Menu

Blog

Page 6567

Apr 20, 2021

NASA’s New Horizons Reaches a Rare Space Milestone – It’s Almost 5 Billion Miles Away and Still Exploring

Posted by in categories: computing, space travel

In the weeks following its launch in early 2006, when NASA ’s New Horizons was still close to home, it took just minutes to transmit a command to the spacecraft, and hear back that the onboard computer received and was ready to carry out the instructions.

As New Horizons crossed the solar system, and its distance from Earth jumped from millions to billions of miles, that time between contacts grew from a few minutes to several hours. And on April 17 at 12:42 UTC (or April 17 at 8:42 a.m. EDT), New Horizons reached a rare deep-space milepost – 50 astronomical units from the Sun, or 50 times farther from the Sun than Earth is.

Here’s one way to imagine just how far 50 AU is: Think of the solar system laid out on a neighborhood street; the Sun is one house to the left of “home” (or Earth), Mars would be the next house to the right, and Jupiter would be just four houses to the right. New Horizons would be 50 houses down the street, 17 houses beyond Pluto!

Apr 20, 2021

Rejuvenate Bio banks $10M to advance gene therapy for aging in humans and dogs

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, finance, life extension

Rejuvenate Bio’s treatment is a gene therapy that dials up expression of the genes sTGFbetaR2 and FGF21 to reduce levels of the cytokine TGF-beta1 and boost levels of the hormone FGF21, respectively. Both genes are associated with longevity.

“What we have seen from using a combination of two genes is the ability to affect multiple age-related diseases at once,” Oliver said.

Rejuvenate Bio published data in November 2019 showing that targeting these two genes in mice reduced kidney atrophy and reversed weight gain and Type 2 diabetes. The company had given extra copies of those genes, alone and in combination with each other and another gene called alpha-Klotho to see if they could boost the mice’s health and life spans. It found out that more isn’t necessarily better, as mice that were given all three genes together fared worse than the other animals did.

Apr 20, 2021

NASA, SpaceX declare Crew-2 astronaut mission ‘go’ for Thursday launch

Posted by in category: space travel

Liftoff is scheduled for Thursday, April 22.


CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA has given SpaceX the official go-ahead for the launch of its next crew mission to the International Space Station.

That mission, called Crew-2, will blast off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:11 a.m. EST (1011 GMT) on Thursday morning (April 22) from NASA’s historic Pad 39A and Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will be the second flight of this particular Crew Dragon. The capsule, named “Endeavour,” first carried NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to and from the space station last year for the Demo-2 test flight.

Apr 20, 2021

Hackers Used to Be Humans. Soon, AIs Will Hack Humanity

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, economics

Like crafty genies, AIs will grant our wishes, and then hack them, exploiting our social, political, and economic systems like never before.

Apr 20, 2021

Electron-Ion Collider: The Future of Particle Accelerators Is Here

Posted by in categories: futurism, particle physics

Behind the scenes of the Electron-Ion Collider, green accelerators that waste no energy, and chiral magnetic effect results debuting this summer.

When the Electron Ion Collider received the go-ahead in January 2020, it became the only new major accelerator in the works anywhere in the world.

“All the stars aligned,” said Elke-Caroline Aschenauer, Brookhaven National Laboratory Staff Scientist and a leader in developing the EIC plans. “We have the technology to build this unique particle accelerator and detector to do the measurements that, together with the underlying theory, can for the first time provide answers to longstanding fundamental questions in nuclear physics.”

Apr 20, 2021

FTC warns it could crack down on biased AI

Posted by in categories: economics, employment, habitats, information science, law enforcement, robotics/AI

AI systems can lead to race or gender discrimination.


The US Federal Trade Commission has warned companies against using biased artificial intelligence, saying they may break consumer protection laws. A new blog post notes that AI tools can reflect “troubling” racial and gender biases. If those tools are applied in areas like housing or employment, falsely advertised as unbiased, or trained on data that is gathered deceptively, the agency says it could intervene.

“In a rush to embrace new technology, be careful not to overpromise what your algorithm can deliver,” writes FTC attorney Elisa Jillson — particularly when promising decisions that don’t reflect racial or gender bias. “The result may be deception, discrimination — and an FTC law enforcement action.”

Continue reading “FTC warns it could crack down on biased AI” »

Apr 20, 2021

MagicDNA: Tiny, Complex DNA Robots Designed in Minutes Instead of Days

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

Someday, scientists believe, tiny DNA-based robots and other nanodevices will deliver medicine inside our bodies, detect the presence of deadly pathogens, and help manufacture increasingly smaller electronics.

Researchers took a big step toward that future by developing a new tool that can design much more complex DNA robots and nanodevices than were ever possible before in a fraction of the time.

Continue reading “MagicDNA: Tiny, Complex DNA Robots Designed in Minutes Instead of Days” »

Apr 20, 2021

A pharmaceutical company dedicated to treating aging and age-related disease

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business, life extension

If you want to own a piece of a longevity technology company, here is your chance.


Invest as little as $100 in startups and small businesses. Wefunder is the largest Regulation Crowdfunding portal.

Apr 20, 2021

One of Earth’s nearest stars may be a dark matter factory

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

A hunt for hypothetical axions streaming from Betelgeuse turns up empty but helps physicists set constraints on their properties.

Apr 20, 2021

Dr. Hassan Tetteh, MD — Health Mission Chief — DoD/JAIC — The Art of Human Care For COVID-19

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business, ethics, government, health, military, policy, robotics/AI

The Art Of Human Care For Covid-19 — Dr. Hassan A. Tetteh MD, Health Mission Chief, U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, The Pentagon.


Dr. Hassan A. Tetteh, MD, is the Health Mission Chief, at the Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, serving to advance the objectives of the DoD AI Strategy, and improve war fighter healthcare and readiness with artificial intelligence implementations.

Continue reading “Dr. Hassan Tetteh, MD — Health Mission Chief — DoD/JAIC — The Art of Human Care For COVID-19” »