Lifeboat Foundation

1,634 views • Aug 13 2021 • Christof Koch — Allen Institute for Brain Science, Tiny Blue Dot Foundation.

Let the record show that the current COVID-19 vaccines work, and they work well. But what is the next step in vaccine development, especially amid increasing rates of breakthrough infections and emergence of variants of concern?

In a new Northwestern Medicine study in mice, researchers took one of the current vaccines, which is based on the novel coronavirus’s infamous spike protein, and added a different antigen, the nucleocapsid protein, to form a new, potentially improved version of the COVID vaccine. The nucleocapsid protein, which is an internal RNA-binding protein, may help kick the immune system into high gear much more quickly than the spike protein is capable of since it is among the most rapidly and highly expressed proteins in coronaviruses.

“At this point, we’re just trying to figure out ‘What should the 2.0 vaccines be?’” said senior and corresponding study author Pablo Penaloza-MacMaster, an assistant professor of microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “It seems like adding nucleocapsid to the vaccine renders it more protective, relative to having only the spike.”

O,.o…zap it o.o

Scientists at NASA have adjusted their forecast of an Empire State Building-sized asteroid it predicts could potentially smash into the planet.

The chances of the large rock hitting the Earth have increased. In a press conference Wednesday, NASA said there was a 1-in-1,750 chance the asteroid, Bennu, could smash into the Earth between now and 2300. It’s a higher chance than previously predicted at 1 in 2,700 chances.

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Close asteroid pass August 21 2021. This fast-moving asteroid is designed2016AJ193. It’s currently rushing inward toward the sun.

Aerospace giant Honeywell is teaming up with anti-jamming expert InfiniDome to develop a new drone sensor capable of enhancing GPS resiliency when signals are weak or experiencing blockages. The new tech, which is being designed for defense and commercial users alike, is expected to hit markets during the first semester of next year.

Drones being flown for all sorts of purposes rely on GPS signals for situational referencing and carrying out tasks assigned to particular locations. The importance of maintaining those feeds, therefore, has become critical to even the most ordinary operation. That dependability of GPS connectivity, however, can be compromised by surrounding structure density – like clusters of high rises, or flights below bridges – or complicated by the ever-proliferating number of craft in the skies at any given time.

US startup has combined radioactive isotopes from nuclear waste with ultra-slim layers of nanodiamond to create a battery that purportedly can 28,000 years, Tibi Puiu reported for ZME Science last week.

Researchers announced the achievement of an important milestone on the road to nuclear fusion and we’re at the threshold of fusion ignition.

Dozens of container ships are anchored off the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. A crush of advance orders from U.S. manufacturers and retailers is contributing to the bottlenecks.

Scientists at Australia’s RMIT investigating the massive untapped potential of wave energy have come up with a novel design for a convertor they say operates with far greater efficiency than comparable solutions, and which they hope could open the door to widespread commercial use of the technology. The team’s prototype employs a novel dual-turbine design that sidesteps some common technical issues, and proved capable of harvesting twice the energy from waves as current designs in early experiments.

The idea of capturing energy from ocean waves has been around for centuries, and recently we’re starting to see modern machines designed for these purposes take to the seas in some interesting forms. This includes rotating systems that extract power from vertical and horizontal movement, blowhole-like generators that capture energy as waves push water and air through concrete chambers, and squid-like generators with buoyant arms that rise and fall with the motion of the waves.

One of the more common approaches to harnessing wave energy is known as a point absorber buoy, which consists of a flotation device on the surface that is tethered to the seabed. As the buoy moves up and down with the passing waves, it drives an energy converter mechanism built onto the tether partway below the surface. This might be a geared drivetrain that uses the linear motion to spin a flywheel and generate power, as seen in some experimental designs.