The Zen of Technology & Scientific Discovery! (& Robots)

[Jundo]

Double gratitude for another of the body's amazing mechanisms ... to prevent doubling ...

Long-Puzzling Biologists: Cornell Study Reveals How Cells Prevent Harmful Extra DNA Copies

According to a recent study by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, a protein that prepares DNA for replication also keeps the replication process in check, thus solving a long-standing mystery in biology. The research was recently published in the journal Molecular Cell.

The cells of humans and all other higher organisms employ a sophisticated system of checkpoints and licensing proteins to guarantee accurate replication of their genomes prior to division. In preparation for cell division, licensing proteins bind to specific locations in the DNA, marking them as replication origins. The DNA synthesis phase of the cell cycle only initiates replication at these designated sites and it only “fires”, or initiates, once, as per the current understanding. That model was missing a crucial point, though. “The same factor that is allowing for this licensing to happen is only degraded after these replication origins have fired,” said senior author Dr. Tobias Meyer, the Joseph Hinsey Professor in Cell and Developmental Biology at Weill Cornell Medicine. “In principle, the cell could load these licensing machines onto DNA that’s already replicated, so, instead of two copies, you’re getting three or four copies of that segment of the DNA, and these cells would be expected to lose genome integrity and die or become cancerous.”

... Ratnayeke used computer-aided microscopy to monitor thousands of growing cells simultaneously, catching the replicating cells in the act and analyzing the activities of their licensing and replication factors.

The work revealed that a well-known licensing factor, CDT1, not only licenses a segment of DNA to become a replication origin, but also acts as a brake for DNA replication, preventing an essential replication enzyme called CMG helicase from functioning. To start synthesizing DNA, the cell’s enzymes must first break down CDT1. “Previously proposed mechanisms for coordinating this transition from the licensing phase of the cell cycle to the firing phase of the cell cycle have depended on inhibiting licensing factors,” said Ratnayeke, adding that “the mechanism that we identified here is actually the opposite … the licensing factor CDT1 itself is preventing the progression of DNA synthesis.”

https://scitechdaily.com/long-puzzli...ra-dna-copies/

AI makes innovative proteins ... better than we can ... better than evolution can ...

Limitless Possibilities – AI Technology Generates Original Proteins From Scratch

Researchers have developed an AI system that can generate artificial enzymes from scratch. In laboratory experiments, some of these enzymes demonstrated efficacy comparable to natural enzymes, even when their artificially created amino acid sequences greatly deviated from any known natural protein.

The experiment shows that natural language processing, initially created for reading and writing language text, can grasp certain fundamental concepts of biology.

... Scientists said the new technology could become more powerful than directed evolution, the Nobel-prize-winning protein design technology, and it will energize the 50-year-old field of protein engineering by speeding the development of new proteins that can be used for almost anything from therapeutics to degrading plastic. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/limitless-possibilities-ai-technology-generates-original-proteins-from-scratch/

A space suit and a pitchfork ...

Revolutionizing Agriculture: The Next Frontier of Farming on the Moon

Sooner or later, settlers on the Moon will have to become farmers. A new European Space Agency (ESA) Discovery project led by Norway’s Solsys Mining is looking into the treatment of lunar soil to create fertilizer for growing plants.

The good news is that analysis of lunar samples returned to Earth in the past by Moonwalkers and robots shows sufficient essential minerals are available for plant growth, apart from nitrogen compounds. The bad news is that lunar soil (or ‘regolith’) compacts in the presence of water, creating problems for plant germination and root growth. Hydroponic farming therefore offers a practical alternative; this type of agriculture involves feeding plant roots directly with nutrient-rich water, without the need for soil. The potential is still there however to put lunar regolith to work, on the basis of ‘in-situ resource utilization’ – or living off the land.

The left of this artist’s impression shows a mechanical sorting area for the regolith, passing through to the central module for more advanced processing, such as chemical leaching. Finally extracted nutrients would be dissolved in water to be pumped to the hydroponic garden, right.

https://scitechdaily.com/revolutioni...g-on-the-moon/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

A truly MASSIVE and very surprising Webb discovery is announced ...

“Massive” Webb Space Telescope Discovery Defies Prior Understanding of the Universe

Six massive galaxies discovered in the early universe are upending what scientists previously understood about the origins of galaxies in the universe.

“These objects are way more massive than anyone expected,” said Joel Leja, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, who modeled light from these galaxies. “We expected only to find tiny, young, baby galaxies at this point in time, but we’ve discovered galaxies as mature as our own in what was previously understood to be the dawn of the universe.”

Using the first dataset released from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the international team of scientists discovered objects as mature as the Milky Way when the universe was only 3% of its current age, about 500-700 million years after the Big Bang. The telescope is equipped with infrared-sensing instruments capable of detecting light that was emitted by the most ancient stars and galaxies. Essentially, the telescope allows scientists to see back in time roughly 13.5 billion years, near the beginning of the universe as we know it, Leja explained.

