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Jun 3, 2021

Multi-strain vaccine blocks COVID-19 in monkeys

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

“We began this work last spring with the understanding that, like all viruses, mutations would occur in the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19,” said senior study author Barton F. Haynes, M.D., director of the DHVI. “The mRNA vaccines were already under development, so we were looking for ways to sustain their efficacy once those variants appeared.

This approach not only provided protection against SARS-CoV-2, but the antibodies induced by the vaccine also neutralised variants of concern that originated in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil. And the induced antibodies reacted with quite a large panel of coronaviruses.

Haynes’ team – whose work is published in Nature – built on earlier studies involving SARS, a respiratory illness caused by SARS-CoV-1. The original SARS virus emerged in November 2002, lasting until May 2004, with more than 8000 cases and 774 deaths, mostly in East Asia. The DHVI team found that a person infected with SARS developed antibodies capable of neutralising multiple coronaviruses, suggesting that a pan-coronavirus might be possible.

Jun 3, 2021

Engineers create a programmable fiber | MIT News

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, media & arts

Global Automobile Infotainment System Market 2020 Industry Research, Review, Growth, Segmentation, Key Players Analysis and Forecast to 2025.


MIT researchers have developed the first fiber with digital capabilities that is able to capture, store, analyze and derive activity after it has been sewn into a shirt.

Yoel Fink, professor of materials science and electrical engineering, lead researcher at the Electronics Research Laboratory and lead author of the study, says digital fibers expand the possibilities for fabrics to uncover the context of hidden patterns in the human body that could be used for monitoring physical performance, medical conclusions and early disease detection are used.

Continue reading “Engineers create a programmable fiber | MIT News” »

Jun 3, 2021

Humans could live to 150, according to study

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

The maximum lifespan for humans is between 120 and 150, according to a longitudinal analysis of blood markers, published in Nature.

Jun 3, 2021

New drone is first to reach Level 4 autonomy

Posted by in categories: drones, robotics/AI

In simple terms, comparing previous autonomy standards with that of Exyn is like the difference between self-navigating a single, defined road versus uncharted terrain in unknown and unmapped territory. Unlike a car, however, a drone must be able to manoeuvre within three dimensions and pack all its intelligence and sensors onto a fraction of the total body size with severe weight restrictions.

“People have been talking about Level 4 Autonomy in driverless cars for some time, but having that same degree of intelligence condensed onboard a self-sufficient UAV is an entirely different engineering challenge in and of itself,” said Jason Derenick, CTO at Exyn Technologies. “Achieving Level 5 is the holy grail of autonomous systems – this is when the drone can demonstrate 100% control in an unbounded environment, without any input from a human operator whatsoever. While I don’t believe we will witness this in my lifetime, I do believe we will push the limits of what’s possible with advanced Level 4. We are already working on attaining Level 4B autonomy with swarms, or collaborative multi-robot systems.”

“There’s things that we want to do to make it faster, make it higher resolution, make it more accurate,” said Elm, in an interview with Forbes. “But the other thing we were kind of contemplating is basically the ability to have multiple robots collaborate with each other so you can scale the problem – both in terms of scale and scope. So you can have multiple identical robots on a mission, so you can actually now cover a larger area, but also have specialised robots that might be different. So, heterogeneous swarms so they can actually now have specialised tasks and collaborate with each other on a mission.”

Jun 3, 2021

Chinese fusion reactor sets world record

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, physics, sustainability

China has announced a milestone in the development of clean, sustainable energy by setting a new world record for the longest duration of temperatures needed for fusion to occur.

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) located in Hefei, Anhui Province, is the successor to HT-7, China’s first superconducting tokamak, which retired in 2013. The Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HIPS) is conducting the experiment for the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Professor Gong Xianzu, a researcher at the CAS Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) who is leading the project, announced the breakthrough. The reactor achieved not one but two milestones. Firstly it reached a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds. This is 20% hotter and five times longer than last year, when EAST managed 100 million degrees Celsius for 20 seconds. Secondly, it reached an even higher peak temperature of 160 million degrees Celsius, lasting for 20 seconds.

Jun 3, 2021

New NASA Missions Will Study Venus, a World Overlooked for Decades

Posted by in categories: biological, space

One of the spacecraft will probe the hellish planet’s clouds, which could potentially help settle the debate over whether they are habitable by floating microbes.

Jun 3, 2021

Researchers: Culture drives human evolution more than genetics

Posted by in categories: biological, evolution, genetics

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY • JUN 3, 2021
Culture drives human evolution more than genetics

I wonder about the thought that only humans do this, and perhaps that somehow culture is separate in some way from biological evolution enmeshed with the rest of the planet?
by University of Maine

Culture is an under-appreciated factor in human evolution, Waring says. Like genes, culture helps people adjust to their environment and meet the challenges of survival and reproduction. Culture, however, does so more effectively than genes because the transfer of knowledge is faster and more flexible than the inheritance of genes, according to Waring and Wood.

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Jun 3, 2021

Neuralink Brain Chip Will End Language in Five to 10 Years, Elon Musk Says

Posted by in categories: computing, Elon Musk, neuroscience

In a recent interview, Elon Musk stated that the human language could possibly end within five to ten years. The CEO of Neuralink went to talk with Joe Rogan, implying that with the innovation of the brain chip the company is currently developing, humans won’t have to speak anymore using traditional languages.


Neuralink develops a chip that will soon be able to attach to the human brain. The chip’s invention aimed to communicate faster and conveniently. Through a single universal language, Elon Musk believes that the way we talk today will soon improve. The brain chip is expected to be completed to be developed within a few years, and by then, our communication could possibly evolve.

Continue reading “Neuralink Brain Chip Will End Language in Five to 10 Years, Elon Musk Says” »

Jun 3, 2021

A programmable fiber contains memory, temperature sensors, and a trained neural network program

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

MIT researchers have created the first fiber with digital capabilities, able to sense, store, analyze, and infer activity after being sewn into a shirt.

Jun 3, 2021

Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon’s CEO in July

Posted by in category: economics

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is officially stepping down from his role as the company’s CEO on July 5. CBSN tech reporter Dan Patterson joins CBSN to discuss the billionaire’s impact on the U.S. economy, politics and more.

CBSN is CBS News’ 24/7 digital streaming news service featuring live, anchored coverage available for free across all platforms. Launched in November 2014, the service is a premier destination for breaking news and original storytelling from the deep bench of CBS News correspondents and reporters. CBSN features the top stories of the day as well as deep dives into key issues facing the nation and the world. CBSN has also expanded to launch local news streaming services in major markets across the country. CBSN is currently available on CBSNews.com and the CBS News app across more than 20 platforms, as well as the Paramount+ subscription service.

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