Lifeboat Foundation

Hydraulic Instability Decides Who’s to Die and Who’s to Live

In many species including humans, the cells responsible for reproduction, the germ cells, are often highly interconnected and share their cytoplasm. In the hermaphrodite nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, up to 500 germ cells are connected to each other in the gonad, the tissue that produces eggs and sperm. These cells are arranged around a central cytoplasmic “corridor” and exchange cytoplasmic material fostering cell growth, and ultimately produce oocytes ready to be fertilized.

In past studies, researchers have found that C. elegans gonads generate more germ cells than needed and that only half of them grow to become oocytes, while the rest shrinks and die by physiological apoptosis, a programmed cell death that occurs in multicellular organisms. Now, scientists from the Biotechnology Center of the TU Dresden (BIOTEC), the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG), the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life (PoL) at the TU Dresden, the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems (MPI-PKS), the Flatiron Institute, NY, and the University of California, Berkeley, found evidence to answer the question of what triggers this cell fate decision between life and death in the germline.

The adoption of Android Auto is on the rise, with more and more carmakers bringing it to their new models, but at the same time, there’s also a shift in terms of supported versions.

An international study led by UNSW researchers has mapped one of the most intact and complete dog genomes ever generated.

The genome sequence of the Basenji dog could have a big impact on the understanding of dog evolution, domestication and canine genetic diseases.

The Basenji—also known as the barkless dog—is an ancient African dog breed which still lives and hunts with tribesmen in the African Congo.

Germany wants to help citizens in rural areas get better access to the world wide web by supporting the purchase of hardware for satellite internet services such as Elon Musk’s Starlink, the transport ministry said on Monday.

The planned subsidy scheme will be open to all providers who offer wireless internet connections in rural areas, for example through satellites or directional radio links, the ministry said.

Coalition talks about the details of the voucher scheme are still ongoing and the aim is to subsidize the purchase of the technical equipment, it added.

Microsoft has galvanised policy makers across seven Asia-Pacific markets, including Singapore and Indonesia, in a bid to facilitate the sharing of threat intelligence and resources amongst their respective public sector. The US software vendor says “collective” efforts across the region are critical in combating cybersecurity threats, which are inevitable in an increasingly interconnected world.

It noted that Asia-Pacific saw malware and ransomware attacks at higher frequencies, clocking 1.6 and 1.7 times higher, respectively. than the global average. Citing numbers from its 2019 threat report, Microsoft said developing markets such as Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka were most vulnerable to such threats that year.

It added that cybercrime not only resulted in financial losses and brought down operations, but also posed risks to national security and eroded trust in digital economies.

Picture yourself winning the lottery. A telltale pattern of brain activity can be seen on an MRI machine.

It might be days before production resumes after an “organized cybersecurity attack” affected some servers supporting JBS USA’s North American and Australian IT systems, officials said.

CANBERRA, Australia — Thousands of meat workers had no work for a second day on Tuesday after a cyberattack crippled the world’s largest meat processing company. A government minister said it might be days before production resumes.

JBS is also Australia’s largest meat and food processing company, with 47 facilities across the country including abattoirs, feedlots and meat processing sites. JBS employs around 11000 people.

Continue reading “Cyberattack hits world’s largest meat supplier” »

A new map of what researchers call the “cosmic web” shows the dark matter in the local universe and reveals hidden “bridges” between galaxies.

(Credit: Getty Images)

The map, developed using machine learning, could enable studies about the nature of dark matter as well as about the history and future of our local universe.

A team at Stony Brook University used ORNL’s Summit supercomputer to model x-ray burst flames spreading across the surface of dense neutron stars.

At the heart of some of the smallest and densest stars in the universe lies nuclear matter that might exist in never-before-observed exotic phases. Neutron stars, which form when the cores of massive stars collapse in a luminous supernova explosion, are thought to contain matter at energies greater than what can be achieved in particle accelerator experiments, such as the ones at the Large Hadron Collider and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

Although scientists cannot recreate these extreme conditions on Earth, they can use neutron stars as ready-made laboratories to better understand exotic matter. Simulating neutron stars, many of which are only 12.5 miles in diameter but boast around 1.4 to 2 times the mass of our sun, can provide insight into the matter that might exist in their interiors and give clues as to how it behaves at such densities.