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Sep 19, 2019

Scientists may have found the cure for the common cold

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Here’s some good news as we head into cold and flu season: Scientists may have found the cure for the common cold.

“Our grandmas have always been asking us, ‘If you’re so smart, why haven’t you come up with a cure for the common cold?” one of the study’s co-authors, Jan Carette, PhD, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine, said in a statement.

No offense to Grandma, but there’s a reason finding a cure for the common cold, which affects millions of Americans each year, has been so elusive. There isn’t just one virus that’s behind the infection. Many different respiratory viruses can bring on the common cold, but most are caused by rhinovirus infections. There are approximately 160 known types of rhinovirus, which, as Stanford noted in a news release, explains why getting a cold doesn’t make you immune to picking up another one a month later.

Sep 19, 2019

Two-drug combo more effective at lowering blood sugar in diabetes patients

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Sept. 18 (UPI) — When it comes to controlling early symptoms of type 2 diabetes, two drugs are better than one, a new study says.

Prescribing metformin and vildagliptin to people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes reduced their long-term blood sugar levels more than single-drug therapy, according to findings published Wednesday in The Lancet. The patients also had lower rates of treatment failure than those who only used Metformin, the current first-line drug used by new type 2 diabetics.

“The findings of VERIFY support and emphasize the importance of achieving and maintaining early glycaemic control,” the authors wrote.

Sep 19, 2019

Rise of the new age billionaires; rise of the investments in longevity!

Posted by in category: life extension

If there’s anything that’s captivated mankind’s imagination more than new ways to kill one another, it’s how to beat the grim reaper. Just kidding, how to kill people still generates the most funding of all, but this article isn’t about that, it’s about immortality and the new age billionaires who are funding it.

Sep 19, 2019

The Future Looks Like Salt Reactors

Posted by in categories: futurism, nuclear energy

They just might change how you see nuclear energy.

Sep 19, 2019

Automation: Chemistry shoots for the Moon

Posted by in categories: chemistry, robotics/AI, space

A new class of chemical instrumentation seeks to alleviate the tedium and complexity of organic syntheses.

Sep 19, 2019

Space Travel

Posted by in categories: innovation, space

Summary Students are introduced to the historical motivation for space exploration. They learn about the International Space Station as an example of space travel innovation and are introduced to new and futuristic ideas that space engineers are currently working on to propel space research far into the future!

Sep 19, 2019

A biologist believes that trees speak a language we can learn

Posted by in category: futurism

Humans have long recognized the song of trees.

Sep 19, 2019

How to Feed a Mars Colony of 1 Million People

Posted by in categories: food, space travel, sustainability

What might it take to feed a million people on Mars? Lab-grown meat, tunnel-grown crops and cricket farms, a new study finds.

When it comes to plans for crewed missions to Mars, NASA typically assumes round trips with only brief stopovers on the Red Planet. However, commercial space companies have emerged with the goal of colonizing outer space, with SpaceX specifically aiming to develop a civilization on Mars.

Sep 19, 2019

A Huge Experiment Has ‘Weighed’ the Tiny Neutrino, a Particle That Passes Right Through Matter

Posted by in categories: cosmology, evolution, particle physics

An experiment nearly two decades in the making has finally unveiled its measurements of the mass of the universe’s most abundant matter particle: the neutrino.

The neutrino could be the weirdest subatomic particle; though abundant, it requires some of the most sensitive detectors to observe. Scientists have been working for decades to figure out whether neutrinos have mass and if so, what that mass is. The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment in Germany has now revealed its first result constraining the maximum limit of that mass. The work has implications for our understanding of the entire cosmos, since these particles formed shortly after the Big Bang and helped shape the way structure formed in the early universe.

“You don’t get a lot of chances to measure a cosmological parameter that shaped the evolution of the universe in the laboratory,” Diana Parno, an assistant research professor at Carnegie Mellon University who works on the experiment, told Gizmodo.

Sep 19, 2019

Elon Musk shows off Starship prototype progress

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, robotics/AI, space travel

Billionaire company founder Elon Musk tweeted a pair of photos this week apparently showing progress on one of the Starship prototypes SpaceX is currently developing.

SpaceX has said it plans to use the rockets to shuttle passengers and cargo across the planet or beyond it.

“Droid Junkyard, Tatooine,” Musk wrote in the first tweet, making a joking “Star Wars” reference.