“This is our first glimpse back this far, so it’s important that we keep an open mind about what we are seeing,” Leja said. “While the data indicates they are likely galaxies, I think there is a real possibility that a few of these objects turn out to be obscured supermassive black holes. Regardless, the amount of mass we discovered means that the known mass in stars at this period of our universe is up to 100 times greater than we had previously thought. Even if we cut the sample in half, this is still an astounding change.”

https://scitechdaily.com/massive-webb-space-telescope-discovery-defies-prior-understanding-of-the-universe/

also ...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05786-2

... and the universe takes an early breath ...

97% of the Age of the Universe – Astronomers Confirm Age of Most Distant Galaxy With Oxygen

A new study led by a joint team at Nagoya University and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan has measured the cosmic age of a very distant galaxy. The team used the ALMA radio telescope array to detect a radio signal that has been traveling for approximately 97% of the age of the Universe. This discovery confirms the existence of galaxies in the very early Universe found by the James Webb Space Telescope. The research is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. ... So many bright distant galaxies were identified in the first few weeks of James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations that it challenged our basic understanding of the formation of the earliest galaxies. However, these red colors are only indicative of a distant galaxy, and could instead be a very dust-rich galaxy masquerading as a more distant object. Only direct observations of spectral lines – lines present in a galaxy’s light spectrum used to identify the elements present – can robustly confirm the true distances of these galaxies.

... ALMA pointed at GHZ2/GLASS-z12 to hunt for an emission line associated with oxygen at the expected frequency suggested by the JWST observations. Oxygen is a typically abundant element in distant galaxies due to its relatively short formation timescale, therefore the team chose to search for an oxygen emission line to increase the chances of detection.

By combining the signal of each of its 12-meter telescopes, ALMA was able to detect the emission line close to the position of the galaxy. The observed redshift of the line indicates we see the galaxy as it was just 367 million years after the Big Bang. ...

The image of galaxy GHZ2/GLASS-z12 with the associated ALMA spectrum. ALMA’s deep spectroscopic observations revealed a spectral emission line associated with ionized Oxygen near the galaxy, which has been shifted in its observed frequency due to the expansion of the Universe since the line was emitted.

https://scitechdaily.com/97-of-the-a...y-with-oxygen/

The genetic balancing act that makes you, you ... and I ain't monkeying around ...

New Study: Evolution of Uniquely Human DNA Was a Delicate Balancing Act

Many alterations to the genomes of early humans had opposing effects, likely due to a delicate balance between enhanced cognitive abilities and an increased risk of psychiatric disorders.

Humans and chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA, with human accelerated regions (HARs) being the portions of the genome that exhibit a disproportionate amount of these differences. These HARs remained unchanged in mammals for millennia but underwent rapid transformation in early humans. Scientists have long wondered about the reason for these significant changes in these segments of DNA and how they distinguish humans from other primates.

Recently, the researchers at Gladstone Institutes conducted an analysis of thousands of human and chimpanzee HARs and found that a significant number of the modifications that occurred during human evolution had opposing effects from each other.

“This helps answer a longstanding question about why HARs evolved so quickly after being frozen for millions of years,” says Katie Pollard, Ph.D., director of the Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology and lead author of the new study published in the journal Neuron. “An initial variation in a HAR might have turned up its activity too much, and then it needed to be turned down. The findings, she says, have implications for understanding human evolution. In addition—because she and her team discovered that many HARs play roles in brain development—the study suggests that variations in human HARs could predispose people to psychiatric disease.

... “What this kind of pattern indicates is something called compensatory evolution,” says Pollard. “A large change was made in an enhancer, but maybe it was too much and led to harmful side effects, so the change was tuned back down over time—that’s why we see opposing effects.” ...

https://scitechdaily.com/new-study-e...balancing-act/

You have my (artificial) skin, flesh, bone and marrow ...

Superior to Human Skin: Scientists Have Artificial Skin With Incredible Sensing Capabilities

Researchers have created an artificial skin that surpasses human skin in its sensitivity to detect pressure applied by an object and its approach.

In a study published in the journal Small, scientists utilized the dual-responsive artificial skin for various purposes, including controlling virtual game characters, navigating electronic maps, and scrolling through digital documents. The artificial skin was able to distinguish different signals from approaching targets, enabling touchless object identification. The advance provides a proof-of-concept application for rendering a robot to classify materials including polymers, metals, and human skin in an entirely touchless mode. The researchers note that such artificial skin can be used in next-generation engineered electronics with potential in human–machine interfaces, artificial intelligence, prosthesis, and augmented reality.

https://scitechdaily.com/superior-to...-capabilities/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

The brain is like an orchestra ... like waves in the ocean ...

Neuroimaging Study Finds the Brain Works Like a Resonance Chamber

It’s been over 20 years since neuroimaging studies – using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a widely-used technology to capture live videos of brain activity – have been detecting brain-wide complex patterns of correlated brain activity that appear disrupted in a wide range of neurological and psychiatric disorders. These patterns form spontaneously, even at rest when no particular task is being performed, and have been detected not only in humans but also across mammals, including monkeys and rodents.

Although such spatial patterns of correlated activation have been consistently detected across neuroimaging centers around the world, the nature of these correlations was not clear. “We do not yet fully understand how the brain communicates over long distances. We know that distant areas exhibit signal correlations, and that they are implicated in brain function, but we do not completely understand their nature,” says Noam Shemesh, principal investigator of the Preclinical MRI Lab at the Champalimaud Foundation, in Lisbon ...

