Lifeboat Foundation

We’re going back to Mars, and we’d like you to be our virtual guest on the trip. On July 30, NASA will launch the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover on a seven-month journey to the Red Planet. After landing in Jezero Crater, the robotic astrobiologist and scientist will search for signs that microbes might have lived on Mars long ago, collect soil samples to be returned to Earth on a future mission and pave the way for human exploration beyond the Moon. Perseverance will be accompanied by a helicopter called Ingenuity, the first attempt at powered flight on another world.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic and in the interest of health and safety, NASA can’t invite you to Florida to watch the launch personally. However, there are many ways you can participate virtually:

Magnetic waves into matter :3.

PDF | The generalized Breit-Wheeler process, i.e., the emission of e+e− pairs off a probe photon propagating through a polarized short-pulsed… | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate.

Science Fiction explores themes and warns about scenarios where sentient Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes dangerous and harms, enslaves, or annihilates Humanity. Variations of these ideas occur across popular drama.

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During collective cell migration, directional information is transmitted from a leading edge to the follower cells as a form of ERK activation waves. Hino et al. demonstrate that a mechanochemical feedback loop coupling cell deformation and ERK activation enables sustained propagation of the directional information over a tissue-scale expanse.

In mammals, the acquisition of the germline from the soma provides the germline with an essential challenge, the necessity to erase and reset genomic methylation¹. In the male germline, RNA-directed DNA methylation silences young active transposable elements (TEs)^2–4. The PIWI protein MIWI2 (PIWIL4) and its associated PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) instruct TE DNA methylation^3,5. piRNAs are proposed to tether MIWI2 to nascent TE transcripts; however, the mechanism by which MIWI2 directs de novo TE methylation is poorly understood but central to the immortality of the germline. Here we define the interactome of MIWI2 in foetal gonocytes that are undergoing de novo genome methylation and identify a novel MIWI2-associated factor, SPOCD1, that is essential for young TE methylation and silencing. The loss of Spocd1 in mice results in male-specific infertility but impacts neither piRNA biogenesis nor localization of MIWI2 to the nucleus. SPOCD1 is a nuclear protein and its expression is restricted to the period of de novo genome methylation. We found SPOCD1 co-purified in vivo with DNMT3L and DNMT3A, components of the de novo methylation machinery as well as constituents of the NURD and BAF chromatin remodelling complexes. We propose a model whereby tethering of MIWI2 to a nascent TE transcript recruits repressive chromatin remodelling activities and the de novo methylation apparatus through SPOCD1. In summary, we have identified a novel and essential executor of mammalian piRNA-directed DNA methylation.

An array of ring lasers provides the first continuous measurement of Earth’s motion from a single location.

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Objective To determine whether training with a brain–computer interface (BCI) to control an image of a phantom hand, which moves based on cortical currents estimated from magnetoencephalographic signals, reduces phantom limb pain.

Methods Twelve patients with chronic phantom limb pain of the upper limb due to amputation or brachial plexus root avulsion participated in a randomized single-blinded crossover trial. Patients were trained to move the virtual hand image controlled by the BCI with a real decoder, which was constructed to classify intact hand movements from motor cortical currents, by moving their phantom hands for 3 days (“real training”). Pain was evaluated using a visual analogue scale (VAS) before and after training, and at follow-up for an additional 16 days. As a control, patients engaged in the training with the same hand image controlled by randomly changing values (“random training”). The 2 trainings were randomly assigned to the patients. This trial is registered at UMIN-CTR (UMIN000013608).

Results VAS at day 4 was significantly reduced from the baseline after real training (mean [SD], 45.3 [24.2]–30.9 [20.6], 1/100 mm; p = 0.009 < 0.025), but not after random training (p = 0.047 0.025). Compared to VAS at day 1, VAS at days 4 and 8 was significantly reduced by 32% and 36%, respectively, after real training and was significantly lower than VAS after random training (p < 0.01).

The $5 billion XpressWest project will connect Southern California to Las Vegas with electric trains traveling up to 200 miles an hour.