Menu

Blog

Page 7829

Apr 3, 2020

Jeff Bezos’ space company is pressuring employees to launch a tourist rocket during the pandemic

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, space travel

Employees at Jeff Bezos’ aerospace firm Blue Origin are outraged that senior leadership is pressuring workers to conduct a test launch of the company’s New Shepard rocket — designed to take wealthy tourists into space — while the COVID-19 pandemic devastates the United States.

To conduct the flight, Blue Origin officials are considering transporting employees from the company’s main headquarters in Kent, Washington — a town near Seattle where COVID-19 cases have surged — to a small town in West Texas called Van Horn. The town, which has a population of just over 2,000, is home to Blue Origin’s test launch facility where the company has conducted all past flights of the New Shepard rocket.

Many employees fear that traveling to Van Horn might expose them to the novel coronavirus and inadvertently introduce COVID-19 to the residents of the rural town where there is very little infrastructure to handle an outbreak. The Verge spoke exclusively with four Blue Origin employees who all asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the company. They say they are frustrated by the company’s desire to conduct a launch, as it could unnecessarily jeopardize the health of employees at Blue Origin and residents of Van Horn.

Apr 3, 2020

Scientists Find a Half Male, Half Female Bee, Split Right Down The Middle

Posted by in category: futurism

Broadly speaking, animals tend to be sexually dimorphic. You have males, with small gametes, and females, with large gametes, both of which are required for sexual reproduction. Every now and again, though, nature throws a curveball — producing an organism that’s a combination of both sexes, divided straight down the middle.

This condition is known as gynandromorphism, and scientists have just found the first known gynandromorphic individual of its species in a nocturnal bee native to Central and South America, Megalopta amoenae.

On its left side, the bee is physiologically male. It has a small, dainty mandible, a long antenna, and a thin, delicate hind leg with fewer bristles. The right side has female characteristics — a shorter antenna, a pronounced, toothed mandible, and a thick, hairy hind leg.

Apr 3, 2020

Giant Elliptical Galaxies Are Not Likely To Be ‘Cradles Of Life’

Posted by in category: alien life

Giant elliptical galaxies are not likely to be havens for technological life, argues new paper.


I recognized that the model used in the 2015 paper —- along with the known distributions and numbers of spiral and elliptical galaxies —- violated the Principle of Mediocrity, says Whitmire. That means if a technological species was selected at random anywhere in the local universe, the probability that it would reside in an elliptical galaxy would be 99 percent. Since we earthlings don’t find ourselves in an elliptical galaxy, Whitmire says this creates what he calls a statistical paradox.

My solution was to look for physical processes that would mitigate this inconsistency, says Whitmire. Current observations show that the ancestors of today’s large elliptical galaxies were once more compact, he says. This was the key, says Whitmire. This means that when these galaxies went through their early high-energy quasar and starburst phases, the radiation doses to young planets within these galaxies would have been lethal and permanent, he says.

Continue reading “Giant Elliptical Galaxies Are Not Likely To Be ‘Cradles Of Life’” »

Apr 3, 2020

The FDA-approved Drug Ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Shared by Michael Michalchik

Ivermectin is an inhibitor of the COVID-19 causative virus (SARS-CoV-2) in vitro.

• A single treatment able to effect ∼5000-fold reduction in virus at 48h in cell culture.

Continue reading “The FDA-approved Drug Ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro” »

Apr 3, 2020

Makers Vs Covid

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, materials

Our goal is to evaluate, test and share the validated & most promising Maker projects to create an alternative system to supply medical materials.

Apr 3, 2020

‘Rebooting the brain’: Our fight to bring people back from the dead

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, neuroscience

Studies of hibernating animals suggest that the molecular and synaptic integrity of neurons in the cerebral cortex that underlie self and consciousness is maintained in many cases when from the outside the brain appears dead.


A striking feature of medicine over the past few centuries has been our growing ability to bring people back from the “dead.” For most of human history, patients who were unconscious and not breathing were treated as though they had died. But the concept of resuscitation emerged as doctors grew to understand the basic function of the lungs and airways. That led to new techniques and tools capable of restoring both breathing and heartbeat — and the realization that cardiac arrest was not always a death sentence. That, in turn, gave rise to a distinction between what’s now called clinical death versus brain death.

Continue reading “‘Rebooting the brain’: Our fight to bring people back from the dead” »

Apr 3, 2020

Scientists develop AI that translates brainwaves into sentences

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

An AI that translates brainwaves into sentences.


Scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence-based system that converts brain activity into text which could result in transforming communication for people who can’t speak or type.

The electrodes on the brain have been used to translate brainwaves into words spoken by a computer which is helpful for people who have lost the ability to speak. When you speak, your brain sends signals from the motor cortex to the muscles in your jaw, lips, and larynx to coordinate their movement and produce a sound.

Apr 3, 2020

Cellex and Mayo Clinic Launch Tests to Determine COVID-19 Immunity from Previous Exposure

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first blood test that looks for the antibodies against the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. This is different than assays that test for presence of the virus—those test to determine if a patient has COVID-19. These new antibody tests determine if the person was exposed to the virus, had COVID-19 and recovered. And it suggests, if positive, that the person is now immune to COVID-19 and can’t get it again.

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based Cellex was granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) on its test yesterday.

The test is performed on a blood sample taken from a patient’s vein and can be performed by laboratories certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA), the Health and Human Services division that oversees clinical diagnostic testing in the United States.

Apr 3, 2020

UH professor develops coating that protects PPE from droplets that spread COVID-19

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

HOUSTON — A University of Houston professor is waiting for FDA approval of a waterproofing solution that he says can shield personal protective equipment such as N95 masks from the droplets that spread COVID-19.

Professor Seamus Curran said he developed the hydrophobic coating in 2011 while testing it on fabrics. He continued creating similar solutions to be used on wood and masonry with his company, Integricote.

When COVID-19 broke out, he felt the coating could help, especially as health care workers warned of a nationwide shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as N95 masks that health care workers wear.

Apr 3, 2020

Quantum computing meets particle physics for LHC data analysis

Posted by in categories: information science, particle physics, quantum physics, robotics/AI

IBM quantum computer runs machine-learning algorithm to find Higgs events.