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A scientist opens a laptop in front of a patient. On screen, a boy, tied to a fleet of balloons, fades in. As he rises into the air, the scene cuts abruptly to an office, where a man sits in front of his boss. A question then appears: “Was anyone in the video wearing a tie?”

Jie Zheng, a postdoctoral fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital, had flown to Los Angeles to show the video to this patient, who has a severe seizure disorder. Like with the 18 other patients who were part of the study, neurosurgeons had placed electrodes in the patient’s brain to pinpoint what had been causing their seizures. Zheng and a group of scientists in a federally funded BRAIN Initiative consortium used this opportune moment to find neurons involved in the creation of memories. While subjects watched clips from movies and answered questions that tested their memory of the videos, the electrical activity of their brains was monitored.

Over three years, the work — a collaboration between researchers at Cedars-Sinai in L.A., Boston Children’s, and the University of Toronto — led to the discovery of two new groups of brain cells: boundary and event cells. The researchers theorized that these neurons are involved in cleaving experiences into distinct events that humans can better remember. The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, may pave the way for new treatments for memory disorders, the authors said.

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Fabien Cousteau has a vision for how humans can live and work in the ocean. He imagines that long-term stays under the waves could be enabled through the construction of underwater habitats, which would look and feel like houses, as opposed to just sealed, submarine-like bubbles.

These habitats would have a galley, kitchen, workspace, and sleeping quarters, he describes. And of course, there would be windows, or viewports, to the outside world, and a front door in the form of a moon pool that will actually be on the bottom of the house. This would allow easy access into and out of the facility.

The project, called Proteus, would be a marine analog to the International Space Station, and would primarily accommodate aquanauts, the equivalent of an astronaut in the ocean. It’s an idea that has been bubbling for some time now. But it could start taking shape relatively soon. Proteus Ocean Group, a private company which would operate and run Proteus, has recently signed an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract with a firm that has expertise in creating hyperbaric and pressure vessels in the ocean environment. Much of what Proteus is doing in terms of the technology they’re exploring is similar to space technology.

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Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have been pushed into the spotlight over the last week as global financial sanctions on Russia come into force.

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The bitcoin price had bounced higher on expectations sanctioned Russians could turn to bitcoin and crypto but fell back as following comments from Fed chair Jerome Powell.

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One group of mice received regular doses of the Yamanaka factors from the time they were 15 months old until 22 months, approximately equivalent to age 50 through 70 in humans. Another group was treated from 12 through 22 months, approximately age 35 to 70 in humans. And a third group was treated for just one month at age 25 months, similar to age 80 in humans.

LA JOLLA—(March 7, 2022) Age may be just a number, but it’s a number that often carries unwanted side effects, from brittle bones and weaker muscles to increased risks of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute, in collaboration with Genentech, a member of the Roche group, have shown that they can safely and effectively reverse the aging process in middle-aged and elderly mice by partially resetting their cells to more youthful states.

“We are elated that we can use this approach across the life span to slow down aging in normal animals. The technique is both safe and effective in mice,” says Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, co-corresponding author and a professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory. “In addition to tackling age-related diseases, this approach may provide the biomedical community with a new tool to restore tissue and organismal health by improving cell function and resilience in different disease situations, such as neurodegenerative diseases.”

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A new photo of Magic Leap 2 appears to show the device’s controller equipped with cameras for inside-out tracking which would be the first time we’ve seen the approach employed in a commercial XR headset.

Though we learned plenty of interesting details about the forthcoming Magic Leap 2 AR headset back in January, it looks like there’s still some secrets left to uncover.

A recent photo of Magic Leap 2 posted by Peter H. Diamandis is, as far as we know, the first time we’ve gotten a clear look at the front of the Magic Leap 2 controller. The photo clearly shows what appear to be two camera sensors on the controller, indicating a high likelihood it will have on-board inside-out tracking.

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Drugs are polluting rivers and adding to the resistance crisis as well as affecting riverine ecosystems.

Pharmaceutical pollution in the world’s rivers is threatening environmental and human health and the attainment of UN goals on water quality, with developing countries the worst affected, a global study warns.

Active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) could be contributing to antimicrobial resistance in microorganisms, and may have unknown long-term effects on human health, as well as harming aquatic life, according to the report published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

APIs – the chemicals used to make pharmaceutical drugs – can reach the natural environment during their manufacture, use and disposal, according to the study.

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Using corn for fuel seems like a dumb idea in light of new research.

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Ethanol makes up 10% of most of the gasoline sold in the United States. A large part of why Ethanol is so prevalent is that the Renewable Fuel Standard, created in 2005, wanted to reduce the emissions of the fuels we use. Ethanol created from corn is renewable, because the corn takes carbon from the atmosphere to grow, creating a cycle that minimizes how much carbon is added to the atmosphere. At least, that’s the story we were told.

New research out of University of Wisconsin — Madison, suggests that “the carbon intensity of corn ethanol is no less than gasoline and likely at least 24% higher.” What’s the solution? We need to choose options that have a greater percentage of net emissions reductions, so that we don’t unintentionally increase emissions if regulators estimated predictions are incorrect.

Continue reading “America Was Wrong About Ethanol — Study Shows” | >

A nuclear reactor at an Illinois energy plant is helping University of Chicago scientists learn how to catch and understand the tiny, elusive particles known as neutrinos.

At Constellation’s (formerly Exelon) Dresden Generating Station in Morris, Illinois, the team took the first measurements of coming off a with a tiny detector. These particles are extremely hard to catch because they interact so rarely with matter, but power reactors are one of the few places on Earth with a high concentration of them.

“This was an exciting opportunity to benefit from the enormous neutrino production from a reactor, but also a challenge in the noisy industrial environment right next to a reactor,” said Prof. Juan Collar, a particle physicist who led the research. “This is the closest that neutrino physicists have been able to get to a commercial reactor core. We gained unique experience in operating a detector under these conditions, thanks to Constellation’s generosity in accommodating our experiment.”

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