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Jul 21, 2020

Unparalleled inventory of the human gut ecosystem

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

An international team of scientists has collated all known bacterial genomes from the human gut microbiome into a single large database, allowing researchers to explore the links between bacterial genes and proteins, and their effects on human health.

This project was led by EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and included collaborators from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Trento, the Gladstone Institutes, and the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute. Their work has been published in Nature Biotechnology.

Jul 21, 2020

Google’s new tool lets you translate Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics

Posted by in category: futurism

DUBAI: If you’ve ever wondered what messages the Ancient Egyptians were trying to convey with their hieroglyphics, Google’s new tool might just be able to help. In celebration of the anniversary of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, Google Arts and Culture has released a new AI-powered tool, Fabricius, that allows you to decode and translate the ancient symbols and characters into both Arabic and English. The aim is to raise awareness and preserve the history and traditions of Ancient Egyptian civilization.

Jul 21, 2020

Let Arab space programmes create more space for Arab scientists and students

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, physics, space

But now, all the Arab world’s universities must be ready to run with the baton that Hope is handing to them. Currently, the overwhelming majority of the young people who watched the launch on their smartphones and decided on a career in space science will have to study abroad, because the Arab world largely lacks the capacity to educate them in astrophysics or space science.


The United Arab Emirates’ Mars probe is a stunning and historic effort, but it needs to be transformational, too.

Jul 21, 2020

Guest: Author Osinakachi Akuma Kalu, Nigeria

Posted by in category: futurism

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Jul 20, 2020

AstraZeneca slides even as the company’s coronavirus vaccine trial results show ‘promise’

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics

AstraZeneca shares fell on Monday even after the publication of positive results from a trial of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine developed in partnership with Oxford University.

The study, published in The Lancet on Monday, said healthy volunteers who received the experimental vaccine, called AZD1222, showed immune responses.


Read more:A $47 billion fund manager shares 3 trades she’s making for huge upside as the economy recovers — including a play on the Tesla-led boom of electric vehicles

Continue reading “AstraZeneca slides even as the company’s coronavirus vaccine trial results show ‘promise’” »

Jul 20, 2020

Scientists strengthen quantum building blocks in milestone critical for scale-up

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

A group of international scientists have substantially lengthened the duration of time that a spin-orbit qubit in silicon can retain quantum information for, opening up a new pathway to make silicon quantum computers more scalable and functional.

Spin-orbit qubits have been investigated for over a decade as an option to scale up the number of qubits in a quantum computer, as they are easy to manipulate and couple over long distances. However, they have always shown very limited times, far too short for quantum technologies.

The research published today in Nature Materials shows that long coherence times are possible when spin-orbit coupling is strong enough. In fact, the scientists demonstrated coherence times 10,000 times longer than previously recorded for spin-orbit qubits, making them an ideal candidate for scaling up silicon quantum computers.

Jul 20, 2020

New Stem Cell Treatment Using Fat Cells Could Repair Any Tissue in The Body

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Circa 2016


In a world first, Australian scientists have figured out how to reprogram adult bone or fat cells to form stem cells that could potentially regenerate any damaged tissue in the body.

Continue reading “New Stem Cell Treatment Using Fat Cells Could Repair Any Tissue in The Body” »

Jul 20, 2020

Physicists take stop-action images of light-driven molecular reaction

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry

Kansas State University physicists have taken extremely fast snapshots of light-induced molecular ring-opening reactions—similar to those that help a human body produce vitamin D from sunlight. The research is published in Nature Chemistry.

“Think of this as stop-motion like a cartoon,” said Daniel Rolles, associate professor of physics and the study’s principal investigator. “For each molecule, you start the reaction with a laser pulse, take snapshots of what it looks like as time passes and then put them together. This creates a ‘molecular movie’ that shows how the electronic structure of the molecule changes as a function of how much time passes between when we start and when we stop.”

Shashank Pathak, doctoral student and lead author on the paper, said the idea was to study the dynamics of how a ring opens in a molecule on the time scale of femtosecond, which is one quadrillionth of a second. The researchers use a to visualize how these reactions happen by recording electron energy spectra as the atoms in the molecule move apart.

Jul 20, 2020

Tuscon Electric Power Makes Dramatic Pivot Toward Renewable Energy

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability

Remember just 2 years ago when the utility companies that supply electricity to customers in Arizona went into a tizzy over a ballot initiative that would mandate them to get 50% of their electricity from renewable sources by the year 2030? Oh, the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth could be heard from sea to shining sea. It was a direct frontal assault on the American way of life. It was so dire, the utilities ponied up $40 million of their own money (actually it was their customers’ money) to defeat it.

Jul 20, 2020

Scientists discover volcanoes on Venus are still active

Posted by in categories: geology, space

A new study identified 37 recently active volcanic structures on Venus. The study provides some of the best evidence yet that Venus is still a geologically active planet. A research paper on the work, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland and the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, was published in the journal Nature Geoscience on July 20, 2020.

“This is the first time we are able to point to specific structures and say ‘Look, this is not an ancient volcano but one that is active today, dormant perhaps, but not dead,’” said Laurent Montési, a professor of geology at UMD and co-author of the . “This study significantly changes the view of Venus from a mostly inactive planet to one whose interior is still churning and can feed many .”

Scientists have known for some time that Venus has a younger surface than like Mars and Mercury, which have cold interiors. Evidence of a warm interior and dots the surface of the planet in the form of ring-like structures known as , which form when plumes of hot material deep inside the planet rise through the mantle layer and crust. This is similar to the way mantle plumes formed the volcanic Hawaiian Islands.