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

[Jundo]

More rice for more mouths to feed including, perhaps, more clone rice for future clone mouths ...

Feeding Billions: Researchers Clone Hybrid Rice Strains With 95% Efficiency

An international group of researchers has achieved a 95% success rate in reproducing a commercial hybrid rice variety as a clone through seeds. This breakthrough has the potential to reduce the cost of hybrid rice seeds, making high-yielding and disease-resistant rice strains accessible to farmers with limited resources worldwide. The findings were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

Crops produced from first-generation hybrids often display improved performance compared to their parent strains, which is referred to as “hybrid vigor”. However, this improvement does not continue when the hybrids are bred for a second generation. As a result, farmers who wish to use high-performing hybrid plant varieties must purchase new seeds each season.

Rice, the staple crop for half the world’s population, is relatively costly to breed as a hybrid for a yield improvement of about 10 percent. This means that the benefits of rice hybrids have yet to reach many of the world’s farmers, said Gurdev Khush, adjunct professor emeritus in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/feeding-bil...95-efficiency/

ChatGPT ... is soon to be a GP (General Practitioner) MD??

ChatGPT’s Stunning Results on the US Medical Licensing Exam

The AI software was able to achieve passing scores for the exam, which usually requires years of medical training.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT can score at or around the approximately 60 percent passing threshold for the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), with responses that make coherent, internal sense and contain frequent insights. This is according to a study by Tiffany Kung, Victor Tseng, and colleagues at AnsibleHealth, which was published on February 9, 2023, in the open-access journal PLOS Digital Health.

ChatGPT is a new artificial intelligence (AI) system, known as a large language model (LLM), designed to generate human-like writing by predicting upcoming word sequences. Unlike most chatbots, ChatGPT cannot search the internet. Instead, it generates text using word relationships predicted by its internal processes.

https://scitechdaily.com/the-rise-of...icensing-exam/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

More implanting of human brain parts into rats. What could go wrong?

Scientists Transplant Human Brain Organoids Into Adult Rats – And They Respond to Visual Stimuli

In a study published in the journal Cell Stem Cell on February 2, researchers show that brain organoids—clumps of lab-grown neurons—can integrate with rat brains and respond to visual stimulation like flashing lights.

Decades of research has shown that we can transplant individual human and rodent neurons into rodent brains, and, more recently, it has been demonstrated that human brain organoids can integrate with developing rodent brains. However, whether these organoid grafts can functionally integrate with the visual system of injured adult brains has yet to be explored. “We focused on not just transplanting individual cells, but actually transplanting tissue,” says senior author H. Isaac Chen, a physician and Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania. “Brain organoids have architecture; they have structure that resembles the brain. We were able to look at individual neurons within this structure to gain a deeper understanding of the integration of transplanted organoids.”

...


The team was surprised by the degree to which the organoids were able to integrate within only three months. “We were not expecting to see this degree of functional integration so early,” says Chen. “There have been other studies looking at transplantation of individual cells that show that even 9 or 10 months after you transplant human neurons into a rodent, they’re still not completely mature.”

“Neural tissues have the potential to rebuild areas of the injured brain,” says Chen. “We haven’t worked everything out, but this is a very solid first step. Now, we want to understand how organoids could be used in other areas of the cortex, not just the visual cortex, and we want to understand the rules that guide how organoid neurons integrate with the brain so that we can better control that process and make it happen faster.”

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-transplant-human-brain-organoids-into-adult-rats-and-they-respond-to-visual-stimuli/

This is a histological image of a rat brain with a grafted human brain organoid

A look back in time ...

James Webb Space Telescope Explores Star Formation in Distant Galaxies

Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope’s first images of galaxy clusters, researchers have, for the very first time, been able to examine very compact structures of star clusters inside galaxies, so-called clumps. In a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers from Stockholm University have studied the first phase of star formation in distant galaxies.

... “The images from the James Webb Space Telescope show that we can now detect very small structures inside very distant galaxies and that we can see these clumps in many of these galaxies. The telescope is a game-changer for the entire field of research and helps us understand how galaxies form and evolve”, says Angela Adamo, Oscar Klein Center, Stockholm University, one of the lead authors of the study.

The oldest galaxy studied in the paper is so far away that we see what it looked like 13 billion years ago, when the Universe was only 680 million years old.

