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A blockchain entrepreneur, a cinematographer, a polar adventurer and a robotics researcher plan to fly around Earth’s poles aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule by end of year, becoming the first humans to observe the ice caps and extreme polar environments from orbit, SpaceX announced Monday.

The historic flight, launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will be commanded by Chun Wang, a wealthy bitcoin pioneer who founded f2pool and stakefish, “which are among the largest Bitcoin mining pools and Ethereum staking providers,” the crew’s website says.

“Wang aims to use the mission to highlight the crew’s explorational spirit, bring a sense of wonder and curiosity to the larger public and highlight how technology can help push the boundaries of exploration of Earth and through the mission’s research,” SpaceX said on its web site.

A newly published study by Sheba Medical Center, Israel’s largest and internationally ranked hospital, shows that AI analysis of medical records as patients are admitted to the ER can accurately identify those at high risk of pulmonary embolism (PE).

A pulmonary embolism is a sudden blockage in an artery in the lung caused by a blood clot, most commonly due to a dislodged clot in the leg. They are normally diagnosed during a CT scan.

Using machine learning, the researchers trained an algorithm to detect a pulmonary embolism before a patient was hospitalized, based on existing medical records.

Microplastics are a global problem: they end up in rivers and oceans, they accumulate in living organisms and disrupt entire ecosystems. How tiny particles behave in a current is difficult to describe scientifically, especially in the case of thin fibers, which make up more than half of microplastic contamination in marine life-forms. In turbulent currents, it is almost impossible to predict their movement.

A previously unknown mechanism of active matter self-organization essential for bacterial cell division follows the motto “dying to align”: Misaligned filaments “die” spontaneously to form a ring structure at the center of the dividing cell. The study, led by the Šarić group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), was published in Nature Physics. The work could find applications in developing synthetic self-healing materials.

Since the first demonstration of the laser in the 1960s, laser spectroscopy has become an essential tool for studying the detailed structures and dynamics of atoms and molecules. Advances in laser technology have further enhanced its capabilities. There are two main types of laser spectroscopy: frequency comb-based laser spectroscopy and tunable continuous-wave (CW) laser spectroscopy.