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Jul 28, 2020

Researchers offer unprecedented look into ‘central engine’ powering a solar flare

Posted by in categories: particle physics, space

In a study published in Nature Astronomy, an international team of researchers has presented a new, detailed look inside the “central engine” of a large solar flare accompanied by a powerful eruption first captured on Sept. 10, 2017 by the Owens Valley Solar Array (EOVSA)—a solar radio telescope facility operated by New Jersey Institute of Technology’s (NJIT) Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research (CSTR).

The new findings, based on EOVSA’s observations of the event at microwave wavelengths, offer the first measurements characterizing the magnetic fields and particles at the heart of the explosion. The results have revealed an enormous electric current “sheet” stretching more than 40,000 kilometers through the core flaring region where opposing lines approach each other, break and reconnect, generating the intense powering the .

Notably, the team’s measurements also indicate a magnetic bottle-like structure located at the top of the flare’s loop-shaped base (known as the flare arcade) at a height of nearly 20,000 kilometers above the Sun’s surface. The structure, the team suggests, is likely the primary site where the flare’s highly are trapped and accelerated to nearly the speed of light.

Jul 28, 2020

SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2: How to watch NASA astronauts return to Earth

Posted by in categories: habitats, space travel

https://youtube.com/watch?v=K0yNvk8JV-8

Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley made history getting to the space station. Now they’re coming home.

Jul 28, 2020

Improving massively imbalanced datasets in machine learning with synthetic data

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cybercrime/malcode, robotics/AI

Handling imbalanced datasets in machine learning is a difficult challenge, and can include topics such as payment fraud, diagnosing cancer or disease, and even cyber security attacks. What all of these have in…

Jul 28, 2020

Saddle up for a ride through the cosmos, partner — Space Force has horses

Posted by in category: space

The first recruiting ad for the U.S. Space Force floats the idea that “maybe your purpose on this planet isn’t on this planet.”

Could this purpose include the otherworldly mission of firing laser beams while galloping through the cosmos on the back of Secretariat?

Horses? Where we’re going, we don’t need horses.

Jul 28, 2020

Hydrogel mimics human brain with memorizing and forgetting ability

Posted by in categories: biological, chemistry, neuroscience

Hokkaido University researchers have found a soft and wet material that can memorize, retrieve, and forget information, much like the human brain. They report their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The learns things, but tends to forget them when the is no longer important. Recreating this dynamic process in manmade materials has been a challenge. Hokkaido University researchers now report a hydrogel that mimics the dynamic memory function of the brain: encoding information that fades with time depending on the memory intensity.

Hydrogels are flexible materials composed of a large percentage of water—in this case about 45%—along with other chemicals that provide a scaffold-like structure to contain the water. Professor Jian Ping Gong, Assistant Professor Kunpeng Cui and their students and colleagues in Hokkaido University’s Institute for Chemical Reaction Design and Discovery (WPI-ICReDD) are seeking to develop hydrogels that can serve biological functions.

Jul 28, 2020

Tesla Model S with cryptic ‘deep crimson’ paint spotted at SpaceX headquarters

Posted by in categories: climatology, Elon Musk, sustainability

In recent interactions on Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk mentioned that he is particularly excited about a new paint option called “deep crimson,” which would be offered on vehicles that are produced in Gigafactory Berlin. A recent photo taken of a Model S at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, may have just revealed what the mysterious shade could look like.

Tesla owner Ryan McCaffrey, who also hosts the Ride the Lightning Podcast, was recently given a rather interesting set of photos by one of his listeners. The images were quite unique since they feature a Model S painted in a shade that’s currently unavailable in Tesla’s current configurator. The paint itself is close to red, and it’s very reminiscent of the “crimson” shade used by other automakers.

@elonmusk Is this the “deep crimson” Tesla paint color you were talking about loving recently that’s planned for Giga Berlin? (I think this is your personal car given who sent me this photo).

Jul 28, 2020

#EZScience Episode 9 Part 2: Mars Perseverance Rover Will Look for Signs of Ancient Life

Posted by in category: space

🔎 Part of NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover mission is to survey Mars’ geology for signs of ancient life, but what does that entail? Where will she search?

Find out in this episode of #EZScience with Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen of NASA and Dr. Ellen Stofan of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution: https://youtu.be/McqMigM_YG8

#CountdownToMars

Jul 28, 2020

Coaching in 2030: How Artificial Intelligence Will Change Our Profession

Posted by in categories: futurism, robotics/AI

Who knows what the future will bring? Well, Alan Couzens just might. In this article, he takes a look at current uses of artificial intelligence in sports and tells us where AI technology is headed and how it will help coaches in the next 10 years.

Jul 28, 2020

The Gateway for Futurists Into and Out of Africa

Posted by in category: futurism

Click on photo to start video.

Guest: tom ross and brenda ramokopelwa, taffd’s.

Jul 28, 2020

Engineering Plant Immunity: Using CRISPR/Cas9 to Generate Virus Resistance

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, food

Plant viruses infect many economically important crops, including wheat, cotton, maize, cassava, and other vegetables. These viruses pose a serious threat to agriculture worldwide, as decreases in cropland area per capita may cause production to fall short of that required to feed the increasing world population. Under these circumstances, conventional strategies can fail to control rapidly evolving and emerging plant viruses. Genome-engineering strategies have recently emerged as promising tools to introduce desirable traits in many eukaryotic species, including plants. Among these genome engineering technologies, the CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats)/CRISPR-associated 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) system has received special interest because of its simplicity, efficiency, and reproducibility. Recent studies have used CRISPR/Cas9 to engineer virus resistance in plants, either by directly targeting and cleaving the viral genome, or by modifying the host plant genome to introduce viral immunity. Here, we briefly describe the biology of the CRISPR/Cas9 system and plant viruses, and how different genome engineering technologies have been used to target these viruses. We further describe the main findings from recent studies of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated viral interference and discuss how these findings can be applied to improve global agriculture. We conclude by pinpointing the gaps in our knowledge and the outstanding questions regarding CRISPR/Cas9-mediated viral immunity.

Keywords: plant virus, CRISPR/Cas9, genome engineering, geminivirus, virus resistance.

In the context of the rapidly growing global population, food security has emerged as one of the major challenges facing our generation (Cheeseman, 2016). The global population has increased by 60%, but per capita production of grains has fallen worldwide in the last 20 years (Suweis et al., 2015). If the population growth rate, which is 1.13 percent per year for 20161 persists, the world population will double again within a mere 50 years, and it is estimated that food production will need to at least double till 2050 to meet demand (Suweis et al., 2015). Increases in food production per unit of land have not kept pace with increases in population and cropland area per capita has fallen by more than half since 1960 (Cheeseman, 2016).