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Aug 20, 2020

SpaceX Starship’s Raptor engine just reached all-new power levels

Posted by in category: space travel

The Raptor engine, designed to power the ship that will send humans to Mars and beyond, has been racking up impressive test results.

Aug 20, 2020

Watch a tiny robot powered by alcohol

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Beetle-size machine can climb, crawl, and carry heavy objects—all without batteries.

Aug 20, 2020

Supernova could explain extinctions at the end of the Devonian period

Posted by in categories: cosmology, existential risks

Aug. 18 (UPI) — New research suggests harmful cosmic rays from a nearby supernova might have caused the extinction events that form the boundary between the Devonian-Carboniferous periods.

Around 360 million years ago, a lengthy period of biodiversity declines culminated in a series of extinction events that saw 19 percent of all families and 50 percent of all genera disappear.

Scientists have previously unearthed a diversity of Late Devonian plant spores that show evidence of being burnt by ultraviolet light, signs of a prolonged ozone-depletion event.

Aug 20, 2020

SpaceX is now a $46 billion ‘unicorn’

Posted by in categories: business, Elon Musk, space travel

SpaceX, the Elon Musk-led company that recently became the first business in history to send astronauts into Earth’s orbit, is parlaying its successes into big money.

Aug 20, 2020

New P2P botnet infects SSH servers all over the world

Posted by in category: cybercrime/malcode

Botnet is hard to detect and with no centralized control server, harder to take down.

Aug 20, 2020

In Quantum Physics, Even Humans Act As Waves

Posted by in category: quantum physics

Quantum physics just keeps getting weirder, even as it gets more fascinating.

Aug 20, 2020

These drugs carry risks and may not help, but many dementia patients get them anyway

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, government

Nearly three-quarters of older adults with dementia have filled prescriptions for medicines that act on their brain and nervous system, but aren’t designed for dementia, a new study shows.

That’s despite the special risks that such drugs carry for older adults—and the lack of evidence that they actually ease the dementia-related behavior problems that often prompt a doctor’s prescription in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. In fact, some of the drugs have been linked to worse cognitive symptoms in old adults.

The study looks at several classes of psychoactive drugs, including ones that the federal government has actively encouraged nursing homes to limit using in residents with dementia. The new study suggests a need to reduce prescribing to people living at home with dementia, too.

Aug 20, 2020

Your Brain, With a USB Port in It: Musk’s Neuralink Update Likely to…

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, neuroscience

A leading expert in socially responsible technology innovation Dr Andrew Maynard told us “I think Musk’s overreaching and he probably knows it.

”That said, Elon Musk has got a track record of doing things that other people said can’t be done. So I think that this is going to be an interesting space because of that… [But] I think we’re a long way from understanding how this works.

”Even with Elon Musk’s system you have around ten thousand electrodes. There are billions of neurons in your brain. It’s a needle in a haystack”.

Aug 20, 2020

Philosophers Win Artificial Intelligence Award

Posted by in categories: innovation, robotics/AI

The Tetrad Automated Causal Discovery Platform, a software and text project developed by Peter Spirtes, Clark Glymour, Richard Scheines and Joe Ramsey of Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Philosophy, earned the “Leader” Award at the 2020 World Artificial Intelligence Conference this past July.

Continue reading “Philosophers Win Artificial Intelligence Award” »

Aug 19, 2020

Scientists Use Gene-Hacking to Seemingly Cure Herpes in Mice

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics

“I HOPE THIS STUDY CHANGES THE DIALOG AROUND HERPES RESEARCH AND OPENS UP THE IDEA THAT WE CAN START THINKING ABOUT CURE, RATHER THAN JUST CONTROL OF THE VIRUS.”


In a landmark study, researchers have successfully used gene editing to remove the oral herpes virus (HSV-1) in mice.

While previous research has mostly focused on treating and suppressing the sometimes painful symptoms of herpes, this study took a more radical approach by attempting to eliminate the virus altogether.

Continue reading “Scientists Use Gene-Hacking to Seemingly Cure Herpes in Mice” »