AI — Artificial Intelligence, lots of potential for good, but also a threat to the world.
From biological machines to superintelligence.
Rather than releasing any new cameras for CES 2021, Canon is doing something different: Letting you take pictures from space. The company has unveiled an [interactive site](https://redefinethelimits.us/space/cornerstone/experience) that allows you to use its CE-SAT-1 satellite, equipped with a lightly modified 5D Mark III DSLR, to grab simulated photos of locations including New York City, the Bahamas and Dubai.
Canon launched the wine barrel-sized microsatellite back in June of 2017. It holds an EOS 5D Mark III camera that’s fitted with a 40 cm Cassegrain-type (mirror) 3720mm telescope. Orbiting at a 600 km orbit (375 miles), it provides about a 36-inch ground resolution within a 3×2 mile frame, Canon claims. (By contrast, the world’s highest-resolution satellite, [WorldView-4](https://apollomapping.com/worldview-4-satellite-imagery?gcli…rT_D_BwE), can resolve down to 12 inches.) It also houses a PowerShot S110 for wider images.
Take ‘photos’ of Earth from space with Canon’s 5D Mark III camera.
Continue reading “Canon made a site that lets you ‘take photos’ from a real satellite” »
The older we grow, the weaker our muscles get, riddling old age with frailty and physical disability. But this doesn’t only affect the individual, it also creates a significant burden on public healthcare. And yet, research efforts into the biological processes and biomarkers that define muscle aging have not yet defined the underlying causes.
Now, a team of scientists from lab of Johan Auwerx at EPFL’s School of Life Sciences looked at the issue through a different angle: the similarities between muscle aging and degenerative muscle diseases. They have discovered protein aggregates that deposit in skeletal muscles during natural aging, and that blocking this can prevent the detrimental features of muscle aging. The study is published in Cell Reports.
“During age-associated muscle diseases, such as inclusion body myositis (IBM), our cells struggle to maintain correct protein folding, leading these misfolded proteins to precipitate and forming toxic protein aggregates within the muscles,” explains Auwerx. “The most prominent component of these protein aggregates is beta-amyloid, just like in the amyloid plaques in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.”
NRF2 is just one of thousands of critical proteins in the cell, but it is one that we now know a lot about. Once any molecule achieves a certain level of celebrity status, it tends to acquire a groupie following in the supplement market. Today, we have all manner of NRF enhancers, releasers, activators and synergizers ready to arrive on your doorstep at the click of a button. But what could any of these things possibly do for us, and how much is too much of a good thing?
At the risk of overstating the obvious, if a little extra NRF2 is good for every cell in your body, and every cell in your body is good, then NRF2 must be good for your body. The weak link in that argument, however, is that all cells are not good. Nobody wants harmful bacterial cells to flourish, and nobody wants cancer cells to flourish. A paper recently published in Nature now suggests that inhibiting NRF2 can block the migration and invasion of non-small-cell lung cancer cells through the body. If anyone is going to derive benefit from NRF2, they may need to be smart about it.
The main reason NRF2, or Nuclear factor-erythroid 2-related factor 2, is so highly sought, is because it is a key transcriptional regulator of several antioxidant and anti-inflammatory enzymes. Unfortunately, as the authors above have revealed, it also moonlights as an activator of the Rho-ROCK pathway, which promotes actin filamentation and movement of cells. The researchers were able to block this activity of NRF2 by giving an inhibitor known as brusatol.
A friend recently asked me “what do we mean by civilian space development”.Such a question made me understand that, maybe, we were not clear enough about the title of our congress, the Civilian Space Development. Following such understanding, I tried to draw a better rationale, aware that what we wrote was not that self-explanatory as we thought.
It was observed that NASA is a civilian agency, not a military one. And that the commercial space effort is civilian process, not a military one.
The Man Said That His Country Has Been In Existence For 1000 Years And Was A Little Puzzled Why His Country Was Called Andorra On The Map.
It was July 1954 when a smartly dressed man arrives at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan. Much like other passengers, he makes his way to customs. But whatever happened from this point onwards have left all puzzled and concerned. When questioned by the customs officers, the mysterious passenger said he was from Taured, also referred to as Taured Mystery. The mystery man claimed that it was the third time he was visiting Japan from his country. But, to the surprise of officers, they couldn’t find any country named Taured. The primary language of the man, described as Caucasian looking with a beard, was French. However, she was purportedly speaking Japanese and many other languages as well.
Officers were perplexed because they had never heard about any such country. The passport of the man was issued by of course the Taured. The passport looked authentic but the place was not recognized.
Continue reading “Taured Mystery: The Man Who Vanished As Mysteriously As He Came” »
Summary: Better glucose uptake compensates for age-related motor deterioration and extends lifespan in fruitflies.
Source: Tokyo Metropolitan University.
Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered that fruit flies with genetic modifications to enhance glucose uptake have significantly longer lifespans.
A legally blind 78-year old man has regained his sight after being the inaugural patient to receive a promising new type of corneal implant, Israel Hayom has reported. Developed by a company called CorNeat, the KPro is the first implant that can be integrated directly into the eye wall to replace scarred or deformed corneas with no donor tissue. Immediately after the surgery, the patient was able to recognize family members and read numbers on an eye chart.
The corona is the clear layer that covers and protects the front portion of the eye. It can degenerate or scar for various reasons, including diseases like pseudophakic bullous keratopathy, kerotoconus and trauma.
These cute drones are partially made from the trashed leaves of harvested pineapples which make them lighter, faster and most importantly greener! 🍍.
Imagine going to a surgeon to have a diseased or injured organ switched out for a fully functional, laboratory-grown replacement. This remains science fiction and not reality because researchers today struggle to organize cells into the complex 3D arrangements that our bodies can master on their own.
There are two major hurdles to overcome on the road to laboratory-grown organs and tissues. The first is to use a biologically compatible 3D scaffold in which cells can grow. The second is to decorate that scaffold with biochemical messages in the correct configuration to trigger the formation of the desired organ or tissue.
In a major step toward transforming this hope into reality, researchers at the University of Washington have developed a technique to modify naturally occurring biological polymers with protein-based biochemical messages that affect cell behavior. Their approach, published the week of Jan. 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses a near-infrared laser to trigger chemical adhesion of protein messages to a scaffold made from biological polymers such as collagen, a connective tissue found throughout our bodies.