So what the team did was to speed up image acquisition, and they discovered that the signals in distant brain regions actually oscillate together in time. “These oscillatory patterns look like a higher-dimensional analogue of resonance modes in musical instruments; they are akin to reverberations, to echoes inside the brain,” says Cabral.

“Our data show that the complex spatial patterns are a result of transiently and independently oscillating underlying modes, just like individual instruments participate in creating a more complex piece in an orchestra,” says Shemesh. “The distinct modes, each contributing something to the overall picture at different time scales and different wavelengths, can be added up together, generating complex macroscopic patterns similar to the ones observed experimentally ... To our knowledge, this is the first time that brain activity captured with fMRI is reconstructed as the superposition of standing waves,” he points out.

... “When we first saw the videos of the recorded brain activity, we saw clear waves of activity, like waves in the ocean, propagating in complex patterns within the cortex and the striatum [a subcortical region of the forebrain],” says Cabral. “And we found that the signals could be described by the superposition of a small number of macroscopic stationary waves, or resonant modes, oscillating in time. Notably, each standing wave was found to cover extended areas of the brain, with peaks distributed in distinct cortical and subcortical structures, forming functional networks.” ...

They also found that increasing the amount of anesthetic reduces the number, frequency, and duration of the resonant stationary waves. As already mentioned, previous studies have shown that certain patterns of brain activation are consistently altered in disorders of consciousness. So this experimental design, says Cabral, was actually also meant to mimic different pathological states.

“Functional networks appear disrupted in several neurological and psychiatric disorders” she points out. If confirmed in humans, she speculates, their results could also lead to the use of resonant modes as biomarkers for disease. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/neuroimaging-study-finds-the-brain-works-like-a-resonance-chamber/

Signals captured with fMRI from a rat brain, viewed on top of an anatomical image of the animal.
Contralateral areas colored in red activate together at the same time, despite the long distance between them.

We need more sensitive instruments to understand the brain, and also to find life on Mars ...

Finding potential evidence of life on Mars may be more difficult than expected, according to new research.

Missions such as the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers are each equipped with a suite of scientific instruments that can analyze rock and dust samples and collect data about the red planet. But those instruments currently sitting on Mars, as well as those designed for future missions, may not be sensitive enough to detect biosignatures, or signs of existing or ancient life.

... To test the capabilities of these scientific tools, researchers went to Chile’s Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth and the world’s oldest desert. The arid desert has long been considered a Mars analog for scientists — even more so when researchers came across the desert’s Red Stone Jurassic fossil delta. The 100 million-year-old riverbed resembles Jezero Crater and its ancient river delta on Mars.... The researchers took things a step further by testing four scientific instruments designed to explore the red planet on samples they collected from the ancient riverbed. Although highly sophisticated, the instruments were barely able to detect any molecular signatures — proving that the tools may not be sensitive enough to accurately detect biosignatures.

... are will need to be taken when evaluating the first Martian samples returned to Earth, wrote Carol Stoker, a staff planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, in a Comment article accompanying the study. Stoker was not involved in the research.

This color picture of Mars was taken July 21--the day following Viking l's successful landing on the planet. The local time on Mars is approximately noon. The view is southeast from the Viking. Orange-red surface materials cover most of the surface, apparently forming a thin veneer over darker bedrock exposed in patches, as in the lower right. The reddish surface materials may be limonite (hydrated ferric oxide). Such weathering products form on Earth in the presence of water and an oxidizing atmosphere. The sky has a reddish cast, probably due to scattering and reflection from reddish sediment suspended in the lower atmosphere. The scene was scanned three times by the spacecraft's camera number 2, through a different color filter each time. To assist in balancing the colors, a second picture was taken of z test chart mounted on the rear of the spacecraft. Color data for these patches were adjusted until the patches were an appropriate color of gray. The same calibration was then used for the entire scene.
NASA's Viking 1 may have landed at the site of an ancient Martian megatsunami
“Any biological activity in these samples presumably took place billions of years ago, and only a few small samples can be brought to Earth for study,” Stoker wrote. “It remains to be seen if unambiguous signatures of life can be found in those limited samples. We must be cautious about interpreting absence of strong evidence of life as evidence of its absence!”

One of the instruments tested will travel to Mars aboard the first European rover, named Rosalind Franklin, which is expected to launch to the red planet by 2028.

“(It) will carry a drill with the unprecedented capability of reaching down to a depth of 2 meters (6.6 feet) to analyze sediments better protected against the harsh conditions on the Martian surface,” said study coauthor Alberto G. Fairén, research scientist at the Center of Astrobiology in Madrid and visiting scientist in Cornell University’s department of astronomy, in a statement.

“If biosignatures are better preserved at depth, which we expect, there will be more abundance and diversity, and better preservation of biosignatures, in those deep samples. Our instruments in the rover will therefore have more chances to detect them.”

https://us.cnn.com/2023/02/21/world/...scn/index.html

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

A new model for distinguishing natural selection from genetic noise and mere phylogenetic errors:

How Evolution Works – Scientists Develop a Novel Metric of Molecular Evolution

The European mole, equipped with its formidable digging shovels, can effortlessly tunnel through the earth. The same holds true for the Australian marsupial mole. Despite residing in vastly different regions, the two species have evolved similar appendages, which are perfectly suited for their subterranean lifestyle.

