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Fresh evidence of an unknown particle that could carry a fifth force of nature gives the NA64 collaboration at CERN a new incentive to continue searches.

In 2015, a team of scientists spotted an unexpected glitch, or “anomaly,” in a nuclear transition that could be explained by the production of an unknown particle. About a year later, theorists suggested that the new particle could be evidence of a new fundamental force of nature, in addition to electromagnetism, gravity and the strong and weak forces. The findings caught worldwide attention and prompted, among other studies, a direct search for the particle by the NA64 collaboration at CERN.

A new paper (pdf) from the same team, led by Attila Krasznahorkay at the Atomki institute in Hungary, now reports another anomaly, in a similar nuclear transition, that could also be explained by the same hypothetical particle.

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The term “Isotonic” originates from the Greek root words “iso” and “tonos.” The root “iso” isn’t just a file format, it actually means equal. “Tonos,” on the other hand, means to stretch. The word Isotonic can mean a multitude of things stretching from material and physical sciences to liberal arts.

Equal Stretch Regression (Isotonic Regression) is a really cool model for statistical inference. My obsession with isotonic regression has long been expanding, because the model is just so interesting, and cool.

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San Francisco and Chicago have also seen their rates of new H.I.V. infections falling.

But while robust municipal health campaigns are creating downward H.I.V. trends in some of America’s largest cities, in much of rural America, an opposite trend is emerging. There have of course always been cases of H.I.V. in sparsely populated parts of the country, but in these places far from cities, the conditions that lead to H.I.V. transmission are now intensifying — and rural America is not ready for the coming crisis.

Indeed, in Appalachian West Virginia, the crisis has already arrived. A cluster of 80 new H.I.V. infections has been diagnosed since early last year in Cabell County.

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What if you could cheat death and live forever? To people in the radical life extension movement, immortality is a real possibility. Leah Green spends a long weekend at RAADfest, a meeting of scientists, activists and ordinary people who want to extend the human lifespan. So is reversing your age a real possibility? And what’s behind this wish to live forever?
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Understanding the economic implications of changing demographics is essential for investors, said Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist speaking at the Fiduciary Investors’ Symposium at Harvard University. De Grey, who is also the chief science officer of SENS Research Foundation, a California-based biomedical research charity, warned gathered delegates that they need to urgently position for people living much longer.

“The implications will change your outlook on the future. You need to understand and believe the actual logic of what is coming,” he said.

He noted that medical advancement has eliminated many of the problems that used to kill people when they were young. For example, better hygiene saves lives the world over. In contrast, health problems in later life are still killing many of us in an enduring ageing process. Simply defined, this sees our metabolism generate damage over the years that cause accumulative changes over time. We can only tolerate so much change; inevitably we go down hill until we die, he said. Today the majority of medical effort is concentrated on geriatric medicine and managing the consequences of this ageing process. Yet attacking the consequences of something that is accumulating is the wrong way to approach the problem.

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A team of neuroscientists and electrical engineers from Germany and Switzerland developed a highly sensitive implant that enables to probe brain physiology with unparalleled spatial and temporal resolution. They introduce an ultra-fine needle with an integrated chip that is capable of detecting and transmitting nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) data from nanoliter volumes of brain oxygen metabolism. The breakthrough design will allow entirely new applications in the life sciences.

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