Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 767

In recent years, standing has been touted as a remedy to a sedentary lifestyle, especially for desk workers who spend long hours seated at their screens.

But a new study from researchers in Australia and the Netherlands has found standing for long periods of time might not be much better than sitting after all – and actually comes with its own life-threatening risks.

Just under seven years of data from 83,013 adults were collected as part of the UK Biobank, using wrist-worn devices to track their activity, sleep, and sedentary time. The amount of time individuals spent standing and sitting was matched with incidences of cardiovascular diseases – coronary heart disease, heart failure and stroke – as well as circulatory diseases – low blood pressure on standing, varicose veins, chronic venous insufficiency, and venous ulcers.

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A rare species of bee was found on land where the company was planning to put a nuclear-powered artificial intelligence data center, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told employees during an all-hands meeting that the rare bees would further complicate a deal with an existing nuclear power plant to build the data center.

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Even the exact definition of AGI is still heavily debated, making it a murky milestone.

Regardless, the stakes are high: the AI industry has poured untold billions of dollars into building out datacenters to train AI models, an investment that’s likely many years away from paying off.

Naturally, OpenAI CEO and hypeman Sam Altman has remained optimistic. During a Reddit AMA this week, he even claimed that AGI is “achievable with current hardware.”

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The world’s first wooden satellite, built by Japanese researchers, was launched into space on Tuesday, in an early test of using timber in lunar and Mars exploration.

LignoSat, developed by Kyoto University and homebuilder Sumitomo Forestry, will be flown to the International Space Station on a SpaceX mission, and later released into orbit about 400 kilometres above the Earth.

Named after the Latin word for “wood”, the palm-sized LignoSat is tasked to demonstrate the cosmic potential of the renewable material as humans explore living in space.

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Revealing hidden layers in superconducting nickelates.

In a collaborative effort, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (MPI-FKF) have discovered a new crystal structure in La₃Ni₂O₇, a material known to exhibit high-temperature superconductivity under high pressure.

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Adeno-associated virus (AAV) is a well-known gene delivery tool with a wide range of applications, including as a vector for gene therapies. However, the molecular mechanism of its cell entry remains unknown. Here, we performed coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations of the AAV serotype 2 (AAV2) capsid and the universal AAV receptor (AAVR) in a model plasma membrane environment. Our simulations show that binding of the AAV2 capsid to the membrane induces membrane curvature, along with the recruitment and clustering of GM3 lipids around the AAV2 capsid. We also found that the AAVR binds to the AAV2 capsid at the VR-I loops using its PKD2 and PKD3 domains, whose binding poses differs from previous structural studies. These first molecular-level insights into AAV2 membrane interactions suggest a complex process during the initial phase of AAV2 capsid internalization.

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