Science speaks of “convergent evolution” in such cases, when animal, but also plant species independently develop features that have the same shape and function. There are many examples of this: Fish, for example, have fins, as do whales, although they are mammals. Birds and bats have wings, and when it comes to using poisonous substances to defend themselves against attackers, many creatures, from jellyfish to scorpions to insects, have all evolved the same instrument: the venomous sting.

It is clear that scientists around the world are interested in finding out which changes in the genetic material of the respective species are responsible for the fact that identical characteristics have evolved in them, even though there is no relationship between them.

The search for this is proving difficult: “Such traits – we speak of phenotypes – are of course always encoded in genome sequences,” says plant physiologist Dr. Kenji Fukushima of the Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg. Mutations – changes in the genetic material – can be the triggers for the development of new traits.

However, genetic changes rarely lead to phenotypic evolution because the underlying mutations are largely random and neutral. Thus, a tremendous amount of mutations accumulate over the extreme time scale at which evolutionary processes occur, making the detection of phenotypically important changes extremely difficult.

Now, Fukushima and his colleague David D. Pollock of the University of Colorado (USA) have succeeded in developing a method that achieves significantly better results than previously used methods in the search for the genetic basis of phenotypic traits. They present their approach in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

“We have developed a novel metric of molecular evolution that can accurately represent the rate of convergent evolution in protein-coding DNA sequences,” says Fukushima, describing the main result of the now-published work. This new method, he says, can reveal which genetic changes are associated with the phenotypes of organisms on an evolutionary time scale of hundreds of millions of years. It thus offers the possibility of expanding our understanding of how changes in DNA lead to phenotypic innovations that give rise to a great diversity of species.

A key development in the life sciences forms the basis of Fukushima’s and Pollock’s work: the fact that in recent years more and more genome sequences of many living organisms across the diversity of species have been decoded and thus made accessible for analysis. “This has made it possible to study the interrelationships of genotypes and phenotypes on a large scale at a macroevolutionary level,” Fukushima says.

However, because many molecular changes are nearly neutral and do not affect any traits, there is often a risk of “false-positive convergence” when interpreting the data – that is, the result predicts a correlation between a mutation and a particular trait that does not actually exist. In addition, methodological biases could also be responsible for such false-positive convergences. “To overcome this problem, we expanded the framework and developed a new metric that measures the error-adjusted convergence rate of protein evolution,” Fukushima explains. This, he says, makes it possible to distinguish natural selection from genetic noise and phylogenetic errors in simulations and real-world examples. Enhanced with a heuristic algorithm, the approach enables bidirectional searches for genotype-phenotype associations, even in lineages that have diverged over hundreds of millions of years, he says.

https://scitechdaily.com/how-evoluti...lar-evolution/

How "attachment" may have some positive effects, but negative too ... and not just in Buddhist meaning ...

The Dark Side of Product Attachment: How Our Love for Possessions Impacts Sustainability

Custom sneakers, vintage dishware, and limited-edition cars are all examples of products that owners may consider special and irreplaceable, leading to strong feelings of attachment.

From a sustainability perspective, designers have traditionally viewed attachment as positive, as it leads people to retain products they care about for longer periods, reducing consumption and waste sent to landfills.

New Cornell University research provides a more nuanced understanding, showing that product attachment can also unintentionally encourage less sustainable behavior. To prevent damage or loss, people may limit the use of their most prized possessions – preserving shoes in a box, dishes as decorations, or a car in storage – and buy additional, less meaningful goods for practical daily purposes.

“The goal has been to get people to hold on to products longer, which was seen as inherently more sustainable,” said Michael Kowalski, a doctoral researcher in the field of human-centered design with a background as an industrial product designer. “But that’s not always the case if people aren’t actually using these things.”

... The research seeks to inform designers about the multiple factors driving product attachment and which could be tapped to encourage a product’s active use for as long as possible – consistent with sustainability goals – and avoid continued redundant consumption.

That’s important because Americans, on average, now throw out seven times more durable goods (meant to last at least three years) than they did in 1960, according to the research. Meanwhile, the average new U.S. home, the main location where these increasing numbers of products are used, stored, or thrown away, has grown by 1,000 square feet over the past 40 years.

https://scitechdaily.com/the-dark-side-of-product-attachment-how-our-love-for-possessions-impacts-sustainability/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

In the Mountains and Waters Sutra, Master Dogen wrote ...

... [Water] flows over the earth; it flows across the sky; it flows up; it flows down. [Water] flows around bends and into deep abysses. It mounts up to form clouds; it descends to form pools. The Wen Tzu says, “The tao of water, ascending to heaven, becomes rain and dew, descending to earth, becomes rivers and streams.” ...

... I am sure that includes rivers of methane:

We Asked a NASA Scientist: Are There Rivers and Lakes on Other Worlds?

... Titan, which is the largest moon of Saturn, has lakes and rivers on its surface. Unlike Earth, the rivers and lakes, and streams on Titan are made out of methane and ethane. But very much like Earth, there’s what we call a hydrologic cycle. So methane can move back and forth between the surface and the atmosphere.

