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Apr 2, 2021

AIR 06 Imagines the Air Taxi of Tomorrow With Out-of-This-World Capability

Posted by in category: transportation

There’s no doubt that air taxis will be the next mobility solution that mankind is looking to implement. Actually, this process has been underway for a few years now.

Apr 2, 2021

Maybe Mars Didn’t Lose its Water After All. It’s Still Trapped on the Planet

Posted by in category: space

Roughly 4 billion years ago, Mars looked a lot different than it does today. For starters, its atmosphere was thicker and warmer, and liquid water flowed across its surface. This included rivers, standing lakes, and even a deep ocean that covered much of the northern hemisphere. Evidence of this warm, watery past has been preserved all over the planet in the form of lakebeds, river valleys, and river deltas.

For some time, scientists have been trying to answer a simple question: where did all that water go? Did it escape into space after Mars lost its atmosphere, or retreat somewhere? According to new research from Caltech and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), between 30% and 90% of Mars’ water went underground. These findings contradict the widely-accepted theory that Mars lost its water to space over the course of eons.

The research was led by Eva Scheller, a Ph.D. candidate at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She was joined by Caltech Prof. Bethany Ehlmann, who is also the associate director for the Keck Institute for Space Studies; Caltech Prof. Yuk Yung, a senior research scientist with NASA JPL; Caltech graduate student Danica Adams; and JPL research scientist Renyu Hu.

Apr 2, 2021

US fossil-fuel companies took billions in tax breaks – and then laid off thousands

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics, energy

“Last year’s stimulus was about keeping the economy going, but these companies didn’t use these resources to retain their workers. These are companies that are polluting the environment, increasing the deadliness of the pandemic and letting go of their workers.”


Figures show 77 companies received $8.2bn under tax changes related to Covid relief and yet almost every one let workers go.

Apr 2, 2021

Not So Sweet: Sugary Diet Early in Life Could Lead to Cognitive Problems Later

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

The results of this study confirm a direct link, on a molecular level, between the gut microbiome and brain function.


Summary: Consuming high levels of sugar-sweetened beverages early in life may lead to memory problems during adulthood. Researchers found, compared to rats who consumed only water, those who drank sugar-sweetened beverages had difficulties in memory recall associated with the hippocampus. The study also found a link between specific changes in gut bacteria in rats who drank sugary drinks and impaired brain function.

Source: USC

Continue reading “Not So Sweet: Sugary Diet Early in Life Could Lead to Cognitive Problems Later” »

Apr 2, 2021

Cancer May Be Driven by DNA Outside of Chromosomes

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

In the last decade, researchers have come to realize that tumors harbor bits of extrachromosomal DNA that can drive malignancy.

Apr 2, 2021

Reprogramming Old Cells Young Again

Posted by in category: genetics

Today, we chronicle the progress of partial cellular reprogramming and discuss how this powerful treatment may be able to reprogram cells back into a youthful state, at least partially reversing epigenetic alterations, one of the proposed reasons we age.

For those of you new to the subject of epigenetic alterations you can learn more by clicking on the topic box below, for the more seasoned readers, feel free to skip ahead.

Apr 2, 2021

Schedule Space Renaissance

Posted by in categories: government, space

# **The SRIC3 Program is now online!**

Space Renaissance just published the Program of the SRIC3 World Congress The Civilian Space Development\.

Continue reading “Schedule Space Renaissance” »

Apr 2, 2021

Physicists observe new phase in Bose-Einstein condensate of light particles

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

About 10 years ago, researchers at the University of Bonn produced an extreme aggregate photon state, a single “super-photon” made up of many thousands of individual light particles, and presented a completely new light source. The state is called an optical Bose-Einstein condensate and has captivated many physicists ever since, because this exotic world of light particles is home to its very own physical phenomena. Researchers led by Prof. Dr. Martin Weitz, who discovered the super photon, and theoretical physicist Prof. Dr. Johann Kroha now report a new observation: a so-called overdamped phase, a previously unknown phase transition within the optical Bose-Einstein condensate. The study has been published in the journal Science.

The Bose-Einstein is an extreme physical state that usually only occurs at very low temperatures. The particles in this system are no longer distinguishable and are predominantly in the same quantum mechanical state; in other words, they behave like a single giant “superparticle.” The state can therefore be described by a single wave function.

In 2010, researchers led by Martin Weitz succeeded for the first time in creating a Bose-Einstein condensate from particles (photons). Their special system is still in use today: Physicists trap light particles in a resonator made of two curved mirrors spaced just over a micrometer apart that reflect a rapidly reciprocating beam of light. The space is filled with a liquid dye solution, which serves to cool down the photons. The dye molecules “swallow” the photons and then spit them out again, which brings the light particles to the temperature of the dye solution—equivalent to room temperature. The system makes it possible to cool light particles because their natural characteristic is to dissolve when cooled.

Apr 2, 2021

Disrupted biochemical pathway in the brain linked to bipolar disorder

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, health, neuroscience

Bipolar disorder affects millions of Americans, causing dramatic swings in mood and, in some people, additional effects such as memory problems.

While bipolar disorder is linked to many genes, each one making small contributions to the disease, scientists don’t know just how those genes ultimately give rise to the disorder’s effects.

However, in new research, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found for the first time that disruptions to a particular protein called Akt can lead to the brain changes characteristic of bipolar disorder. The results offer a foundation for research into treating the often-overlooked cognitive impairments of bipolar disorder, such as memory loss, and add to a growing understanding of how the biochemistry of the brain affects health and disease.

Apr 2, 2021

Dynamic model of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein reveals potential new vaccine targets

Posted by in categories: biological, biotech/medical, computing

A new, detailed model of the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein reveals previously unknown vulnerabilities that could inform development of vaccines. Mateusz Sikora of the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt, Germany, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology.

SARS-CoV-2 is the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. A key feature of SARS-CoV-2 is its spike , which extends from its and enables it to target and infect human cells. Extensive research has resulted in detailed static models of the spike protein, but these models do not capture the flexibility of the spike protein itself nor the movements of protective glycans—chains of sugar molecules—that coat it.

To support vaccine development, Sikora and colleagues aimed to identify novel potential target sites on the surface of the spike protein. To do so, they developed that capture the complete structure of the spike protein and its motions in a realistic environment.