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Jan 14, 2021

SONDORS Metacycle unveiled as low-cost 80 MPH electric motorcycle

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transportation

SONDORS has just pulled up the curtain on its first-ever electric motorcycle, the SONDORS Metacycle. The new commuter electric motorcycle may just be the first truly low-cost electric motorcycle capable of both city and highway riding.

Of course terms like “affordable” and “low-cost” will always be relative.

But to put things in perspective, we live in a world where the $29799 Harley-Davidson LiveWire is considered largely a commuter electric motorcycle, though with enough power for some impressive drag races as well.

Jan 14, 2021

Inspired by kombucha tea, engineers create ‘living materials’

Posted by in categories: biological, sustainability

Engineers at MIT and Imperial College London have developed a new way to generate tough, functional materials using a mixture of bacteria and yeast similar to the “kombucha mother” used to ferment tea.

Using this mixture, also called a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), the researchers were able to produce cellulose embedded with enzymes that can perform a variety of functions, such as sensing environmental pollutants. They also showed that they could incorporate yeast directly into the material, creating “living materials” that could be used to purify water or to make “smart” packaging materials that can detect damage.

“We foresee a future where diverse materials could be grown at home or in local production facilities, using biology rather than resource-intensive centralized manufacturing,” says Timothy Lu, an MIT associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and of .

Jan 14, 2021

Research breaks new ground in understanding how a molecular motor generates force

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, nanotechnology

A team of biophysicists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Penn State College of Medicine set out to tackle the long-standing question about the nature of force generation by myosin, the molecular motor responsible for muscle contraction and many other cellular processes. The key question they addressed—one of the most controversial topics in the field—was: how does myosin convert chemical energy, in the form of ATP, into mechanical work?

The answer revealed new details into how myosin, the engine of muscle and related motor proteins, transduces energy.

In the end, their unprecedented research, meticulously repeated with different controls and double-checked, supported their hypothesis that the mechanical events of a precede—rather than follow—the biochemical events, directly challenging the long-held view that biochemical events gate the force-generating event. The work, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, was selected as an Editor’s Pick for “providing an exceptional contribution to the field.”

Jan 14, 2021

CES 2021: The 15 best new products revealed at the year’s biggest tech conference

Posted by in categories: health, mobile phones

From the best smartphone of the show to the best health-focused device, this is the cream of the crop when it comes to CES announcements and reveals. We’ve seen a tech-filled face mask that solves a lot of the problems of normal masks, as well as rollable smartphone displays.


Here are the best products we’ve seen at CES 2021, with 15 picks across several categories earning our accolades.

Jan 14, 2021

1979: Project Apollo: James Burke on Landing the Eagle

Posted by in category: space

# OnThisDay 1979: On the 10th anniversary of the first moon landing, James Burke went to NASA, to reflect on the heart-stopping minutes preceding “The eagle has landed.”

Jan 14, 2021

Cancer cells can hibernate like bears to evade chemotherapy

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Cancer cells can hibernate like bears during chemotherapy, a team of doctors has discovered. The cancer cells can act as a living organism, slowing down their activities to survive until the drugs are cleared from the system.

Jan 14, 2021

New medical gun can help treat burns and serious injuries

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Jan 14, 2021

Impulse Neuro-Controller executes game moves with thoughts instead of mouse clicks

Posted by in categories: cyborgs, entertainment, transhumanism

George Will, a political commentator for nearly half a century at The Washington Post, is known to also enjoy weighing in on sports on occasion, most notably baseball. He is fond of repeating the simple but critical observation that these games are a matter of “seconds and inches.”

In digital games, the same maxim applies, but even more so. Fractions of inches matter when targeting the enemy. And critical time is not measured in seconds but in thousandths of seconds.

With that in mind, developers at Canadian startup Brink Bionics have developed a device that promises to boost gamer proficiency by slashing the delay time between an intent to act and execution of the actual action.

Jan 14, 2021

Intel Adds Hardware-Enabled Ransomware Detection to 11th Gen vPro Chips

Posted by in category: cybercrime/malcode

Intel 11th Gen vPro Chips Adds Hardware-Enabled Ransomware Detection.

Jan 14, 2021

Microsoft Issues Patches for Defender Zero-Day and 82 Other Windows Flaws

Posted by in category: futurism

Patch Tuesday January 2021 — Microsoft Issues Patches for Defender Zero-Day and 82 Other Windows Flaws.