Lifeboat Foundation

The mechanism by which sleep disruption impedes neurodevelopment, however, is still not well understood. It may be that increased wakefulness due to sleep disruption increases glutamate circulation in the brain, affecting glutamatergic structures. Alternatively, decreased REM sleep may reduce “pruning”, an essential developmental process in which superfluous synapses are removed to improve signaling and organization.

The period of neurodevelopment extending from birth to roughly two years of age is one of frenetic, constant change. Neurons and synapses form, are organized, and are pruned. It is well known that sleep plays a fundamental role in these processes, and disruptions to sleep at this stage can be devastating to neurodevelopment and may be the cause of disorders like autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Understanding the relation between sleep and neurodevelopment in early life is thus essential to understanding (and perhaps preventing) developmental disorders. Building on previous work with prairie voles—a highly social animal with neurodevelopmental similarities to humans—researchers from Portland and California recently published a paper in Current Research in Neurobiology examining the effects of early life sleep disruptions (ELSD) on the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

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Researchers have created a scalable quantum computing platform that has been shrunk down to the size of a penny, which would serve as the basis for a quantum computer that can achieve quantum speeds while using far fewer devices than current designs.

The team hopes their research, published in Nature Communications, will help push quantum computing forward in the constant pursuit of use in real-world applications.

Over the past few years, quantum computing has gone from science fiction to a realistic technology that may see use in the next few decades. While quantum teleportation and even quantum computer chips have been demonstrated previously, the technology is still a long way off seeing real-world use.

China has been building the JF-22 hypervelocity wind tunnel in Huairou, an industrial district of Beijing, since 2018. Wind tunnels are large tubes that move air around stationary objects to simulate flying, allowing researchers to learn more about how the object will fly.

The JF-22 will be capable of simulating flying conditions at about 30 times the speed of sound when it is completed in 2022.

November2021will be a big month for NASA.

The Artemis I team is gearing up to launch the spacecraft Orion to the Moon and back for an uncrewed test flight.

At the heart of NASA’s Artemis mission, which aims to land humans on the lunar surface by 2,024 is the spacecraft Orion. Here’s how engineers are preparing for its maiden voyage.

There are many strange things happening on Venus. Among them is a recognizable weather pattern that scientists now realize has persisted in the atmosphere for at least 30 years.

The blockchain Ethereum saw a chain split today as a software bug affected a large quantity of full node clients.

Pioneering mouse study offers new therapeutic avenues for reducing visceral fat stores, which have been associated with cardiovascular disease and multiple types of cancer.

Obesity has been linked to no less than 13 cancers, including the two most prevalent (breast and colorectal), as well as to cardiovascular disease, which remains a leading cause of death worldwide.

The most harmful type of obesity is caused by the excessive accumulation of so-called “deep” fat. Contrary to fat stores located directly under the skin, deep, or “visceral,” fat stores reside inside our abdominal cavity, where they envelop vital organs. In normal amounts, visceral fat supports various fundamental functions, such as reproduction. However, when it is too abundant, it produces unhealthy levels of proteins and hormones that negatively affect neighboring tissues and organs.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX shipment of ants, avocados, and a human-sized robotic arm rocketed toward the International Space Station on Sunday.

The delivery — due to arrive Monday — is the company’s 23rd for NASA in just under a decade.

A recycled Falcon rocket blasted into the predawn sky from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. After hoisting the Dragon capsule, the first-stage booster landed upright on SpaceX’s newest ocean platform, named “A Shortfall of Gravitas.” SpaceX founder Elon Musk continued his tradition of naming the booster-recovery vessels in tribute to the late science fiction writer Iain Banks and his Culture series.

WASHINGTON — SpaceX performed its first Falcon 9 launch in two months Aug. 29 sending a cargo Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station.

The Falcon 9 lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 3:14 a.m. Eastern after a one-day delay because of weather. The Dragon spacecraft separated from the rocket’s upper stage about 12 minutes after liftoff and is scheduled to dock with the station at about 11 a.m. Eastern Aug. 30 for an approximately one-month stay.

The launch was the first for a Falcon 9 since the June 30 launch of the Transporter-2 rideshare mission, the longest pause since a three-month gap between launches from August to November 2019. One reason for the hiatus was a delay in Starlink launches to equip those satellites with laser inter-satellite links; the majority of the Falcon 9 launches this year have been Starlink missions.