The James Webb Space Telescope captured this image of a galaxy cluster (SMACS0723). The five zoomed in galaxies are so far away that we observe them as they were when the Universe was between one and five billion years old. Today the Universe is 13.7 billion years old.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Perhaps the Heart Sutra can be more specific ...

No eye, ear, nose, including no multivesicular transductosome organelles, tongue, body, mind ...

Researchers Discover a Previously Unknown Cellular Component Inside Neurons That We Use To Perceive Smell

Umeå University researchers in Sweden have uncovered a previously unidentified cellular component, an organelle, within neurons that play a role in our sense of smell. This discovery could have implications for future studies on the diminished sense of smell, a common symptom of COVID-19. ... What the researchers have discovered is a so-called organelle inside nerve cells, that has not previously been observed. The newly discovered organelle has been given the name multivesicular transducosome by the researchers. The discovery was made possible thanks to Umeå University’s unique microscopy infrastructure.

Organelles are distinct ’workstations’ inside cells that can be compared to the different organs of the body, i.e. different organelles have different functions in the cell. Most organelles are common to different cell types, but there are also organelles with specific functions that only occur in certain cell types. Olfactory nerve cells have long projections, i.e. cilia, that protrude into the nasal cavity and contain the proteins that bind odorous substances and thus initiate nerve impulses to the brain. The conversion of odor into nerve impulses is called transduction and the newly discovered organelle contains only transduction proteins.

The role of the transductosome is to both store and keep transduction proteins separate from each other until they are needed. Upon olfactory stimulation, the outer membrane of the organelle ruptures, releasing the transduction proteins so that they can reach the cilia of the neuron, and smell is perceived.

The researchers also discovered that the transductosome carries a protein called retinitis pigmentosa 2, RP2, which is otherwise known to regulate transduction in the eye’s photoreceptor cells. If the RP2 gene is mutated, it can cause a variant of the eye disease retinitis pigmentosa that damages the eye’s light-sensitive cells.

“A question for further research is whether the transductosome has a role in vision and whether it is present in brain neurons that are activated by neurotransmitters and not light and smell. If so, the discovery may prove even more significant,” says Staffan Bohm.

https://scitechdaily.com/researchers-discover-a-previously-unknown-cellular-component-inside-neurons-that-we-use-to-perceive-smell/

Release of vesicles with transduction proteins in electron microscope magnification.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Some near-time dangers of AI competition ... truly earthshaking ...

Google and Microsoft’s AI arms race could have ‘unintended consequences,’ an AI ethicist warns


Google is officially set to confront OpenAI’s ChatGPT — and soon. The tech titan, which has had a stranglehold on internet search for as long as most web users can remember, formally announced Monday that it will roll out Bard, its experimental conversational AI service, in the “coming weeks.”

... Ammanath said that “unintended consequences” accompany every new technology and reluctantly expressed confidence that it too will occur with AI chatbots, unless significant precautions are taken. For now, she doesn’t see the guardrails in place to rein in the nascent technology. Instead, Ammanath equated what is currently transpiring with the swift deployment of AI as companies “building Jurassic Park, putting some danger signs on the fences, but leaving all the gates open.” Yes, there is some acknowledgment about the dangers the technology poses. But it’s not enough, given the risks.

Ammanath stressed that computer scientists working on AI have yet to solve for bias, a years-long problem, as well as other worrisome issues that plague the technology. One major problem is that AI bots cannot separate truth from fantasy.

“The challenge with new language models is they blend fact and fiction,” Ammanath told me. “It spreads misinformation effectively. It cannot understand the content. So it can spout out completely logical sounding content, but incorrect. And it delivers it with complete confidence.”

That’s effectively what happened last month when CNET was forced to issue corrections on a number of articles, including some that it described as “substantial,” after using an AI-powered tool to help the news outlet write dozens of stories. ...

https://us.cnn.com/2023/02/06/media/...ces/index.html

And on this day when massive earthquakes rock the world, a better understanding of the massive forces below our feet ...

Groundbreaking Discovery of Hidden Molten Rock Layer Under Earth’s Tectonic Plates

Scientists have discovered a new layer of partly molten rock under the Earth’s crust that might help settle a long-standing debate about how tectonic plates move.

