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Aging Scrambles Brain Proteins — And Diet Could Partly Reverse It

As we get older, our brains start to change in ways that make them increasingly vulnerable to disease – and a detailed new study of these changes points to a way some of this wear and tear might be prevented or reversed.

Researchers from the Leibniz Institute on Aging – Fritz Lipmann Institute in Germany used mass spectrometry to analyze the balance of brain proteins in both young and old mice, finding differences in a process called ubiquitylation as the animals aged.

Ubiquitylation adds chemical tags to proteins, telling the brain which of these busy molecules are past their peak and should be recycled. In older mouse brains, the ubiquitylation tags really start to pile up on certain proteins.

Biology Breakthrough: Scientists Discover First New Plant Tissue in 160 Years — and It Supercharges Crop Yields

A research group led by Dr. Ryushiro Kasahara has discovered a new plant tissue essential for seed formation, which will be named in his honor. A research team at Nagoya University in Japan has identified a previously unknown plant tissue that plays a crucial role in forming seeds. This marks the

Why Space?: The Purpose of People

Life Boaters! I could use a great favour from you! Please buy a copy of my new book “Why Space? The Purpose of People” ASAP and leave me a good review (if you like it — if not — send me a sternly worded letter!) If you love it, buy a bunch and give them to every geek and nerd on your list.

I’m getting great reviews! Rod Roddenberry said I’m channeling the great captains of Star Trek, Dr. Greg Autry (future NASA CFO) called me the “godfather of commercial space.” Of course, you can bet those went on the cover — and now I have to buy them dinners for the rest of my life, but not too bad!

Look, there’s a lot of misinformation out there about the Real Space Revolution. I straighten some of that out — from the inside.

But my primary goal is to give those in the “cause” language to explain why they are in this, and perhaps even to supply those who will go out there to open the High Frontier with the words they need to stay strong as they do.

In the book, I chronicle how people like some of you gave me Permission to Dream about doing what I do now. Something for which I will be forever grateful.

Help me — help you — help us. Buy the book! Read the book! Share the book!

(The audio version comes out in a week or so)

Continue reading “Why Space?: The Purpose of People” | >

A nonsurgical brain implant enabled through a cell–electronics hybrid for focal neuromodulation

MIT researchers have taken a major step toward making this scenario a reality. They developed microscopic, wireless bioelectronics that could travel through the body’s circulatory system and autonomously self-implant in a target region of the brain, where they would provide focused treatment.

In a study on mice, the researchers show that after injection, these miniscule implants can identify and travel to a specific brain region without the need for human guidance. Once there, they can be wirelessly powered to provide electrical stimulation to the precise area. Such stimulation, known as neuromodulation, has shown promise as a way to treat brain tumors and diseases like Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.

Moreover, because the electronic devices are integrated with living, biological cells before being injected, they are not attacked by the body’s immune system and can cross the blood-brain barrier while leaving it intact. This maintains the barrier’s crucial protection of the brain.

A nonsurgical brain implant enabled through a cell–electronics hybrid for focal neuromodulation.

Photovoltaic devices attached to immune cells travel through the blood to inflamed brain regions.

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Laude × CSGE: Bill Joy — 50 Years of Advancements: Computing and Technology 1975–2025 (and beyond)

From the rise of numerical and symbolic computing to the future of AI, this talk traces five decades of breakthroughs and the challenges ahead.

Bill is the author of Berkeley UNIX, cofounder of Sun Microsystems, author of “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” (Wired 2000), ex-cleantech VC at Kleiner Perkins, investor in and unpaid advisor to Nodra. AI.

Talk Details.
50 Years of Advancements: Computing and Technology 1975–2025 (and beyond)

I came to UC Berkeley CS in 1975 as a graduate student expecting to do computer theory— Berkeley CS didn’t have a proper departmental computer, and I was tired of coding, having written a lot of numerical code for early supercomputers.

But it’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future. Berkeley soon had a Vax superminicomputer, I installed a port of UNIX and was upgrading the operating system, and the Internet and Microprocessor boom beckoned.

Continue reading “Laude × CSGE: Bill Joy — 50 Years of Advancements: Computing and Technology 1975–2025 (and beyond)” | >

South Carolina’s measles outbreak shows chilling effect of vaccine misinformation

But on a Monday afternoon in Boiling Springs, only one person showed up.

“It’s progress. That progress is slow,” Linda Bell, the state epidemiologist with the Department of Public Health, said during a recent press briefing. “We had hoped to see a more robust uptake than that in our mobile health units.”

As South Carolina tries to contain its measles outbreak, public health officials across the nation are concerned that the highly contagious virus is making a major comeback. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tallied more than 1,700 measles cases and 45 outbreaks in 2025. The largest started in Texas, where hundreds of people were infected and two children died.

Robots combine AI learning and control theory to perform advanced movements

When it comes to training robots to perform agile, single-task motor skills, such as handstands or backflips, artificial intelligence methods can be very useful. But if you want to train your robot to perform multiple tasks—say, performing a backward flip into a handstand—things get a little more complicated.

“We often want to train our robots to learn new skills by compounding existing skills with one another,” said Ian Abraham, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “Unfortunately, AI models trained to allow robots to perform complex skills across many tasks tend to have worse performance than training on an individual task.”

To solve for that, Abraham’s lab is using techniques from optimal control—that is, taking a mathematical approach to help robots perform movements in the most efficient and optimal way possible. In particular, they’re employing hybrid control theory, which involves deciding when an autonomous system should switch between control modes to solve a task. The research is published on the arXiv preprint server.

Artificial membranes mimic life-like dynamics through catalytic chemical reactions

Using catalytic chemistry, researchers at Institute of Science Tokyo have achieved dynamic control of artificial membranes, enabling life-like membrane behavior. The work is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

By employing an artificial metalloenzyme that performs a ring-closing metathesis reaction, the team induced the disappearance of phase-separated domains as well as membrane division in artificial membranes, imitating the dynamic behavior of natural biological membranes. This transformative research marks a milestone in synthetic cell technologies, paving the way for innovative therapeutic breakthroughs.

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