Lifeboat Foundation

Since the early days of the COVID pandemic, scientists have aggressively pursued the secrets of the mechanisms that allow severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to enter and infect healthy human cells.

Early in the pandemic, University of California San Diego’s Rommie Amaro, a computational biophysical chemist, helped develop a detailed visualization of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that efficiently latches onto our cell receptors.

Now, Amaro and her research colleagues from UC San Diego, University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas at Austin, Columbia University and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have discovered how glycans–molecules that make up a sugary residue around the edges of the spike protein–act as infection gateways.

Continue reading “Researchers discover hidden SARS-CoV-2 ‘gate’ that opens to allow COVID infection” »

😃

At Tesla’s AI Day event, Elon Musk unveiled the Tesla Bot — a humanoid robot that uses much of the tech found in Tesla’s car to perform such tasks as getting groceries or attaching a bolt to a car with a wrench. Oh, and a prototype is set to be ready next year.

The Tesla Bot will stand at 5’8” and will weigh approximately 125 pounds. Fortunately, for those who fear a possible robot uprising, the team at Tesla is building the Tesla Bot in a way that “you can run away from it… and most likely overpower it.”

Physics researchers at the University of North Florida’s Atomic LEGO Lab discovered a new electronic phenomenon they call “asymmetric ferroelectricity”. The research led by Dr. Maitri Warusawithana, UNF physics assistant professor, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Illinois and the Arizona State University, demonstrated this phenomenon for the first time in engineered two-dimensional crystals.

NASA calls it the “Double Asteroid Redirection Test,” or DART for short, and the mission involves NASA launching a spacecraft that will rocket towards the Didymos binary asteroid and collide with it. NASA wants to test if the impact of the spacecraft colliding with the asteroid will be enough to alter its course. It should be noted that the asteroid doesn’t currently pose any threat to Earth and that NASA is purely conducting this mission for research purposes.

According to NASA’s latest update on DART, the spacecraft recently received solar arrays that will be a core component to getting the spacecraft all the way to the Didmos asteroid system. The spacecraft will travel for ten months to reach the asteroid system and will launch aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket this November. When the spacecraft collides with the asteroid, it will be traveling at around 15,000 mph, and NASA will have Earth-based telescopes aimed at the asteroid for clear observation.

For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Hi guys! I created a Graphing Calculator with just redstone.

I know I say this every time, but this is without a doubt the most challenging and complicated machine I’ve ever made. It required multiple components working together to solve equations and plot over 10,000 different point values.

SPECS.

The more Mars rovers, the merrier.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced that it has successfully demonstrated the operation of a rocket engine technology for the first time in space. This experiment proved the efficiency of a rotating detonation engine (RDE) which converted the shock waves generated when a mixture of fuel and oxygen reacts explosively into thrust.

The crew of Shenzhou-12 has conducted the second spacewalk of the mission, and the second spacewalk of the new Chinese Space Station’s lifetime. The extravehicular activity (EVA) comes two months into their planned 90-day mission in low Earth orbit.

Mission commander Nie Haisheng and first operator Liu Boming exited the Tianhe core module at 00:38 UTC on Friday, August 20. The goals of the EVA included the installation of a new panoramic camera (known as Panoramic Camera D) as well as a backup thermal control pump. Second operator Tang Hongbo stayed inside the station to support the two spacewalkers, similar to how crew onboard the International Space Station support American and Russian spacewalks.

Haisheng and Boming exited the depressurized docking node of the Tianhe module, which is being used as an EVA airlock until the Wentian lab module, equipped with its own airlock for crewmembers, arrives in the spring of 2022. Panoramic Camera D was successfully installed, and the station was prepared for future EVAs and module installations. To that end, the taikonauts finished installing additional foot restraints onto the station as well as a work platform on the station’s robotic arm.

Albert Einstein’s most famous equation, E = mc², used in the theory of general relativity, has been used to create matter from light, scientists have said in a new study.

Researchers from New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory used the Department of Energy’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), ordinarily used for nuclear physics research, to speed up two gold ions that are positively charged, in a loop.