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The Aidan Meller Galley (www.aidanmeller.com) is Oxford’s longest established specialist gallery dealing in Modern, Contemporary and Old Master works.

Today we are joined by Aidan Meller, the Gallery Director, who with 20 years’ experience in the art business, works closely with private collectors, is often consulted by those who wish to begin, or further develop their collections, and is the creator of the Aidan Meller Art Prize, a valuable resource for the development of the arts.

Aidan regularly has original works in the gallery by the likes of Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, as well as older works such as John Constable, Turner and Millais, was involved in a discovery of a collection of Pre-Raphaelite cartoons for stained glass, is working with other experts in the field of scientific procedures for the authentication of artwork, and has been interviewed on a variety of current affair topics including the exhumation of Salvador Dali.

On today’s show we are going to be focusing on a rather new artist in the Meller portfolio, and that would be Ai-Da (www.ai-darobot.com), the world’s first ultra-realistic, humanoid, artificial intelligence (AI) robot artist, who makes drawings, painting, and sculptures.

A team of scientists has detected the presence of a high-energy neutrino — a particularly elusive particle — in the wake of a star’s destruction as it is consumed by a black hole. This discovery, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, sheds new light on the origins of Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays — the highest energy particles in the Universe.

The work, which included researchers from more than two dozen institutions, including New York University and Germany’s DESY research center, focused on neutrinos — subatomic particles that are produced on Earth only in powerful accelerators.

Neutrinos — as well as the process of their creation — are hard to detect, making their discovery, along with that of Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs), noteworthy.

Muscle constitutes the largest organ in humans, accounting for 40% of body mass, and it plays an essential role in maintaining life. Muscle tissue is notable for its unique ability for spontaneous regeneration. However, in serious injuries such as those sustained in car accidents or tumor resection which results in a volumetric muscle loss (VML), the muscle’s ability to recover is greatly diminished. Currently, VML treatments comprise surgical interventions with autologous muscle flaps or grafts accompanied by physical therapy. However, surgical procedures often lead to reduced muscular function, and in some cases result in a complete graft failure. Thus, there is a demand for additional therapeutic options to improve muscle loss recovery.

A promising strategy to improve the functional capacity of the damaged muscle is to induce de novo regeneration of skeletal muscle via the integration of transplanted cells. Diverse types of cells, including satellite cells (muscle stem cells), myoblasts, and mesenchymal stem cells, have been used to treat muscle loss. However, invasive muscle biopsies, poor cell availability, and limited long-term maintenance impede clinical translation, where millions to billions of mature cells may be needed to provide therapeutic benefits.

The rover was aiming for Jezero Crater, a place on Mars that scientists think was once home to a lake that dried up 3.5 billion years ago.


NASA’s six-wheeled rover landed successfully on Mars yesterday. NPR’s Joe Palca talks about the descent and landing, and what’s next for the mission.