That means that we don’t just have lakes and streams and rivers. We also have rain and clouds. And Titan is one of the only places in the solar system where it might be possible to see a rainbow. ...

https://youtu.be/AwaEgxpHRh0

Make a left turn at Alpha Centauri, Go Straight ... But recall that a map of just your own body, every cell and neural connection and atom, would be just as intricate ...

... Using supercomputers and the help of thousands of citizen scientists around the world, researchers with The University of Texas at Austin have now revealed the locations of more than 200,000 new astronomical objects. Their goal is to map even more and use that knowledge to predict the ultimate fate of the universe.

For the first time, the researchers have cataloged astronomical objects — mapping over 51,863 Lyman-alpha-emitting galaxies at high redshift; 123,891 star forming galaxies at lower redshift; 5,274 non-emission line galaxies at low redshift; and 4,976 active galactic nuclei (AGN) — bright spots that signal the presence of black holes. The paper describing the catalog was published on February 7, 2023, in The Astrophysical Journal.

... A precise value of the expansion rate early in the Universe can be compared to the expansion rate today. This comparison can determine if the Universe will continue to expand forever, or will someday collapse on itself many billions of years from now.

“The whole point of the HETDEX project is to measure the expansion of the universe,” Gebhardt said.

https://scitechdaily.com/dark-energy-experiment-reveals-galaxy-gold-mine-in-first-large-survey/

Networks and networks ...

Astronomers Astounded by Intricate Networks of Gas and Dust in Nearby Galaxies Revealed by NASA’s Webb Space Telescope

The saying goes, ‘From a tiny acorn grows the mighty oak.’ This is accurate not just here on Earth, but in our solar system and beyond. Even on a galactic scale, where individual stars and star clusters can sculpt a galaxy’s overall structure. ... New imagery from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument is revealing never-before-seen details into how young, newly forming stars influence the structure of the gas and dust of nearby galaxies, and therefore how they evolve over time. Areas of galaxies that once appeared dim and dark in visible light, now under Webb’s infrared eye, are glowing cavities and huge cavernous bubbles of gas and dust.

... The images from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reveal the presence of a network of highly structured features within these galaxies – glowing cavities of dust and huge cavernous bubbles of gas that line the spiral arms. In some regions of the nearby galaxies observed, this web of features appears built from both individual and overlapping shells and bubbles where young stars are releasing energy.

“Areas which are completely dark in Hubble imaging light up in exquisite detail in these new infrared images, allowing us to study how the dust in the interstellar medium has absorbed the light from forming stars and emitted it back out in the infrared, illuminating an intricate network of gas and dust,” said team member Karin Sandstrom of the University of California, San Diego. ...

NGC 1365, observed here by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), is one of a total of 19 galaxies targeted for study by the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) collaboration.In the MIRI observations of NGC 1365, clumps of dust and gas in the interstellar medium have absorbed the light from forming stars and emitted it back out in the infrared, lighting up an intricate network of cavernous bubbles and filamentary shells created by young stars releasing energy into the galaxy’s spiral arms.
The exquisite resolution from Webb also picks up several extremely bright star clusters not far from the core and newly observed, recently formed clusters along the outer edges of the bar connecting to the spiral arms, only visible with Webb due to the thick dust in this region. Additionally, the Webb images provide insights into how the orbits of stars and gas vary depending on where they form, and how this results in the population of older clusters outside the inner star-formation ring. NGC 1365 is a double-barred spiral galaxy that lies about 56 million light years away from Earth in the constellation Fornax. It’s one of the largest galaxies currently known to astronomers, spanning twice the length of the Milky Way across.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Tokan]

Quite strange!

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

[Jundo]

Ok, this is one of the strangest stories I have heard in awhile ...

Journalist says he had a creepy encounter with new tech that left him unable to sleep ... New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose has early access to new features in Microsoft's search engine Bing that incorporates artificial intelligence. Roose says the new chatbot tried to get him to leave his wife.

https://youtu.be/f24JL0nnhcA

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Now, I need GPS to find where I put my glasses!

Augmented Reality GPS Navigation in a Smart Contact Lens – Made With 3D Printer!

Core 3D printing process technology for smart contact lenses that can implement augmented reality (AR)-based navigation has been developed by Dr. Seol Seung-Kwon’s Smart 3D Printing Research Team at the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) and Professor Lim-Doo Jeong’s team at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST).

A smart contact lens is a product attached to the human eye like a normal lens and provides various information. Research on the lens is being conducted mainly on diagnosing and treating health. Recently, Google and others are developing smart contact lenses for displays that can implement AR. Still, many obstacles to commercialization exist due to severe technical challenges.

... The main expected application area is navigation. Simply by wearing a lens, navigation unfolds in front of a person’s eyes through AR. Games such as the popular ‘Pokemon Go’ can also be enjoyed with smart contact lenses, not smartphones.

