Lifeboat Foundation

A radiation-absorbing fungus found at the destroyed Chernobyl nuclear reactor has been shown to absorb harmful cosmic rays on the International Space Station, and could potentially be used to protect future Mars colonies.

Exposure to cosmic rays poses a major health risk to astronauts leaving Earth’s protective atmosphere. Shields can be made out of stainless steel and other materials, but they must be shipped from Earth, which is difficult and costly.

US officials and scientists have begun laying the groundwork for a more secure “virtually unhackable” internet based on quantum computing technology.

At a presentation Thursday, Department of Energy (DOE) officials issued a report that lays out a blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum internet, using laws of quantum mechanics to transmit information more securely than on existing networks.

The agency is working with universities and industry researchers on the engineering for the initiative with the aim of creating a prototype within a decade.

University of Rochester researchers are setting a new standard when it comes to producing ultrafast laser pulses over a broader range of wavelengths than traditional laser sources.

In work published in Physical Review Letters, William Renninger, an assistant professor of optics, along with members of his lab, describe a new device, called the “stretched-pulse soliton Kerr resonator,” that enhances the performance of ultrafast laser pulses. The work has important implications for a range of engineering and biomedical applications, including spectroscopy, frequency synthesis, distance ranging, pulse generation, and others.

The device creates an ultrafast laser pulse—on the order of femtoseconds, or one quadrillionth of a second—that’s freed from the physical limits endemic to sources of laser light—what laser scientists call laser gain—and the limits of the sources’ wavelengths.

Summary: A study that has been ongoing for thirty-five years sheds light on several transitions throughout our lifespans.

Source: University of Alberta

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the differences between generations and the sociological forces defining their worldviews and behavior. Stereotypes abound: the Silent Generation is inflexibly conventional, the boomers narcissistic, Gen X lazy. And millennials just take too long to grow up.

Jacques Cousteau’s grandson is pushing for the construction of a real-life Sealab 2021. The proposed undersea laboratory is so foreign to our idea of marine studies that it’s being likened to a space station that’s also under the ocean.

The station is named Proteus, not for the changing nature of matter (like a new uncuttable material with the same name), but for the shepherd of the sea. By placing a station 60 feet underwater around the Caribbean island of Curacao, sponsoring Northeastern University says it can reduce divers’ high amount of overhead time and reduce the danger of nitrogen-induced health effects.

Cholangiocarcinoma may not be a household word unless, of course, you happen to be a pathologist studying hepatic cancers. Still, it does affect a fair number of individuals, typically over the age of 50. Cholangiocarcinoma is a group of cancers that begin in the bile ducts, which carry digestive fluid to the small intestine. Cholangiocarcinomas are classified by their location in relation to the liver and typically grouped in with other types of liver cancer. Now, a team of investigators at the Spanish National Cardiovascular Research Centre (CNIC) believe they have uncovered a mechanism that controls the development of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma.

Findings from the new study—published recently in PNAS through an article entitled “JNK-mediated disruption of bile acid homeostasis promotes intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma”—identified a protein that, when blocked, dramatically reduces the impact and progression of the cancer.

Spanish scientists have designed an animal model to study the development of liver cancer caused by bile acids, whcih could speed drug discovery.

Continue reading “Novel Liver Cancer Mechanism Controls Development of Disease” »

What changed things for Germany? A handful of prominent scientists communicating regularly and openly with the public. (via CNBC)…and a leader who is a scientist.

Germany, like many other countries, had a contingent of people who fought lockdowns and argued that Covid-19 was a hoax. But it also had a handful of prominent scientists communicating regularly and openly with the public. That played a huge role in drowning out rumors and misinformation, locals tell CNBC.

“We have a great educational system and everyone has access to it,” said Dennis Traub, a tech worker in Hamburg, Germany. “So I believe that many people and the majority listened to both sides and one of those sides sounded much more reasonable.”

Continue reading “Germany’s coronavirus response is a master class in science communication” »

A team of marine ecologists from Oregon State University has described the formation and development of a new methane seep — a location where methane escapes from an underground reservoir and into the ocean — in the Ross Sea, the High Antarctic.

Summary: Depending on the network state, certain neurons in the primary somatosensory cortex can be more or less excitable, which shapes stimulus processing in the brain.

Source: Max Planck Institute

Rustling leaves, light rain at the window, a quietly ticking clock – muffled sounds, just above the threshold of hearing. One moment we perceive them, the next we don’t, even if we, or the sounds, don’t seem to change. Many studies have shown that we never process an incoming stimulus, be it a sound, an image, or a touch, in the same way. This is true, even if the stimulus is exactly the same. This occurs because the impact a stimulus makes, on the brain regions that process it, depends on the momentary state of the networks those brain regions belong to. However, the factors that influence and underlie the constantly fluctuating momentary state of the networks and whether these states are random or follow a rhythm, was previously unknown.