Page 7105
May 15, 2020
Visa Files Patent for Cryptocurrency System to Replace Cash
Posted by Quinn Sena in categories: bitcoin, computing, cryptocurrencies, finance
Bitcoin News.
Visa International has filed for a cryptocurrency system patent that is meant to replace physical currency. The system, which utilizes both central banks and commercial banks, leverages a private blockchain to improve the payment ecosystem.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published on Thursday a patent application entitled “digital fiat currency,” filed by Visa International Service Association on Nov. 8, 2019.
Continue reading “Visa Files Patent for Cryptocurrency System to Replace Cash” »
May 15, 2020
Sorrento finds a coronavirus antibody that blocks viral infection 100% in preclinical lab experiments
Posted by Jeremy Mancuso in categories: biotech/medical, innovation
Therapeutics company Sorrento has made what it believes could be a breakthrough in potential treatment of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that leads to COVID-19. The company released details of its preclinical research on Friday, announcing that it has found an antibody that provides “100% inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 virus infection of healthy cells after four days incubation.” The results are from a preclinical study that still has to undergo peer review. It was an in vitro laboratory study (meaning not in an actual human being), but it’s still a promising development as the company continues to work on production of an antibody “cocktail” that could provide protection against SARS-CoV-2 even in case of mutations in the virus.
Sorrento says it believes this antibody, which is labelled STI-1499, stood out among billions of candidates it has been screening from its extensive human antibody library for its ability to completely block the interaction of the SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein with a human cell target receptor. That means it prevents the virus from attaching to the host’s healthy cell, which is what leads to incubation and infection.
The nature of the antibody’s efficacy means that Sorrento currently believes it will be the first antibody to be included in the cocktail it is developing, which will be made up of a large number of different antibodies that show efficacy in blocking the attachment of the spike protein, in order to provide multiple avenues of protection that are designed to remain effective even if the virus mutates in transmission from person to person, or within the same individual. One of the big outstanding questions that researchers are working on answering currently is just how mutagenic SARS-CoV-2 actually is, as many coronaviruses like the common cold show a tendency to mutate pretty quickly, rendering long-lasting cures and treatments difficult to develop.
May 15, 2020
‘Hot and messy’ entanglement of 15 trillion atoms
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: computing, particle physics, quantum physics
Quantum entanglement is a process by which microscopic objects like electrons or atoms lose their individuality to become better coordinated with each other. Entanglement is at the heart of quantum technologies that promise large advances in computing, communications and sensing, for example, detecting gravitational waves.
Entangled states are famously fragile: In most cases, even a tiny disturbance will undo the entanglement. For this reason, current quantum technologies take great pains to isolate the microscopic systems they work with, and typically operate at temperatures close to absolute zero. The ICFO team, in contrast, heated a collection of atoms to 450 Kelvin in a recent experiment, millions of times hotter than most atoms used for quantum technology. Moreover, the individual atoms were anything but isolated; they collided with each other every few microseconds, and each collision set their electrons spinning in random directions.
The researchers used a laser to monitor the magnetization of this hot, chaotic gas. The magnetization is caused by the spinning electrons in the atoms, and provides a way to study the effect of the collisions and to detect entanglement. What the researchers observed was an enormous number of entangled atoms—about 100 times more than ever before observed. They also saw that the entanglement is non-local—it involves atoms that are not close to each other. Between any two entangled atoms there are thousands of other atoms, many of which are entangled with still other atoms, in a giant, hot and messy entangled state.
May 15, 2020
MIT Nanosensor Can Alert a Smartphone When Plants Are Stressed
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: chemistry, mobile phones, nanotechnology
Carbon nanotubes embedded in leaves detect chemical signals that are produced when a plant is damaged.
MIT engineers have developed a way to closely track how plants respond to stresses such as injury, infection, and light damage, using sensors made of carbon nanotubes. These sensors can be embedded in plant leaves, where they report on hydrogen peroxide signaling waves.
Plants use hydrogen peroxide to communicate within their leaves, sending out a distress signal that stimulates leaf cells to produce compounds that will help them repair damage or fend off predators such as insects. The new sensors can use these hydrogen peroxide signals to distinguish between different types of stress, as well as between different species of plants.
May 15, 2020
Vitamin B3 revitalizes energy metabolism in muscle disease
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, life extension
An international team of scientists, led by University of Helsinki reported that vitamin B3, niacin, has therapeutic effects in progressive muscle disease. Niacin delayed disease progression in patients with mitochondrial myopathy, a progressive disease with no previous curative treatments.
Vitamin B3 forms have recently emerged as potent boosters of energy metabolism in rodents. These vitamins are precursors for NAD+, a molecular switch of metabolism between fasting and growth modes.
As fasting has been shown promote health and longevity in for example mice, a variety of “NAD boosters” are being developed. However, whether actual NAD+ deficiency exists in human disease, and whether NAD+ boosters could have curative effects in patients with degenerative diseases, has remained elusive.
May 15, 2020
Lab-Grown Mini Kidneys Are Bringing Science Closer to Custom Organs
Posted by Lola Heavey in categories: biotech/medical, science
Science’s dream of creating perfect custom organs on demand as soon as a patient needs one is still a long way off. But tiny versions are already serving as useful research tools and stepping stones toward full-fledged replacements.
The Lowdown
Continue reading “Lab-Grown Mini Kidneys Are Bringing Science Closer to Custom Organs” »
May 15, 2020
California biopharmaceutical company claims coronavirus antibody breakthrough
Posted by Tracy R. Atkins in categories: biotech/medical, innovation
Get all the latest news on coronavirus and more delivered daily to your inbox. Sign up here.
EXCLUSIVE — A California-based biopharmaceutical company claims to have discovered an antibody that could shield the human body from the coronavirus and flush it out of a person’s system within four days, Fox News has exclusively learned.
Later Friday, Sorrento Therapeutics will announce their discovery of the STI-1499 antibody, which the San Diego company said can provide “100% inhibition” of COVID-19, adding that a treatment could be available months before a vaccine hits the market.
May 15, 2020
T cells found in COVID-19 patients ‘bode well’ for long-term immunity
Posted by Quinn Sena in category: biotech/medical
New findings suggest past infections may offer some protection against the novel coronavirus.
May 15, 2020
New Deep Learning Research Breaks Records In Image Recognition Ability Of Self-Driving Cars
Posted by Roderick Reilly in categories: augmented reality, biotech/medical, robotics/AI
People, bicycles, cars or road, sky, grass: Which pixels of an image represent distinct foreground persons or objects in front of a self-driving car, and which pixels represent background classes?
This task, known as panoptic segmentation, is a fundamental problem that has applications in numerous fields such as self-driving cars, robotics, augmented reality and even in biomedical image analysis.
At the Department of Computer Science at the University of Freiburg Dr. Abhinav Valada, Assistant Professor for Robot Learning and member of BrainLinks-BrainTools focuses on this research question. Valada and his team have developed the state-of-the-art “EfficientPS” artificial intelligence (AI) model that enables coherent recognition of visual scenes more quickly and effectively.