Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers have long sought to understand the origins of life on Earth. A new study conducted by scientists at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI), and the University of New South Wales, among other participating institutions, marks an important step forward in the effort to understand the chemical origins of life. The findings of this study demonstrate how “continuous reaction networks” are capable of producing RNA precursors and possibly ultimately RNA itself — a critical bridge to life.

The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While many of the mechanisms that propagate life are well understood, the transition from a prebiotic Earth to the era of biology remains shrouded in mystery. Previous experiments have demonstrated that simple organic compounds can be produced from the reactions of chemicals understood to exist in the primitive Earth environment. However, many of these experiments relied on coordinated experimenter interventions. This study goes further by employing a model that is minimally manipulated to most accurately simulate a natural environment.

An incredibly focused study, led by researchers at the University of Virginia, has demonstrated the profound influence diet and gut bacteria has on the effectiveness and toxicity of drugs used in chemotherapy. Using a roundworm as a simplified microbiome model, the study showed how just one type of bacteria can exponentially increase a drug’s toxicity and the researchers conclude the complexity of drug, diet, and bacteria interactions in humans is “astronomical.”

A review article published last year in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology effectively summarized the current evidence supporting a hypothesis suggesting the gut microbiome plays a fundamental role in determining the efficacy of cancer chemotherapy. Recent research has shown how the pharmacological effects of a given drug can be directly influenced by bacteria in the gut, mediating a drug’s toxicity and efficacy.

Although a great deal of observational connections have been made between the gut microbiome and treatment outcomes for patients with a variety of diseases, this new study set out to zoom in on the underlying molecular processes at play.

Astronomers announced the discovery of a ghostly, almost perfectly circular, arc of ultraviolet emission centered on the handle of the Big Dipper and stretching 30 degrees across the Northern sky. If the arc were extended, it would completely encircle the Big Dipper with a diameter of 60 degrees.

This unique object was discovered by Andrea Bracco, an astronomer at the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb, Croatia, Marta Alves, an astronomer at Radboud University in the Netherlands, and Robert Benjamin, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in the United States. Benjamin, who contributed to the analysis of the structure, presented the team’s newest results at an on-line meeting of American Astronomical Society on June 2. A report on the discovery has been published in the April volume of Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters.

The arc, stretching beyond the constellation Ursa Major, is 30 degrees long, a fraction of a degree thick, and made of compressed, energized interstellar gas. The source of the energy and the arc shape indicate an advancing shock wave from a stellar explosion or supernova which occurred 60 degrees above the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. The distance and age of the explosion which created the shock wave is highly uncertain. The team estimates that the explosion occurred more than 100,000 years ago at a distance of approximately 600 light years.

Plant biologists have long sought a deeper understanding of foundational processes involving kinases, enzymes that catalyze key biological activities in proteins. Analyzing the processes underlying kinases in plants takes on greater urgency in today’s environment increasingly altered by climate warming.

Certain “SnRK2” kinases (sucrose-non-fermenting-1-related protein kinase-2s) are essential since they are known to be activated in response to drought conditions, triggering the protective closure of small pores on leaf surfaces known as stoma. These pores allow carbon dioxide to enter leaves, but plants also lose more than 90 percent of their water by evaporation through them. Pore opening and closing functions help optimize growth and drought tolerance in response to changes in the environment.

Now, plant biologists at the University of California San Diego have developed a new nanosensor that allows researchers to monitor SnRK2 protein kinase activity in live plant cells. The SnRK2 activity sensor, or “SNACS,” is described in the journal eLife.

Technology giant Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has bought a small Canadian start-up company to help it improve machine-learning and artificial intelligence (AI).

Apple has purchased Waterloo, Ontario-based company Inductiv Inc., adding to more than a dozen AI-related acquisitions in recent years. Inductiv develops technology that uses AI to automate the task of identifying and correcting errors in data. Having clean data is important for machine learning, a popular and powerful type of artificial intelligence that helps software improve with less human intervention.

The engineering team from Inductiv joined Apple in recent weeks to work on Siri, machine learning and data science. The Inductiv acquisition is part of Apple’s broader machine-learning strategy. Apple has been upgrading the underlying technology that goes into the Siri digital assistant and other AI-powered products.

Famous basketball player Kevin Durant co-funded $200 million-valued Skydio, which has quietly been getting millions in federal government surveillance money, whilst spending thousands on lobbying senators and the president’s office.

The more people enjoy music, the more similar their brain activity is to that of the musician.

Summary: Researchers report the same subset of neurons encode actual and illusory flow motion, supporting the concept Jan Purkinje proposed 150 years ago, that “illusions contain visual truth”.

Source: SfN.

A study of humans and monkeys published in Journal of Neuroscience has found the same subset of neurons encode actual and illusory complex flow motion. This finding supports, at the level of single neurons, what the Czech scientist Jan Purkinje surmised 150 years ago: “Illusions contain visual truth.”

Strange, powerful signals from deep space called fast radio bursts are slippery little suckers.

Most of them just flash once, a mysterious huge spike in the radio data out of nowhere, lasting just milliseconds at most. They can’t be predicted, and because they’re so brief, they’re incredibly hard to trace.

Hard; but not impossible. Less than a year ago, for the first time, astronomers announced they traced one of these mysterious one-off signals to its source galaxy. Since then, their techniques have allowed them to trace three more.