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“At times, it may seem as if the entire prior history of the Universe led us to this pivotal moment of realization that we are the ‘brain cells’ of a larger planetary superorganism, progressively morphing into one Global Mind.”-Alex Vikoulov.

*My magnum opus The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution (2020), where I share my deepest insights and far-reaching foresights, is now available as eBook, paperback, hardcover, audiobook on Amazon:

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The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution [Vikoulov, Alex M., Tuynman PhD, Antonin] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution.

Japanese space startup Gitai has raised a $17.1 million funding round, a Series B financing for the robotics startup. This new funding will be used for hiring, as well as funding the development and execution of an on-orbit demonstration mission for the company’s robotic technology, which will show its efficacy in performing in-space satellite servicing work. That mission is currently set to take place in 2023.

Gitai will also be staffing up in the U.S., specifically, as it seeks to expand its stateside presence in a bid to attract more business from that market.

“We are proceeding well in the Japanese market, and we’ve already contracted missions from Japanese companies, but we haven’t expanded to the U.S. market yet,” explained Gitai founder and CEO Sho Nakanose in an interview. So we would like to get missions from U.S. commercial space companies, as a subcontractor first. We’re especially interested in on-orbit servicing, and we would like to provide general-purpose robotic solutions for an orbital service provider in the U.S.”

Now, Tejada-Martinez and her colleagues have studied the evolution of 1077 tumour suppressor genes (TSGs). In all, they compared the evolution of the genes in 15 mammalian species, including seven cetacean species.

Genes regulating DNA damage, tumour spread and the immune system were positively selected among the cetaceans. The team also found that cetaceans gained and lost TSGs at a rate 2.4 times higher than in other mammals.

It’s not like we’re gonna be taking whale genes and putting them into humans and making humans cancer resistant, says Lynch. But if you can find the genes that play a role in tumour suppression in other animals, and if you could figure out what they’re doing, maybe you can make a drug that mimics that for human treatment…

Surprise in solid-state physics: The Hall effect, which normally requires magnetic fields, can also be generated in a completely different way – with extreme strength.

Electric current is deflected by a magnetic field – in conducting materials this leads to the so-called Hall effect. This effect is often used to measure magnetic fields. A surprising discovery has now been made at TU Wien, in collaboration with scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland), McMater University (Canada), and Rice University (USA): an exotic metal made of cerium, bismuth, and palladium was examined and a giant Hall effect was found to be produced by the material, in the total absence of any magnetic field. The reason for this unexpected result lies in the unusual properties of the electrons: They behave as if magnetic monopoles were present in the material. These discoveries have now been published in the scientific magazine PNAS.

A voltage perpendicular to the current.

Scientists get dramatically better resolution at X-ray free-electron lasers with a new technique.

Intense, ultrashort X-ray pulses from hard X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) can capture images of biological structures down to the atomic scale and shed light on the fastest processes in nature with a shutter speed of just one femtosecond, a millionth of a billionth of a second.

However, on these miniscule time scales, it is extremely difficult to synchronize the X-ray pulse that sparks a reaction in the sample with the follow-up pulse that observes the reaction. This problem, called timing jitter, is a major hurdle in performing these XFEL experiments with ever-better resolution.

Innovative silicon solutions provider HPQ Silicon Resources Inc. (“HPQ” or the “Company”), announced that it has received the TREKHY® system, a portable hydrogen-based mini-power generator, jointly developed by the French companies Apollon Solar SAS (“Apollon”) and Pragma Industries SAS (“Pragma”).

While continuing to work with Apollon on the development of new generations of more efficient silicon powders for hydrogen production, HPQ signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Apollon and Pragma to study the commercial potential of the TREKHY® autonomous power generator in Canada.

The TREKHY® provides energy on demand. The system uses a compact fuel cell to provide electrical power. The integrated fuel cell combines hydrogen and oxygen to provide useful electricity + H2O. Hydrogen is produced through a chemical reaction resulting from contact between water and a powder bag. Each bag delivers 30W of power for more than one hour. (Video of the system in operation). In January 2021, a Japanese distributor purchased 300 TREKHY® systems to equip the survival shelters of the Japanese Civil Security.