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Aug 6, 2019

Astronomers Just Found an Absolutely Gargantuan Black Hole The Mass of 40 Billion Suns

Posted by in category: cosmology

Black holes can get pretty big, but there’s a special class that is the biggest of the big, absolute yawning monster black holes. And astronomers seem to have found an absolute specimen, clocking in at 40 billion times the mass of the Sun.

It’s at the centre of a galaxy called Holmberg 15A, a supergiant elliptical galaxy around 700 million light-years away, which in turn sits at the centre of the Abell 85 galaxy cluster.

The object is one of the biggest black holes ever found, and the biggest found by tracking the movement of the stars around it.

Aug 6, 2019

Scientists create blinking human eye replica on a chip

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, biotech/medical

An eye for a 3D-printed eye.

Aug 6, 2019

Scientists can now manipulate brain cells using smartphone

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, mobile phones, neuroscience

A soft neural implant that can be controlled by a smartphone is capable of drug delivery and optogenetics. The technology could speed up efforts to uncover the causes of neurological and psychological disorders.

Aug 6, 2019

CRISPR Gene Editing Is Being Tested in Human Patients. Here’s What You Need to Know

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

The trial is just one of a few underway to test the powerful CRISPR technology around the world. One of the most promising, for example, is studying whether gene editing can treat, and effectively cure, blood disorders such as beta thalassemia and sickle cell anemia.

In beta thalassemia, the hemoglobin part of red blood cells, which is supposed to pick up oxygen from the lungs and distribute it to the cells in the rest of the body, doesn’t work properly. Patients need to be transfused with donors blood regularly, and even with these transfusions, complications can occur if the dose isn’t right and iron levels in the blood cells spike, which can lead to organ damage and even death. In sickle cell disease, a mutation in the gene that makes hemoglobin causes the red blood cells to collapse into a sickle shape, which makes it more difficult for the cells to flow smoothly through the body’s arteries and veins. Blockages caused by the misshapen blood cells can lead to severe pain and strokes.

The biotech company CRISPR Therapeutics, founded by one of the technology’s co-developers, has engineered a solution to treat both conditions that relies on genetic modifications connected to the production of fetal hemoglobin. Normally fetal hemoglobin, which provides the developing fetus with oxygen via the blood while in utero, is shut off about six months after birth, and genes for adult hemoglobin are turned on. While it’s not clear why adult hemoglobin replaces the fetal version, researchers say that they have not seen any significant differences between the two types when it comes to the ability to transport oxygen to the body’s cells. However, since the genes for adult hemoglobin don’t produce healthy red blood cells in people with beta thalassemia and sickle cell disease, one treatment strategy is to introduce genetic changes that turn on fetal hemoglobin again.

Aug 6, 2019

Watch Live Tuesday: 2 Rocket Launches and a Space Station Cargo Ship’s Departure

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, satellites

Today (Aug. 6) is going to be a big day in space!

After a Cygnus cargo spacecraft departs the International Space Station this afternoon, SpaceX and Arianespace will be launching a total of three new communications satellites into orbit. You can watch all three events live here at Space.com.

First, the Cygnus cargo ship will undock from the space station at 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT). NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch will use the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to release the vessel into the vacuum of space. NASA TV will provide live coverage of the send-off beginning 15 minutes prior to its departure.

Aug 6, 2019

The evolution of Emotet: How to protect your network

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, evolution, finance

With over 350,000 new malware samples emerging every day, it’s difficult for any one strain of malware to make a name for itself. Any single malware sample whose name you know — be it Mirai, WannaCry, or NotPetya — speaks to a trail of devastation.

In 2019, people are also hearing another name: Emotet.

But Emotet has been around in one form or another since 2014, and its first major resurgence was in 2017. In the beginning, Emotet was just one trojan among many — a particularly run-of-the-mill banking trojan that did some damage before being researched, understood, and dismissed in a flurry of signature updates.

Aug 6, 2019

Where Death Ends and Cyborgs Begin, With Futurist Zoltan Istvan

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, education, finance, life extension, singularity, transhumanism

I’m excited to share my new 1 hour interview at Singularity University radio with Steven Parton. Also, check out Singularity Hub and the write-up they did of the interview. We talk all things transhumanism, longevity, Cyborgs, and the future:


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Aug 6, 2019

Reversing Age-Related Vision Loss Using Cellular Reprogramming

Posted by in categories: genetics, life extension

Today, we want to draw attention to a new study that shows how partial cellular reprogramming was able to reverse cellular aging and address age- and injury-induced blindness in mice.

Epigenetic alterations

One of the proposed reasons we age is the changes to gene expression that our cells experience as we get older; these are known as epigenetic alterations. These alterations cause harmful changes to cellular function and gradually shift our cells from a youthful to aged state.

Aug 6, 2019

Goldman Sachs is spending $100 million to shave milliseconds off stock trades

Posted by in category: finance

Goldman Sachs is taking aim at the world’s biggest quant hedge funds.

The investment bank recently approved a three-year plan to spend more than $100 million to overhaul its stock trading platform, according to Mike Blum, a Goldman partner and chief technology officer of electronic trading.

The project, named Atlas after the Greek God, is meant to accelerate the shift Goldman has been making since realizing in 2014 it was falling behind in Wall Street’s equities technological arms race. Huge quant funds like Renaissance Technologies and Two Sigma are among the most demanding of clients from a technology perspective, and competitors including Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan have been jockeying to serve these money managers.

Aug 5, 2019

A Multimillionaire Surveillance Dealer Steps Out Of The Shadows… And His $9 Million WhatsApp Hacking Van

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, mobile phones, surveillance

He can hack your WhatsApp, find out where you are in 15 minutes and monitor your iPhone. But Tal Dilian says he’s one of the good guys. It’s badly-behaved governments who should be in trouble, not the $12 billion industry he’s come to represent.