Dr. Seol Seung-Kwon’s of KERI said, “Our achievement is a development of 3D printing technology that can print functional micro-patterns on non-planner substrate that can commercialize advanced smart contact lenses to implement AR.” He added, “It will greatly contribute to the miniaturization and versatility of AR devices.”

https://scitechdaily.com/augmented-reality-gps-navigation-in-a-smart-contact-lens-made-with-3d-printer/

MOJO Vision is another company working on contact augmented reality ...

https://youtu.be/61QNTWE54QU

AI fixes DNA ...

Machine Learning Helps Design the Best Fix for a Given Genetic Flaw

Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute have developed a new tool to predict the chances of successfully inserting a gene-edited sequence of DNA into the genome of a cell, using a technique known as prime editing. An evolution of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, prime editing has huge potential to treat genetic diseases in humans, from cancer to cystic fibrosis. But thus far, the factors determining the success of edits are not well understood.

The study, published today (February 16, 2023) in the journal Nature Biotechnology, assessed thousands of different DNA sequences introduced into the genome using prime editors. These data were then used to train a machine learning algorithm to help researchers design the best fix for a given genetic flaw, which promises to speed up efforts to bring prime editing into the clinic.

... Developed in 2012, CRISPR-Cas9 was the first easily programmable gene editing technology. These ‘molecular scissors’ enabled researchers to cut DNA at any position in the genome in order to remove, add or alter sections of the DNA sequence. The technology has been used to study which genes are important for various conditions, from cancer to rare diseases, and to develop treatments that fix or turn off harmful mutations or genes.

Base editors were an innovation expanding on CRISPR-Cas9 and were called ‘molecular pencils’ for their ability to substitute single bases of DNA. The latest gene editing tools, created in 2019, are called prime editors. Their ability to perform search and replace operations directly on the genome with a high degree of precision has led to them being dubbed ‘molecular word processors’.

The ultimate aim of these technologies is to correct harmful mutations in people’s genes. Over 16,000 small deletion variants – where a small number of DNA bases have been removed from the genome – have been causally linked to disease. This includes cystic fibrosis, where 70 percent of cases are caused by the deletion of just three DNA bases. In 2022, base edited T-cells were successfully used to treat a patient’s leukemia, where chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant had failed. ...

... Jonas Koeppel, first author of the study from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: “The variables involved in successful prime edits of the genome are many, but we’re beginning to discover what factors improve the chances of success. Length of sequence is one of these factors, but it’s not as simple as the longer the sequence the more difficult it is to insert. We also found that one type of DNA repair prevented the insertion of short sequences, whereas another type of repair prevented the insertion of long sequences.” ...

... Juliane Weller, a first author of the study from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: “Put simply, several different combinations of three DNA letters can encode for the same amino acid in a protein. That’s why there are hundreds of ways to edit a gene to achieve the same outcome at the protein level. By feeding these potential gene edits into a machine learning algorithm, we have created a model to rank them on how likely they are to work. We hope this will remove much of the trial and error involved in prime editing and speed up progress considerably." ...

https://scitechdaily.com/acceleratin...-genetic-flaw/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Combining new technologies to solve an ancient disease ...

Lasers, robots, and tiny electrodes are transforming treatment of severe epilepsy

... There are a growing number of patients like Tom. Their stories show how new technology is changing the way doctors assess and treat drug-resistant epilepsy, which affects more than a quarter of the roughly 3 million people in the U.S. with the disorder.

Technological advances include not only tiny electrodes and lasers, but MRI machines that provide high-resolution images during surgery, and implanted devices that can stop a seizure in its tracks.

"We help the vast majority of patients we treat quite significantly with a combination of these technologies," says Dr. Sharona Ben-Haim, the neurosurgeon at UCSD who operated on Tom. ...

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...evere-epilepsy

Even if this is not exactly what happened, something just as fantastic seems to have happened. We are space creatures, fallen to earth ...

Unraveling the Origins of the Building Blocks of Life: The Role of Interstellar Clouds

A recent study led by Dr. Danna Qasim, a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, suggests that the conditions within interstellar clouds may have had a substantial impact on the presence of key building blocks of life in the solar system. “Carbonaceous chondrites, some of the oldest objects in the universe, are meteorites that are thought to have contributed to the origins of life. They contain several different molecules and organic substances, including amines and amino acids, which are key building blocks of life that were critical to creating life on Earth. These substances are necessary to create proteins and muscle tissue,” Qasim said.

Most meteorites are pieces of asteroids that shattered in the asteroid belt, situated between Mars and Jupiter, a long time ago. These fragments orbit the Sun for extended periods, potentially millions of years, before they collide with Earth.

One of the questions Qasim and others are trying to answer is how amino acids got into the carbonaceous chondrites in the first place.

https://scitechdaily.com/unraveling-the-origins-of-the-building-blocks-of-life-the-role-of-interstellar-clouds/

AND THIS IS JUST SUPER COOLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!

.... Nina Kraus, PhD, is director of the Auditory Neuroscience Lab (Brainvolts) at Northwestern University. ...

SHAPIRO: So your research can actually show us what the brain experiences when it encounters sound. How does that work?

KRAUS: Absolutely. As I'm talking to you now, the neurons in your brain that respond to sound are producing electricity. And with scalp electrodes, we can measure that electricity. I can then sonify it so that we can listen to what your brain produced when it was listening to whatever it was that you were listening to. And what is remarkable is that when we play back the brain's response to sound, it will actually physically resemble the sound that stimulated the brain in the first place.

