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In a new study, scientists from Arizona State University and their collaborators studied genetic changes in a naturally isolated population of Daphnia pulex, a species of water flea. This tiny crustacean, nearly invisible to the naked eye, plays a vital role in freshwater ecosystems and provides a valuable insight into natural selection and evolution.

Their findings, recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), rely on a decade of research. Using advanced genomic techniques, the research team analyzed DNA samples from nearly 1,000 Daphnia.

They discovered that the strength of natural selection on individual genes varies significantly from year to year, maintaining variation and potentially enhancing the ability to adapt to future changing environmental conditions by providing raw material for natural selection to act on.

In context: The U.S. is eager to establish domestic foundry capabilities to produce AI chips, and Intel is working hard to position itself to be the provider. It was only natural, then, for CEO Pat Gelsinger to ask U.S. Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo to put in a good word on Intel’s behalf with America’s chip designers including the likes of Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, and Google.

Ever since Intel announced plans to open up its manufacturing capabilities beyond in-house CPUs, the company has targeted TSMC as its top competitor in the global foundry market. Nonetheless, it’s been a source of frustration that fellow U.S. companies rely so heavily on TSMC for most of their semiconductor manufacturing needs.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has turned to US Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo for help, and according to sources that spoke to CNBC, she is trying to deliver.

Thanks to observations by the Solar Occultation in the Infrared (SOIR) instrument on the Venus Express space probe of the European Space Agency (ESA), researchers have discovered an unexpected increase in the abundances of two water molecule variants — H2O and HDO — and their ratio HDO/H2O in Venus’ mesosphere. This phenomenon challenges our understanding of Venus’ water history and the potential that it was once habitable in the past.

Currently, Venus is a dry, hostile planet. Venus has pressures nearly 100 times higher than Earth and temperatures around 460°C. Its atmosphere, covered by thick clouds of sulphuric acid and water droplets, is extremely dry.

Most water is found below and within these cloud layers. However, Venus may have once supported just as much water as Earth.

Study discovers an electric current in the gut that attracts pathogens like Salmonella. Researchers have discovered a novel bioelectrical mechanism that pathogens like Salmonella use to find entry points in the gut lining that would allow pathogens to pass and cause infection.

How do bad bacteria find entry points in the body to cause infection?

This question is fundamental for infectious disease experts and people who study bacteria. Harmful pathogens, like Salmonella, find their way through a complex gut system where they are vastly outnumbered by good microbes and immune cells. Still, the pathogens navigate to find vulnerable entry points in the gut that would allow them to invade and infect the body.

Outperforms dermatologists in detecting melanoma, offering better diagnosis for challenging cases and improving patient care. 🩺🖥️


Heinlein, Maron, Hekler et al. evaluate an AI algorithm for detecting melanoma and compare its performance to that of dermatologist on a prospectively collected, external, heterogeneous dataset. The AI exhibits a significant performance advantage, especially in diagnosing challenging cases.

We break down everything we know about 1X Technologies’ new humanoid robot designed for homes, the Neo Beta.

Read the CNET Article:
Humanoid Robots Head Home: Meet NEO Beta https://cnet.us/8o7

0:00 Introduction.
0:18 Video Teaser.
0:42 What Makes 1X Different.
1:22 Specs.
1:45 A Robot in Clothing?
2:05 Capabilities.
2:15 1X’s Previous Robot Eve.
2:49 What’s Next?
3:05 Backed by OpenAI

Never miss a deal again! See CNET’s browser extension 👉 https://bit.ly/3lO7sOU

Using a novel laser method, scientists mimicked the extreme environments of stars and planets, enhancing our understanding of astrophysical phenomena and supporting nuclear fusion research.

Extreme conditions prevail inside stars and planets. The pressure reaches millions of bars, and it can be several million degrees hot. Sophisticated methods make it possible to create such states of matter in the laboratory – albeit only for the blink of an eye and in a tiny volume. So far, this has required the world’s most powerful lasers, such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California. But there are only a few of these light giants, and the opportunities for experiments are correspondingly rare.

A research team led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), together with colleagues from the European XFEL, has now succeeded in creating and observing extreme conditions with a much smaller laser. At the heart of the new technology is a copper wire, finer than a human hair, as the group reports in the journal Nature Communications.