Lifeboat Foundation

Most of the universe is invisible to the human eye. The building blocks of stars are only revealed in wavelengths that are outside of the visible spectrum. Astronomers recently used two very different, and very powerful, telescopes to discover twin disks—and twin parallel jets—erupting from young stars in a multiple star system.

This discovery was unexpected, and unprecedented, given the age, size, and chemical makeup of the stars, disks, and jets. Their location in a known, well-studied part of the universe adds to the thrill.

Observations from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (NRAO) Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) were combined for this research.

Researchers at QuTech have found a way to make Majorana particles in a two-dimensional plane. This was achieved by creating devices that exploit the combined material properties of superconductors and semiconductors. The inherent flexibility of this new 2D platform should allow one to perform experiments with Majoranas that were previously inaccessible. The results are published in Nature.

Recently, researchers discovered that a material called manganese germanide (MnGe) has a unique periodic structure, formed by special magnetic configurations called hedgehogs and antihedgehogs, which is called a magnetic hedgehog lattice.

In these special configurations, the magnetic moments point radially outward (hedgehog) or inward (antihedgehog), resembling the spines of a hedgehog. These hedgehogs and antihedgehogs act like magnetic monopoles and antimonopoles, serving as sources or sinks of emergent magnetic fields.

MnGe exhibits what is known as a triple-Q hedgehog lattice. However, recent experiments have shown that the substitution of Ge with Si (MnSi_1-x Ge_x) transforms the arrangement into the quadruple-Q hedgehog lattice (4Q-HL).

Bill Gates’ TerraPower broke ground yesterday on its Natrium nuclear reactor plant, making it the first advanced reactor project ever to start construction.

Once it comes online, the Natrium demonstration plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, will be a fully functioning commercial power plant. According to Gates, founder and chairman of TerraPower, Natrium will “be the most advanced nuclear facility in the world, and it will be much safer and produce far less waste than conventional reactors.”

It’s being constructed near the retiring coal-fired Naughton power plant and is the world’s only coal-to-nuclear project under development. TerraPower, which will employ between 200 and 250 people at the Natrium facility, wants to hire the 110 former coal workers to tap into their transferrable skills.

The CRISPR-Cas9 system has revolutionised gene-editing, but cutting DNA isn’t all it can do. From turning gene expression on and off to fluorescently tagging particular sequences, this animation explores some of the exciting possibilities of CRISPR.

Download a poster on ‘The expanding CRISPR toolbox’ here: https://www.nature.com/posters/crispr…

Continue reading “CRISPR: Gene editing and beyond” »

Raphael Rau unveiled a new photorealistic creation and shared some insights on how it was made.

Physics-informed AI method could help make CRISPR safer on simons foundation.

Lex Fridman Podcast full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNr6gPelJ3EPlease support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:- Yahoo Finance: https:…

Diagnosing dementia early gives us more time to put precautions in place and to study exactly how the condition progresses – and a new method for predicting conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease is promising up to nine years of advance warning.

The method, developed by a team from the Queen Mary University of London in the UK and Monash University in Australia, involves a neurobiological model that analyzes brain scans captured by functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI.

In tests, the model was more than 80 percent accurate at predicting the development of dementia. That has huge potential in terms of early diagnosis, and it also addresses another challenge: the large number of people with dementia who don’t get diagnosed at all.