SHAPIRO: OK, let's do it. What do you want to play for us?

KRAUS: So here is a person listening to "Amazing Grace." So here's the sound that we're hearing.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KRAUS: And this is the response that we captured as they were listening to this particular clip of "Amazing Grace."

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KRAUS: Pretty recognizable, right? So we have so much to work with. We can listen to this person's response to sound, so you can imagine we can compare different kinds of people and different kinds of brains. ...

DO NOT MISS THIS: From 7:00 mark to 10:30 ...

https://youtu.be/43I_PHyb_K8

Mind reading just around the corner??

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Hmmm.

Scientists Discover Common Brain Network for Psychiatric Illnesses

Nearly one in five adults in the United States is affected by psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and depression. Additionally, about half of patients diagnosed with a psychiatric illness also have symptoms of another disorder. This overlap has led researchers to believe that there may be a single neurobiological explanation for various psychiatric illnesses. A team of researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, studied four existing neurological and psychiatric datasets and pinpointed a network of brain areas underlying psychiatric illnesses. The results of the study were recently published in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

... The researchers began by analyzing a set of structural brain data from over 15,000 healthy controls as well as patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or anxiety. They found gray matter decreases in anterior cingulate and insula, two brain regions commonly associated with psychiatric illness. However, only a third of studies showed gray matter decreases in these brain regions. Additionally, neurodegenerative diseases also showed gray matter decreases in these same regions.

... Instead, their analyses point to the posterior parietal cortex as the brain network node most likely to be causally associated with psychiatric illness.

By identifying a significant, sensitive, and specific transdiagnostic network for psychiatric illness, the team has opened up a number of possible new directions for follow-up studies, including analyzing existing fMRI datasets to see if neural activation patterns follow the same circuit and investigating circuit-based differences across psychiatric disorders. Taylor also plans on using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to modulate the network, specifically using the posterior parietal region as a target.

“Psychiatric disorders are brain disorders, and now we’re just beginning to have the tools to study and modulate their underlying circuitry,” said Taylor. “There may be more in common across these disorders than we originally thought.”

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-...ric-illnesses/

Off to another adventure ... a European vacation ...

A grand odyssey of exploration is about to begin. Humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, is poised to explore giant planet Jupiter and its largest moons.

These intriguing worlds have piqued our curiosity ever since Galileo first raised his telescope to the planet and discovered its four largest moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, three of which are thought to harbor underground oceans.

Early space probes visiting the Jovian system have raised more questions than answers. But thanks to Juice, many of those answers are now within reach. ESA is launching the spacecraft in April 2023 on an eight-year journey to the distant planet.

... The mission aims to explore the emergence of habitable worlds around gas giants, using the Jupiter system as a model for the many giant planets found orbiting other stars. It will make detailed observations of the giant gas planet and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa – with a comprehensive suite of remote sensing, geophysical, and in situ instruments.

https://scitechdaily.com/juices-odyssey-of-exploration-to-uncover-the-hidden-secrets-of-mysterious-worlds/

https://youtu.be/SiBoNS5xGM8

Gassho, J

stlah

[Shokai]

This is what earth will look like in ??zillion years as our red dwarf (sun) expands and envelops us. (ref: what we see in our desserts to date; also, life is impermanence) I don't plan on being around to see this happen.

gassho, Shokai
stlah

[Jundo]

Lakefront property ... on Mars ...

NASA rover finds ‘clearest evidence yet’ of an ancient lake on Mars


In the foothills of a Martian mountain, NASA’s Curiosity rover found stunning new evidence of an ancient lake in the form of rocks etched with the ripples of waves — and the telltale signs appeared in an unlikely place.

The rover is traversing an area of Mars called the “sulfate-bearing unit” that researchers previously thought would only show evidence of mere trickles of water, as scientists believed the rocks there formed as the surface of the red planet was drying out. Instead, the rover found some of the clearest evidence yet of ancient waters. ... The sulfate-bearing unit is a region previously identified by the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter as containing salty mineral deposits just beneath an 18,000-foot (5,500-meter) mountain called Mount Sharp. Scientists consider the sulfate-bearing unit to be a location rife with clues about how and why Mars morphed from a watery planet into the frozen place it is today, and researchers have long sought to explore the area in more depth. ...

... “Billions of years ago, waves on the surface of a shallow lake stirred up sediment at the lake bottom, over time creating rippled textures left in rock,” according to a NASA news release.

The wave-marked rocks were found about one-half mile (800 meters) into Curiosity’s ascent of Mount Sharp. As the rover climbed higher, it traveled over rocks that would have formed more recently. That’s why researchers didn’t expect to see such clear markers of a large body of water.

https://us.cnn.com/2023/02/10/world/mars-nasa-curiosity-rover-ancient-waters-scn/index.html

HUMANganese ...

New research reveals clues about the physical and chemical characteristics of Earth when life is thought to have emerged.

