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Alphabet’s floating internet venture Project Loon may have been deflated, but its legacy looks set to live on through a new effort called Project Taara. The team has salvaged the technology to deliver internet connectivity with lasers, demonstrating the viability in a new test between two cities separated by the Congo River.

Originally a Google side hustle before being spun off into its own project by parent company Alphabet, Project Loon had lofty goals of connecting remote regions to the internet by beaming lasers between high-altitude balloons. After years of successful trials however, the project was eventually grounded in January 2021 due to sky-high costs.

The balloons may have been a bust, but there’s still life in the lasers. After all, wireless optical communication systems could help connect communities where it’s not feasible to build complex grids of underground optical fiber cables, and where cellular or satellite internet is patchy or expensive.

The new artificial intelligence tool has already led to the discovery of four new materials.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have created a collaborative artificial intelligence tool that reduces the time and effort required to discover truly new materials.

Reported in the journal Nature Communications, the new tool has already led to the discovery of four new materials including a new family of solid state materials that conduct lithium. Such solid electrolytes will be key to the development of solid state batteries offering longer range and increased safety for electric vehicles. Further promising materials are in development.

Thu, Sep 23 at 8 AM PDT.


Join us on-line from 4pm to 7pm on Thursday 23 September for a livestream event to learn about particle physics research at Oxford. Hear from researchers studying High Energy collisions, and phenomena like dark matter, antimatter, and neutrinos; follow a guided tour of our Minecraft model of the CERN laboratory; and watch exciting demonstrations from the Accelerate! show. Oxford particle physicists will be available through the evening to answer your questions.

Live, via the Oxford Physics YouTube channel. Everyone is welcome, regardless their knowledge of physics.

Full Schedule

Merck, known as MSD outside the US and Canada, and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics have announced that its MOV-e-AHEAD study has started to enrol its first participants to test antiviral molnupiravir in post-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 infection.

The global study will include approximately 1,332 participants who are 18 years or over and reside in the same household as someone with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, has at least one sign or symptom of COVID-19 and has not had those signs and symptoms for more than five days.

Participants will be randomised onto molnupiravir, an investigational oral antiviral therapeutic, or placebo every 12 hours for 5 days. The trial will not look at vaccinated people, those who have had COVID-19 before or anyone showing signs or symptoms of infection.

The MOVe-AHEAD trial will test whether the drug prevents infection in those living in the same household as someone with confirmed COVID-19.

Red blood cells are the most abundant cell type in blood, carrying oxygen throughout the human body. In blood circulation, they repetitively encounter various levels of oxygen tension. Hypoxia, a low oxygen tension condition, is a very common micro-environmental factor in physiological processes of blood circulation and various pathological processes such as cancer, chronic inflammation, heart attacks and stroke. In addition, an interplay between poor cellular deformability and impaired oxygen delivery is found in various pathological processes such as sickle cell disease. Sickle red blood cells simultaneously undergo drastic mechanical deformation during the sickling and unsickling process.

The interactions between hypoxia and cell biomechanics and the underlying biochemical mechanisms of the accelerated damage in diseased are well understood, however, the exact biomechanical consequences of hypoxia contributing to red cell degradation (aging) remains elusive.

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), sought to identify the role of hypoxia on red blood cell aging via the biomechanical pathways. In particular, they examined hypoxia-induced impairment of red blood cell deformability at the single cell level, compared the differences between non-cyclic hypoxia and cyclic hypoxia, and documented any cumulative effect vs. hypoxia cycles, such as aspects that have not been studied quantitatively. Red blood cell deformability is an important biomarker of its functionality.