Lifeboat Foundation

High-energy cosmic rays have proven elusive… but we may have found their source.

Thanks to new research led by the University of Nagoya, scientists have quantified the number of cosmic rays produced in a supernova remnant for the first time. This research has helped resolve a 100-year mystery and is a major step towards determining precisely where cosmic rays come from.

While scientists theorize that cosmic rays originate from many sources — our Sun, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and active galactic nuclei (sometimes called quasars) — their exact origin has been a mystery since they were first discovered in 1912. Similarly, astronomers have theorized that supernova remnants (the after-effects of supernova explosions) are responsible for accelerating them to nearly the speed of light.

Continue reading “We may finally know where high-energy cosmic rays come from” »

An enzyme with an elusive role in severe inflammation may be a key mechanism driving COVID-19 severity and could provide a new therapeutic target to reduce COVID-19 mortality, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Researchers from the University of Arizona, in collaboration with Stony Brook University and Wake Forest School of Medicine, analyzed blood samples from two COVID-19 patient cohorts and found that circulation of the enzyme — secreted phospholipase A2 group IIA, or sPLA2-IIA, — may be the most important factor in predicting which patients with severe COVID-19 eventually succumb to the virus.

Researchers have identified what may be the key molecular mechanism responsible for COVID-19 mortality – an enzyme related to neurotoxins found in rattlesnake venom.

Continue reading “Like Venom Coursing Through the Body: Researchers Identify Mechanism Driving COVID-19 Mortality” »

Is this the Air Force’s new top secret stealth drone?

A mysterious aircraft caught flying over the Philippines could be the United State’s ultra-secret new RQ-180 stealth drone, aviation experts believe.

Local landscape photographer Michael Fugnit captured the craft on Thursday when he was attempting to take pictures of the sunrise by the coast of Santa Magdalena, a resort town 364 miles south of Manila.

Continue reading “Mysterious aircraft pictured flying over the Philippines could be ‘Great White Bat’” »

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The robots can tumble up slopes.

A new study investigates tiny tumbling soft robots that can be controlled using rotating magnetic fields. The technology could be useful for delivering drugs to the nervous system. In this latest study, researchers put the robots through their paces and showed that they can climb slopes, tumble upstream against fluid flow and deliver substances at precise locations to neural tissue.

Would you let a tiny MANiAC travel around your nervous system to treat you with drugs? You may be inclined to say no, but in the future, “magnetically aligned nanorods in alginate capsules” (MANiACs) may be part of an advanced arsenal of drug delivery technologies at doctors’ disposal. A recent study in Frontiers in Robotics and AI is the first to investigate how such tiny robots might perform as drug delivery vehicles in neural tissue. The study finds that when controlled using a magnetic field, the tiny tumbling soft robots can move against fluid flow, climb slopes and move about neural tissues, such as the spinal cord, and deposit substances at precise locations.

Continue reading “Tiny robots could deliver drugs directly to our central nervous system” »

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX just confirmed that Starlink will transfer data close to speed of light. According to Gizmochina, the speed will be close to 97% speed of light.

Starlink is a constellation of thousands satellites aiming to deliver high-speed internet to consumers anywhere on the planet. While the Starlink service is still in beta, the company has over 100,000 users in 14 countries so far, with over half a million orders or refundable deposits placed by potential customers.

As of today there are 1,700 satellites in orbit. SpaceX intends to provide satellite internet connectivity to underserved areas of the planet, as well as provide competitively priced service in more urbanized areas. The company has stated that the positive cash flow from selling satellite internet services would be necessary to fund their Mars plans.

Summary: An overgrowth in the gastrointestinal tract of the bacteria Klebsiella in preterm babies was associated with an increased presence of certain immune cells and the development of neurological damage. The findings suggest a link between microbiota and brain development.

Source: University of Vienna.

Extremely premature infants are at high risk for brain damage. Researchers at the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna have now found possible targets for the early treatment of such damage outside the brain: Bacteria in the gut of premature infants may play a key role.

The ultimate goal of neuroscience is to learn how the human brain gives rise to human intelligence and what it means to be intelligent. Understanding how the brain works is considered one of humanity’s greatest challenges.

Jeff Hawkins thinks that the reality we perceive is a kind of simulation, a hallucination, a confabulation. He thinks that our brains are a model reality based on thousands of information streams originating from the sensors in our body. Critically — Hawkins doesn’t think there is just one model but rather; thousands.

Continue reading “Jeff Hawkins (Thousand Brains Theory)” »

Learn More.

Ian Bremmer.

If you could cure genetic diseases by editing DNA sequences, would you?

Continue reading “CRISPR gene editing and the human race” »