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Dec 22, 2021

Researchers pinpoint factors in blood linked to severe Covid

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Scientists have identified unique “indicators” in the blood of patients with severe and fatal Covid, paving the way for simple diagnostic tests to help doctors identify who will go on to become critically ill.

Dec 22, 2021

SpaceX lands 100th Falcon booster

Posted by in categories: materials, satellites

Exactly six years after its first successful recovery, SpaceX has landed a Falcon booster for the 100th time.

On December 21st, 2015, the first Falcon 9 V1.2 Full Thrust (Block 1) rocket lifted off from SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral LC-40 launch pad on the company’s return-to-flight mission after a catastrophic in-flight failure just six months prior. Unwilling as ever to waste an opportunity, no matter how important the mission, SpaceX – on top of debuting a major Falcon 9 upgrade – chose to take advantage of the return to flight to attempt to land a Falcon booster back on land for the first time ever. Ultimately, on top of successfully deploying multiple Orbcomm OG2 communications satellites in orbit for a paying customer, Falcon 9 booster B1019 sailed through its boostback, reentry, and landing burns without issue. About nine minutes after liftoff, the rocket ultimately touched down on a concrete “landing zone” just a few miles from where it lifted off with uncanny ease relative to SpaceX’s numerous failed attempts in the ~18 months prior.

Exactly six years later, on December 21st, 2021, Falcon 9 booster B1069 lifted off from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Pad 39A with an upgraded, flight-proven Cargo Dragon in tow for SpaceX’s 24th International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission. CRS-24 also marked the company’s 31st and final launch of 2021, representing more successful Falcon launches completed in a single year than SpaceX had even attempted in its entire nine-year history up to the point of that first successful booster landing.

Dec 22, 2021

Step forward in quest to develop living construction materials and beyond

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

Some engineered living materials can combine the strength of run-of-the-mill building materials with the responsiveness of living systems. Think self-healing concrete, paint that changes color when a specific chemical is detected or material that could reproduce and fill in a crack when one forms. This would revolutionize construction and maintenance, with wide-reaching economic and environmental implications.

Seeing this new category of adaptive materials on consumer shelves may be a ways off. Still, critical early research from the University of Minnesota sheds new light on this exciting advancement, which shows promise beyond building materials, including biomedical applications.

In a new study in Nature Communications, researchers from the College of Biological Sciences demonstrate how to transform silica — a common material used in plaster and other construction materials — into a self-assembling, dynamic and resilient material.

Dec 22, 2021

Decentralized Rendering Engine Raises $30M as Metaverse Graphics Go Big

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

Multicoin, Alameda and the Solana Foundation are backing Render Network’s vision for a decentralized alternative to Pixar’s massive rendering farms.

Dec 21, 2021

Stopping arthritis before it starts

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

More than a million Americans undergo knee and hip replacements each year. It’s a last resort treatment for pain and mobility issues associated with osteoarthritis, a progressive disease caused by degeneration of the protective layer of cartilage that stops our bones grinding together when we sit, stand, write, or move around.

But what if doctors could intervene and repair damaged cartilage before surgery is needed?

For the first time, researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have used a stem cell-based bio-implant to repair cartilage and delay joint degeneration in a large animal model. The work will now advance into humans with support from a $6 million grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).

Dec 21, 2021

Futurology Conference 2022

Posted by in category: futurism

Stepping into the Future.

Dec 21, 2021

Reading to be cheerful

Posted by in category: business

Enough doomscrolling, now is a great time to escape into a book or movie – as suggested by London Business School faculty.

Dec 21, 2021

Moving toward the first flying humanoid robot

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

Researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) have recently been exploring a fascinating idea, that of creating humanoid robots that can fly. To efficiently control the movements of flying robots, objects or vehicles, however, researchers require systems that can reliably estimate the intensity of the thrust produced by propellers, which allow them to move through the air.

As thrust forces are difficult to measure directly, they are usually estimated based on data collected by onboard sensors. The team at IIT recently introduced a new framework that can estimate thrust intensities of flying multibody systems that are not equipped with thrust-measuring sensors. This framework, presented in a paper published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, could ultimately help them to realize their envisioned flying robot.

Continue reading “Moving toward the first flying humanoid robot” »

Dec 21, 2021

US Army Creates Single Vaccine Effective Against All COVID & SARS Variants, Researchers Say

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, futurism

😃


Within weeks, Walter Reed researchers expect to announce that human trials show success against Omicron—and even future strains.

Dec 21, 2021

A dinosaur embryo has been found inside a fossilized egg. Here’s what that means

Posted by in category: futurism

The egg was acquired in 2000, but put in storage. It was later identified as a dinosaur egg, and an embryo was found hidden within it.