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Apr 26, 2021

Watch SpaceX’s Crew-1 astronauts plummet to an ocean landing on Saturday, ending the longest human spaceflight in NASA history

Posted by in category: space travel

NASA has never flown its own astronauts to and from space for a mission this long. Now SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship must bring them back to Earth.

Apr 26, 2021

AMD earnings: Are data center owners ‘digesting’ or just not buying Intel chips?

Posted by in category: computing

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. earnings will serve as an indication if the data-center market is truly in a “digestion” phase, as Intel Corp. reported.

AMD AMD, +3.20% is scheduled to report its first-quarter earnings on Tuesday after the close of markets. When Intel INTC,-0.81% reported results last week, the market-share leader noted that the market was just bottoming from a “digestion phase” as its data-center sales dropped 20% year-over-year.

Apr 26, 2021

SpaceX fires up Starship SN15 prototype to prep for test flight

Posted by in category: space travel

SpaceX performed the first static fire test on Starship SN15 today (April 26), prepping the vehicle for a high-altitude test flight in the near future.

Apr 26, 2021

Tesla posts record net income of $438 million, revenue surges

Posted by in category: futurism

Tesla beat expectations on revenue and earnings in Q1, but the stock dropped slightly after hours.

Apr 26, 2021

Incredible Cosmic Conditions: Bringing Neutron Stars Down to Earth

Posted by in categories: physics, space

An international research team led by Michigan State University has helped create cosmic conditions at RIKEN’s heavy-ion accelerator in Japan.

Imagine taking all of the water in Lake Michigan — more than a quadrillion gallons — and squeezing it into a 4-gallon bucket, the kind you’d find at a hardware store.

A quick review of the numbers suggests that this should be impossible: that’s too much stuff and not enough space. But this outlandish density is a defining feature of celestial objects known as neutron stars. These stars are only about 15 miles across, yet they hold more mass than our sun thanks to some extreme physics.

Apr 26, 2021

A 33-year-old Dogecoin investor says he became a millionaire in 2 months after Elon Musk inspired him to pile into the meme currency

Posted by in category: Elon Musk

Glauber Contessoto of Los Angeles posted a screenshot of his Robinhood balance of Dogecoin on Reddit.

Apr 26, 2021

Advancing AI With a Supercomputer: A Blueprint for an Optoelectronic ‘Brain’

Posted by in categories: biological, chemistry, robotics/AI, supercomputing

Others think we’re still missing fundamental aspects of how intelligence works, and that the best way to fill the gaps is to borrow from nature. For many that means building “neuromorphic” hardware that more closely mimics the architecture and operation of biological brains.

The problem is that the existing computer technology we have at our disposal looks very different from biological information processing systems, and operates on completely different principles. For a start, modern computers are digital and neurons are analog. And although both rely on electrical signals, they come in very different flavors, and the brain also uses a host of chemical signals to carry out processing.

Now though, researchers at NIST think they’ve found a way to combine existing technologies in a way that could mimic the core attributes of the brain. Using their approach, they outline a blueprint for a “neuromorphic supercomputer” that could not only match, but surpass the physical limits of biological systems.

Apr 26, 2021

The VA Is Testing an Implant That Could Allow Paralyzed Veterans to Walk Again

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

“While epidural stimulators have shown some degree of success with limb paralysis in research elsewhere, this is the first such study at the VA, explained Dr. Ashraf Gorgey, chief of spinal cord injury research at the Richmond hospital. Gorgey said the study has several goals: to see how well an epidural stimulator made by Medtronic for pain management can work on spinal cord injuries and to demonstrate the promise of the technology, which can be implanted with minimum surgery. “With this study, we might get companies like Medtronic and Boston Scientific to start creating something more specific for spinal cord injuries,” he said. “We also want to show that you don’t need invasive surgery to use this device. We use just a needle under fluoroscopy, and through the needle, we thread the leads in. On the same day Josh had his surgery, he was down in this room working out on the mat.””


That immediate change following the implant bolstered confidence in his decision to enroll in the research, he added.

When he is not at the VA — he spends 90 minutes there three times a week — Burch works with his brother, Travis, also a former Marine, renovating and flipping houses in Portsmouth, and he plays on two wheelchair rugby teams. He credits the sport, once known as murderball, and his teammates on the Oscar Mike Militia, an all-veterans team, for his recovery to date.

Continue reading “The VA Is Testing an Implant That Could Allow Paralyzed Veterans to Walk Again” »

Apr 26, 2021

Is a cheap ‘universal’ coronavirus vaccine on the way?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, futurism

Two important sars-cov-2/covid-19 links.

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An experimental COVID-19 vaccine could potentially provide universal protection against future COVID variants as well as other coronaviruses—maybe even the ones responsible for the common cold. And it’s dirt cheap—less than $1 a dose, researchers say.

Continue reading “Is a cheap ‘universal’ coronavirus vaccine on the way?” »

Apr 26, 2021

Clear link emerges between COVID-19 and pregnancy complications

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

The study also linked COVID-19 to a 60% to 97% increased rate of preterm birth, and— in infected women with a fever and shortness of breath—to a fivefold increase in neonatal complications such as immature lungs, brain damage, and eye disorders. About 13% of babies tested positive for the virus, and cesarean delivery was linked to a higher risk of transmission. Breastfeeding didn’t appear to transmit the virus—a small bit of good news.


New study bolsters the case for vaccinating pregnant women.