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Sep 10, 2021

New tool reveals genetic influence of some sex-biased diseases, including lupus

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience, sex

Many human diseases can differ between males and females in their prevalence, manifestation, severity or age of onset. Examples include Lupus, where more than 80% of patients are females; Alzheimer’s disease, where females have higher incidence and tend to suffer quicker cognitive decline; and COVID-19 infections that are frequently more severe in males.

These sex differences may have a that is attributable to the sex . The X chromosome—one of the two sex chromosomes—is known to play an important role in human development and disease. New research led by Penn State College of Medicine reveals for the first time that sex-biased diseases can be attributable to that escape X chromosome inactivation (XCI), a process that ensures that females do not overexpress genes on their X-chromosomes.

The team developed a that can identify these XCI escape genes, and it may also help in determining whether a female will develop a sex-biased disease and if the disease will become progressively worse over time. The tool may even be useful in understanding the in immune responses to COVID-19, as the disease is thought to produce more severe symptoms and higher mortality in men than in women.

Sep 10, 2021

The Future of Aging | Dr. Harold Katcher Interview Series 2 — Ep5

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, life extension, media & arts

In this video Dr. Katcher reveals his thought on the future of aging if E5 is fulfils on its promise.

Dr Katcher’s book is on Amazon.
The Illusion of Knowledge: The paradigm shift in aging research that shows the way to human rejuvenation.
https://amzn.to/3jJ5deD

Continue reading “The Future of Aging | Dr. Harold Katcher Interview Series 2 — Ep5” »

Sep 10, 2021

Japanese Jets Intercept and Swarm China Military Drones and Spy Planes in the East China Sea

Posted by in categories: drones, military, surveillance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQCzC2kIqJU

Japan says it has scrambled fighter aircraft to intercept Chinese military drones and accompanying surveillance aircraft on three consecutive days this week as its defense forces took part in a series of readiness exercises with regional allies.

Sep 10, 2021

Laser pulses make electrons produce gamma rays, then matter/antimatter pairs of particles

Posted by in category: particle physics

O,.o!!!!! Circa 2018


High-energy laser pulses cause electrons to oscillate, giving off gamma rays that produce electrons and positrons.

Sep 9, 2021

Aging: It’s More Complicated Than We Thought

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, life extension, neuroscience

Summary: A new study on aging reveals a surprising discovery about the connection between protein shape and mitochondrial health.

Source: Buck Institute.

Every cell in the body goes through thousands of chemical reactions each day, and each reaction involves tiny protein molecules folded into precise shapes to perform their functions. Misfolded proteins underlie some of the most common and devastating diseases of aging, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. A major focus of aging research is discovering ways to maintain protein shape and prevent misfolded proteins from wreaking havoc on cellular function.

Sep 9, 2021

‘Excitons’ Show Potential for Low-Power Quantum Computing

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Circa 2019


LONDON — A laboratory in Switzerland has found a way of using a laser to change and regulate the polarization, wavelength and intensity of light in “excitons” in 2D materials, creating the potential for a new generation of transistors with less energy loss and heat dissipation, opening up the potential for low-power quantum computing.

Excitons are created when an electron absorbs light and moves into a higher energy level, or “energy band” as it is called in solid quantum physics. This excited electron leaves behind an “electron hole” in its previous energy band. And because the electron has a negative charge and the hole a positive charge, the two are bound together by an electrostatic force called a Coulomb force. It’s this electron-electron hole pair that is referred to as an exciton.

Continue reading “‘Excitons’ Show Potential for Low-Power Quantum Computing” »

Sep 9, 2021

Solving Quantum Ground-State Problems with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Posted by in categories: chemistry, computing, information science, quantum physics

Circa 2012


Quantum ground-state problems are computationally hard problems for general many-body Hamiltonians; there is no classical or quantum algorithm known to be able to solve them efficiently. Nevertheless, if a trial wavefunction approximating the ground state is available, as often happens for many problems in physics and chemistry, a quantum computer could employ this trial wavefunction to project the ground state by means of the phase estimation algorithm (PEA). We performed an experimental realization of this idea by implementing a variational-wavefunction approach to solve the ground-state problem of the Heisenberg spin model with an NMR quantum simulator. Our iterative phase estimation procedure yields a high accuracy for the eigenenergies (to the 10–5 decimal digit).

Sep 9, 2021

Power of Light and Oxygen Clears Alzheimer’s Disease Protein in Brains of Live Mice

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

New photo-oxygenation catalyst targets amyloid structure, recruits brain immune system cells.

A small, light-activated molecule recently tested in mice represents a new approach to eliminating clumps of amyloid protein found in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients. If perfected in humans, the technique could be used as an alternative approach to immunotherapy and used to treat other diseases caused by similar amyloids.

Researchers injected the molecule directly into the brains of live mice with Alzheimer’s disease and then used a specialized probe to shine light into their brains for 30 minutes each day for one week. Chemical analysis of the mouse brain tissue showed that the treatment significantly reduced amyloid protein. Results from additional experiments using human brain samples donated by Alzheimer’s disease patients supported the possibility of future use in humans.

Sep 9, 2021

Big Tech is replacing human artists with AI

Posted by in categories: media & arts, robotics/AI

I wish I had some sort of different response to give than this, but this summary is totally clear-eyed about the coming Semantic Apocalypse.

Artistic corpocracy

It’s actually even worse (in a way aptly not noticed by the Google employee). Because as we discussed, in the future advanced versions of this sort of AI will be solely owned and developed by Big Tech due the scaling laws around how they’re trained and run. The immediate licensing of GPT-3 by Microsoft was an augury of this. Indeed, the rights to interact with these AIs will be some of the most valuable licenses on the planet in the next decade. Consumers, even academic AI researchers, will communicate with company-owned trillion-parameter AIs solely via oracles, getting nowhere near the source code. The future of this technology belongs to huge corporations with major resources. So it’s not really that “AI is automating art”—no, corporations are automating art. And writing. And translation. And illustration. And music. And the thousand other human forms of creativity that give life meaning. They are now the province of Big Tech.

Sep 9, 2021

Department of Commerce establishes National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee

Posted by in categories: economics, government, law enforcement, policy, robotics/AI

US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo has announced that the Commerce Department has established a high-level committee to advise the President and other federal agencies on a range of issues related to artificial intelligence (AI). Working with the National AI Initiative Office (NAIIO) in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the Department is now seeking to recruit top-level candidates to serve on the committee.

A formal notice describing the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC) and the call for nominations for the committee and its Subcommittee on Artificial Intelligence and Law Enforcement appears in the Federal Register published today.

“AI presents an enormous opportunity to tackle the biggest issues of our time, strengthen our technological competitiveness, and be an engine for growth in nearly every sector of the economy,” said Secretary Raimondo. “But we must be thoughtful, creative, and wise in how we address the challenges that accompany these new technologies. That includes, but is not limited to, ensuring that President Biden’s comprehensive commitment to advancing equity and racial justice extends to our development and use of AI technology. This committee will help the federal government to do that by providing insights into a full range of issues raised by AI.”