About four billion years ago, the first signs of life emerged on Earth in the form of microbes. Although scientists are still determining exactly when and how these microbes appeared, it’s clear that the emergence of life is intricately intertwined with the chemical and physical characteristics of early Earth. “It is reasonable to suspect that life could have started differently—or not at all—if the early chemical characteristics of our planet were different,” says Dustin Trail, an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester.

... Research into life and its origins typically involves a variety of disciplines including genomics, the study of genes and their functions; proteomics, the study of proteins; and an emerging field called metallomics, which explores the important role of metals in performing cellular functions. As life evolved, the need for certain metals changed, but Trail and McCollom wanted to determine what metals may have been available when microbes first appeared billions of years ago.

“When hypotheses are proposed for different origin-of-life scenarios, scientists have generally assumed all metals were available because there weren’t studies that provided geologically robust constraints on metal concentrations of fluids for the earliest times of Earth’s history,” Trail says.

... The researchers were surprised by what the model simulations indicated. Many origin-of-life researchers, for instance, consider copper a likely component in the chemistry that could have led to life. But Trail and McCollom did not find evidence that copper would have been abundant under the constraints in their analysis.

One metal they did test that may have been available in high concentrations was manganese. While it is rarely considered in origin-of-life scenarios, today manganese helps the body form bones and assists enzymes in breaking down carbohydrates and cholesterol. “Our research shows that metals like manganese may function as important links between the ‘solid’ Earth and emerging biological systems at Earth’s surface,” Trail says.

https://scitechdaily.com/new-models-...gins-on-earth/

My son goes to Virginia Tech, and he thinks that his dad is a fossil ...

First “Unmistakable” Triassic-Era Caecilian Fossils Discovered, Revealing Origins of Living Amphibians

A team of Virginia Tech paleontologists, led by doctoral candidate Ben Kligman, have discovered the first Triassic-era caecilian fossils, the oldest-known of their kind, in Arizona. The find helps fill a massive gap of roughly 90 million years in the historical record of caecilians where no fossils had been previously found, baffling scientists. ... Named by Kligman as Funcusvermis gilmorei, the fossil extends the history of caecilians 35 million years back to Triassic Period, roughly 250 million to 200 million years ago. ... Prior to this new study, published today in the journal Nature, only 10 fossil caecilian occurrences were known, dating back to the Early Jurassic Period, about 183 million years ago. However, previous DNA studies estimated evolutionary origins of caecilians back to the Carboniferous or Permian eras, some 370 million to 270 million years ago, according to Kligman, marking that 87-million-year gap. However, no such fossils had been found. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/first-unmistakable-triassic-era-caecilian-fossils-discovered-revealing-origins-of-living-amphibians/

Microscopic photograph of a lower jaw from Funcusvermis gilmorei soon after it was recovered during microscopic sorting of sediment from the Thunderstorm Ridge fossil site in the Petrified Forest National Park Paleontology Lab.

A cosmic love triangle ...

Hubble Captures a Spectacular Triple Galactic Crash Course

A spectacular trio of merging galaxies in the constellation Boötes takes center stage in this stunning image from the Hubble Space Telescope. These three galaxies are set on a collision course and will eventually merge into a single larger galaxy, distorting one another’s spiral structure through mutual gravitational interaction in the process. An unrelated foreground galaxy appears to float serenely alongside the collision, and the smudged shapes of much more distant galaxies are visible in the background.

This colliding trio — known to astronomers as SDSSCGB 10189 — is a relatively rare combination of three large star-forming galaxies lying within only 50,000 light-years of one another. While that might sound like a safe distance, for galaxies this makes them extremely close neighbors! Our own galactic neighbors are much further away; Andromeda, the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way, is more than 2.5 million light-years away from Earth. ...

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

... it can lead to exaggeration or over-simplification which can then get misrepresented by those not in the field.

This is so true, and no more true than in the sometime articles published on the positive health effects of meditation. I saw one today that I hesitated to put here, with a miniscule sample and poor study structure, supposedly showing that meditation has good effect on gut bacteria!

https://scitechdaily.com/deep-meditation-may-alter-gut-microbes-and-improve-physical-and-mental-health/

But, still, it is these science stories that should capture the world's daily news attention, not the belching of politicians or movie stars or balloons.

However, my real reason for putting stories here is not to comment on their worth for scientific advancement, but because the vast majority are stories ... about the ancient formation of stars and galaxies, about the balance of biology on this planet, within our cells and these amazing brains ... that should give us pause to consider what a wonder it is that we are here at all, alive, on this planet, in these bodies, in this universe.



Gassho, Jundo

stlah

[Jundo]

You lose 2 dollars. I did 3 commands:

1- argue that chatgtp can’t practice medicine.

2. Add that chatgtp can assist doctors to 1.

3. Combine arguments 1. and 2.

[emoji3]

Gassho, JishinGTP, ST, LAH

I read that as your owing me $4.

Gassho, J

[Jishin]

I will bet you $2 that you just copy and pasted this from ChatGPT, whom you asked "can you practice medicine." Am I right, you?

Gassho, JundoGPT

stlah

You lose 2 dollars. I did 3 commands:

1- argue that chatgtp can’t practice medicine.

2. Add that chatgtp can assist doctors to 1.

3. Combine arguments 1. and 2.

[emoji3]

Gassho, JishinGTP, ST, LAH