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Should the Fed make a 1-percentage-point hike at the July meeting, it would be the largest move since Paul Volcker was Fed chairman in the 1980s.


Lasers normally use mirrors to create laser light, but a new kind uses clumps of moving particles. The result is a laser that is more programmable and could generate extra-sharp visual displays.

The question of how the chemical composition of a protein—the amino acid sequence—determines its 3D structure has been one of the biggest challenges in biophysics for more than half a century. This knowledge about the so-called “folding” of proteins is in great demand, as it contributes significantly to the understanding of various diseases and their treatment, among other things. For these reasons, Google’s DeepMind research team has developed AlphaFold, an artificial intelligence that predicts 3D structures.

A team consisting of researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the University of California, Los Angeles, has now taken a closer look at these structures and examined them with respect to knots. We know knots primarily from shoelaces and cables, but they also occur on the nanoscale in our cells. Knotted proteins can not only be used to assess the quality of structure but also raise important questions about folding mechanisms and the evolution of proteins.

Scientists in Germany looked to eliminate the use of toxic solvents in the production of perovskite solar cells, replacing them with a more environmentally material called dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) which has so far proved difficult to integrate into processes suitable for large-scale production. The group demonstrated a scalable blade coating process using DMSO as the only solvent, and reached cell efficiencies close to those achieved using more toxic substances.

MS Tûranor PlanetSolar, also known as PlanetSolar and founded by Swiss explorer Raphael Domjan, is the world’s largest solar-powered boat, which was launched on March 31, 2010. Between 2010 and 2012, it became the first solar electric car to round the globe, taking 584 days.

Solar panels covering 537 m2 of the 31-meter boat, rated at 93 kW, connect to two electric motors, one in each hull. The ship’s two hulls contain 8.5 tons of lithium-ion batteries. Because of its shape, the boat can go at speeds of up to 10 knots (19 km/h). To establish its hydrodynamics and aerodynamics, the hull was model tested in wind tunnels and tank tested. After the record attempt, the boat was planned to be utilized as a luxury yacht.

By Subscription? – In California, You Can and it’s a Tesla Model 3 EV.


A Santa Monica, California-based company can put you into a Tesla Model 3 using its cellphone app which is now available for both Android and iPhones. The company offering the Car-as-a-service (CaaS) model is Autonomy. Although currently available only in California, the future plans include rolling it out to other U.S. states.

Until the outset of the global pandemic, owning a car was on a dramatic decline. Ride-sharing was exploding, and because cars were becoming pricier, young people entering the workforce were less inclined to join their parents’ generation of car owners.

Isolation and lockdowns temporarily took drivers off the road, as did sticker shock. The latter has been particularly true for electric vehicles (EV) which without government rebates and incentives can cost tens of thousands of dollars more than cars running on gasoline and diesel.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab have created a novel fabrication process to produce smart textiles that comfortabl | Technology.


Using 3DKnITS, the research team created a “smart” shoe and mat, followed by building a hardware and software system capable of measuring and interpreting real-time data from the pressure sensors. An individual then performed yoga poses on the smart textile mat while the machine-learning system was able to accurately predict the individual’s motions and poses 99 percent of the time.

“Some of the early pioneering work on smart fabrics happened at the Media Lab in the late ’90s. The materials, embeddable electronics, and fabrication machines have advanced enormously since then,” said co-author Jospeh A. Paradiso, an Alexander W. Dreyfoos Professor and Director of the Responsive Environments group within the Media Lab. “It’s a great time to see our research returning to this area, for example through projects like Irmandy’s — they point at an exciting future where sensing and functions diffuse more fluidly into materials and open up enormous possibilities.”

Hibernation Biology & Applications In Human Health & Resilience — Dr. Dana K. Merriman, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor Emerita of Biology; Director of the Squirrel Colony, UW-Oshkosh.


Dr. Dana K. Merriman Ph.D. (www.uwosh.edu/facstaff/merriman/VaughanHome), is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Biology, and Director of the Squirrel Colony, at University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, and Adjunct Professor of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, Medical College of Wisconsin.

With her BA in Biological Science and her PhD in Physiology and Cell Biology, both from University of California-Santa Barbara, as well as having spent time as a Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Utah Health Sciences Center, a core focus of Dr. Merriman’s laboratory research over the years has been the development of a captive breeding colony of the 13-lined ground squirrels.