How would the ability to genetically customize children change society? Sci-fi author Eugene Clark explores the future on our horizon in Volume I of the “Genetic Pressure” series.
Here’s a riddle: What do the Moon, nuclear weapons, clean energy of the future, terrorism, and lung disease all have in common?
The answer is helium-3, a gas that’s extremely rare on Earth but 100 million times more abundant on the Moon.
The capability to show anatomic details of the lungs and airways, and the ability to display functional imaging as a patient breathes, makes helium-3 MRI far better than the standard method of testing lung function. Called spirometry, this method tells physicians how the lungs function overall, but does not home in on particular areas that may be causing a problem. Plus, spirometry requires patients to follow instructions and hold their breath, so it is not great for testing young children with pulmonary disease.
Over the past several years, researchers have been developing MRI for lung testing using other hyperpolarized gases. The main alternative to helium-3 is xenon-129. Over the years, researchers have learned to overcome certain disadvantages of the latter, such as its potential to put patients to sleep. Since helium-3 provides the strongest signal, though, it is still the best gas for MRI studies in many lung conditions.
Major Space Missions Planned in 2021
Posted in space
Several nations are sending spacecraft to explore Mars this year. Other projects include efforts to test new space vehicles, explore asteroids and put the Webb Space Telescope into orbit.
Better Zoom calls, simpler email attachments, smart iPhone cases and other patents from Big Tech.
A combination of satellite images and deep learning computer algorithms can spot elephants from space as well as the human eye.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully completed a mission to deploy 143 spacecraft and satellites into orbit on Sunday, after which the rocket returned safely to a sea-based landing pad.
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket took flight on its ‘Transporter-1′ mission after weather considerations caused the planned launch on Saturday to be scrapped.
Falcon 9 carried 133 commercial and government spacecraft, and 10 ‘Starlink’ satellites — the most spacecraft ever deployed on a single mission, according to SpaceX.
Sunday’s mission was the fifth successful launch and landing for Falcon 9, the company said.
A new world record has been set for the number of satellites sent to space on a single rocket. The 143 payloads, of all shapes and sizes, rode to orbit on a SpaceX Falcon rocket that launched out of Florida.
Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX company delivers 143 satellites to orbit on a single rocket flight.
We have the core tech to enable radically more ethical and beneficial social media networks. Here’s what we’ll need.
The H.266/VVC codec will deliver the same visual quality from SD right up to 8K, but with only 50 percent of the data requirements, making it an instant hit with video streaming services.
Very interesting.
Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity profoundly changed our thinking about fundamental concepts in physics, such as space and time. But it also left us with some deep mysteries. One was black holes, which were only unequivocally detected over the past few years. Another was “wormholes” – bridges connecting different points in spacetime, in theory providing shortcuts for space travellers.
Wormholes are still in the realm of the imagination. But some scientists think we will soon be able to find them, too. Over the past few months, several new studies have suggested intriguing ways forward.