dual degree graduate of the University of Michigan, proved that Boolean algebra [ 3 ] could be used to simplify the arrangement of the relays that were the building blocks of the electromechanical automatic telephone exchanges of the day. He went on to prove that it should also be possible to use arrangements of relays to solve Boolean algebra problems. His thesis laid the foundations for all digital computing and digital circuits. [ 4 ] [ 5 ]

The utilization of the binary properties of electrical switches to perform logic functions is the basic concept that underlies all electronic digital computer designs. Shannon’s thesis became the foundation of practical digital circuit design when it became widely known among the electrical engineering community during and after World War II. At the time, the methods employed to design logic circuits (for example, contemporary Konrad Zuse’s Z1) were ad hoc in nature and lacked the theoretical discipline that Shannon’s paper supplied to later projects.

Shannon’s work also differed significantly in its approach and theoretical framework compared to the work of Akira Nakashima. Whereas Shannon’s approach and framework was abstract and based on mathematics, Nakashima tried to extend the existent circuit theory of the time to deal with relay circuits, and was reluctant to accept the mathematical and abstract model, favoring a grounded approach. [ 6 ] Shannon’s ideas broke new ground, with his abstract and modern approach dominating modern-day electrical engineering. [ 6 ].

Teclistamab extends remission in relapsed myeloma, with 70% progression-free at 18 months

Patients with relapsed multiple myeloma treated with the immunotherapy teclistamab lived significantly longer and remained in remission far longer than those receiving standard therapies, according to results from a major international Phase III clinical trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting.

The study, led by senior author C. Ola Landgren, M.D., Ph.D., found nearly 70% of patients receiving teclistamab had no disease progression after 18 months—compared with about 27% of patients receiving standard treatments—while nearly two-thirds achieved complete remission, including many with no detectable cancer on highly sensitive testing.

Landgren is chief of the Sylvester Myeloma Institute at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

/* */