IonQ and DOE collaborate on quantum-secure communications via satellites, expanding space capabilities. Partnership includes quantum sensing, navigation, and computing applications in orbit.
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‘We must replace this capability now’: New NOAA satellite to replace aging space weather sentinels launches Sept. 23
After decades of relying on aging satellites, NOAA is launching a purpose-built eye on the sun.
The Muscle-Brain Axis and Neurodegenerative Diseases: The Key Role of Mitochondria in Exercise-Induced Neuroprotection
Regular exercise is associated with pronounced health benefits. The molecular processes involved in physiological adaptations to exercise are best understood in skeletal muscle. Enhanced mitochondrial functions in muscle are central to exercise-induced adaptations. However, regular exercise also benefits the brain and is a major protective factor against neurodegenerative diseases, such as the most common age-related form of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or the most common neurodegenerative motor disorder, Parkinson’s disease. While there is evidence that exercise induces signalling from skeletal muscle to the brain, the mechanistic understanding of the crosstalk along the muscle–brain axis is incompletely understood. Mitochondria in both organs, however, seem to be central players.
Scientists Train AI to Forecast Over 1,000 Diseases, Years in Advance
Scientists said Wednesday that they had created an AI model able to predict medical diagnoses years in advance, building on the same technology behind consumer chatbots like ChatGPT.
Based on a patient’s case history, the Delphi-2M AI “predicts the rates of more than 1,000 diseases” years into the future, the team from British, Danish, German and Swiss institutions wrote in a paper published in the journal Nature.
Researchers trained the model on data from Britain’s UK Biobank – a large-scale biomedical research database with details on about half a million participants.
Rapamycin linked to DNA damage resilience in aging human immune cells
University of Oxford-led research finds low-dose rapamycin functions as a genomic protector in aging human immune cells, lowering DNA damage.
The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a central signaling pathway that regulates and coordinates cell growth, metabolism, and survival in response to environmental cues. It helps cells integrate signals from growth factors, nutrients, and stress to control whether they are in an anabolic (building up) or catabolic (breaking down) state.
Aging immune systems accumulate DNA damage linked to immunosenescence. Rapamycin is a drug that inhibits the mTOR pathway. Originally developed for organ transplantation to prevent immune rejection, previous research has found that, at non-immunosuppressive doses, rapamycin can mitigate cellular senescence.
TRAPPIST-1e observations narrow down possibilities for atmosphere and surface water on elusive exoplanet
University of Bristol astrophysicists are helping shed new light on an Earth-sized exoplanet 40 light years away where liquid water in the form of a global ocean or icy expanse might exist on its surface. That would only be possible if an atmosphere is present—a big mystery that the scientists are attempting to unravel and now even closer to solving using the largest telescope in space.
Deploying NASA’s JWST, the researchers have reached these discoveries as part of a major international project which is probing the atmosphere and surface of TRAPPIST-1e, also more simply known as planet e in the system, orbiting within the habitable zone of red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1.
Exoplanets are highly varied planets which orbit stars outside the solar system. Planet e is of particular interest because the presence of liquid water—not too hot or cold—is theoretically viable, but only if the planet has an atmosphere.