Lifeboat Foundation

Nestled 30 feet underground in Menlo Park, California, a half-mile-long stretch of tunnel is now colder than most of the universe. It houses a new superconducting particle accelerator, part of an upgrade project to the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray free-electron laser at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

Crews have successfully cooled the accelerator to minus 456 degrees Fahrenheit—or 2 Kelvin—a temperature at which it becomes superconducting and can boost electrons to high energies with nearly zero energy lost in the process. It is one of the last milestones before LCLS-II will produce X-ray pulses that are 10,000 times brighter, on average, than those of LCLS and that arrive up to a million times per second—a world record for today’s most powerful X-ray light sources.

Continue reading “Superconducting X-ray laser reaches operating temperature colder than outer space” »

When genes mutate, it can result in severe diseases of the human nervous system. Neuroscientists at Leipzig University and the University of Würzburg have now used fruit flies to demonstrate how, apart from the negative effect, the mutation of a neuronal gene can have a positive effect – namely higher IQ in humans. They have published their findings in the prestigious journal Brain.

Synapses are the contact points in the brain via which nerve cells ‘talk’ to one another. Disruptions in this communication lead to nervous system diseases, since altered synaptic proteins, for example, can impair this complex molecular mechanism. This can cause mild symptoms, but also very severe disabilities in those affected.

The interest of the two neurobiologists Professor Tobias Langenhan and Professor Manfred Heckmann, from Leipzig and Würzburg respectively, was aroused when they read in a scientific publication about a mutation that damages a synaptic protein. At first, the affected patients attracted scientists’ attention because the mutation caused them to go blind. However, doctors then noticed that the patients were also of above-average intelligence. “It’s very rare for a mutation to lead to improvement rather than loss of function,” says Langenhan, professor and holder of a chair at the Rudolf Schönheimer Institute of Biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine.

After months of shortages, pharmacies across the United States are being stocked with drugs to treat Covid-19. Now, the bottleneck has shifted to getting a prescription — and patients and public health agencies are looking to telehealth for help.

“Sometimes we hear telehealth is going to cure all of our challenges with access to health care, and that’s just not the case,” said Michelle Morse, chief medical officer of New York City’s department of health. “It’s a significant step forward in access, and yet there are still equity concerns with telehealth. It’s not a panacea.”

The patients most likely to know about and navigate digital health platforms to access the antivirals are typically younger, more affluent, and already well-served by the health system. And while a small group of public health departments are offering free telehealth, the end of the Health Resources and Services Administration Covid-19 Uninsured program means that uninsured patients may struggle to pay for teleservices, let alone any Covid care.

Continue reading “Telehealth aims to crack open Paxlovid’s prescription bottleneck” »

AUSTIN, Texas—Companies nationwide are struggling to get employees back in the office, but not in Austin.

These days, the city’s workforce is putting in more face time at offices than those in any other major U.S. metro area.

Austin offices are 59%-occupied—and cracked the 60% threshold last month—according to data from Kastle Systems, an office-security firm that records workers’ comings and goings by measuring badge swipes into skyscrapers and corporate campuses.

Continue reading “How Austin Lured the Most Workers Back to Offices” »

Young kids are the only group in the U.S. ineligible to receive a Covid vaccine, but efforts to vaccinate them have been met with delays.

The manipulation of electromagnetic waves and information has become an important part of our everyday lives. Intelligent metasurfaces have emerged as smart platforms for automating the control of wave-information-matter interactions without manual intervention. They evolved from engineered composite materials, including metamaterials and metasurfaces. As a society, we have seen significant progress in the development of metamaterials and metasurfaces of various forms and properties.

In a paper published in the journal eLight on May 6, 2022, Professor Tie Jun Cui of Southeast University and Professor Lianlin Li of Peking University led a research team to review intelligent metasurfaces. “Intelligent metasurfaces: Control, Communication and Computing” investigated the development of intelligent metasurfaces with an eye for the future.

This field has refreshed human insights into many fundamental laws. They have unlocked many novel devices and systems, like cloaking, tunneling, and holograms. Conventional structure-alone or passive metasurfaces has moved towards intelligent metasurfaces by integrating algorithms and nonlinear materials (or active devices).

New technology could add another layer of protection against the next pandemic by simply turning on a light. Researchers are exploring a new way of using ultraviolet light to make indoor air safer.

“It’s been known for 80 years or so that ultraviolet light can kill bacteria and inactivate viruses in the air so that they’re no longer infectious,” Don K. Milton, professor of occupational and environmental health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, told CBS News.

Conventional UV-C light has been used extensively in places like hospitals, homeless shelters and prisons. But that conventional UV light can damage the skin and eye, so should not be shined directly at people.

Richard Feynman — A Curious Character

Today marks the 104th birthday of a legendary scientist, a nobel laureate, an educator, a visionary and an extraordinary human being Dr. Richard Feynman. He is remembered just as well for his scientific brilliance as he is for his playful nature and inquisitive storytelling.

Hearing loss is normally permanent as sensory cells responsible for transmitting frequency information from the world around us to the brain get damaged from excessive noise and lifestyle factors as we age. Up until now, it’s been challenging to selectively regrow these sensory cells that play an important part in transmitting sound through the outer and inner ear to the brain, but that might be about to change.

In a study involving mice, scientists from Northwestern University have identified a single master gene that can program ear hair cells (known as cochlear hair cells) into becoming either outer or inner ear hair cells required for hearing. The breakthrough is reported in the journal Nature.

“Our finding gives us the first clear cell switch to make one type versus the other,” said lead study author Jaime García-Añoveros, PhD, in a statement. “It will provide a previously unavailable tool to make an inner or outer hair cell. We have overcome a major hurdle.”