Researchers had previously identified patches of melt at a similar depth. But a new study led by The University of Texas at Austin revealed for the first time the layer’s global extent and its part in plate tectonics. ... The molten layer is located about 100 miles from the surface and is part of the asthenosphere, which sits under the Earth’s tectonic plates in the upper mantle. The asthenosphere is important for plate tectonics because it forms a relatively soft boundary that lets tectonic plates move through the mantle. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/groundbreaking-discovery-of-hidden-molten-rock-layer-under-earths-tectonic-plates/

The Earth with the upper mantle revealed.

Fortunately, for those of us in earthquake zones, some advances perhaps ...

Revolutionizing Disaster Prevention: New Earthquake Prediction Model Unveiled by Scientists

A new earthquake model has been developed by Northwestern University that considers the full history of a fault’s earthquakes to better forecast the next one.

Northwestern University researchers have published a study that could help solve one of seismology’s main challenges — predicting when the next big earthquake will occur on a fault. Seismologists traditionally believed that large earthquakes on faults follow a regular pattern and occur after the same amount of time as between the previous two. However, the Earth doesn’t always comply, as earthquakes can sometimes occur sooner or later than expected. Until now, seismologists lacked a way to explain this unpredictability.

Now they do. The Northwestern research team of seismologists and statisticians has developed an earthquake probability model that is more comprehensive and realistic than what is currently available. Instead of just using the average time between past earthquakes to forecast the next one, the new model considers the specific order and timing of previous earthquakes. It helps explain the puzzling fact that earthquakes sometimes come in clusters — groups with relatively short times between them, separated by longer times without earthquakes.

“Considering the full earthquake history, rather than just the average over time and the time since the last one, will help us a lot in forecasting when future earthquakes will happen,” said Seth Stein, William Deering Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. “When you’re trying to figure out a team’s chances of winning a ball game, you don’t want to look only at the last game and the long-term average. Looking back over additional recent games can also be helpful. We now can do a similar thing for earthquakes.”

https://scitechdaily.com/revolutionizing-disaster-prevention-new-earthquake-prediction-model-unveiled-by-scientists/

By the way, the Buddha is quoted as offering a traditional model for earthquakes, perhaps not a time when the Buddha got it all right, although it is not totally wrong either ...

Then the Blessed One said: "There are eight reasons, Ananda, eight causes for a mighty earthquake to arise. What are those eight?

"This great earth, Ananda, is established upon liquid, the liquid upon the atmosphere, and the atmosphere upon space. And when, Ananda, mighty atmospheric disturbances take place, the liquid is agitated. And with the agitation of the liquid, tremors of the earth arise. This is the first reason, the first cause for the arising of mighty earthquakes.

"Again, Ananda, when an ascetic or holy man of great power, one who has gained mastery of his mind, or a deity who is mighty and potent, develops intense concentration on the delimited aspect of the earth element, and to a boundless degree on the liquid element, he, too, causes the earth to tremble, quiver, and shake. This is the second reason, the second cause for the arising of mighty earthquakes.

"Again, Ananda, when the Bodhisatta departs from the Tusita realm and descends into his mother's womb, mindfully and clearly comprehending; and when the Bodhisatta comes out from his mother's womb, mindfully and clearly comprehending; and when the Tathagata becomes fully enlightened in unsurpassed, supreme Enlightenment; when the Tathagata sets rolling the excellent Wheel of the Dhamma; when the Tathagata renounces his will to live on; and when the Tathagata comes to pass away into the state of Nibbana in which no element of clinging remains — then, too, Ananda, this great earth trembles, quivers, and shakes.

...

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipi....1-6.vaji.html

Gassho, J

stlah

[Onrin]

I'd wager neanderthals had some zen understanding too. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/n...kstories/2277/

[Jundo]

And then came Stuart Little ...

For the First Time: Human Brain Organoids Implanted in Mice Show Response to Visual Stimuli

A group of engineers and neuroscientists have shown, for the first time, that brain organoids implanted in mice form functional connections to the mice’s cortex and respond to external sensory stimuli. The team observed the organoids reacting to visual stimuli similarly to the surrounding tissues, thanks to a transparent graphene microelectrode array and two-photon imaging system that allowed real-time monitoring over several months.

Human cortical organoids are derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells, which are usually derived themselves from skin cells. These brain organoids have recently emerged as promising models to study the development of the human brain, as well as a range of neurological conditions.

But until now, no research team had been able to demonstrate that human brain organoids implanted in the mouse cortex were able to share the same functional properties and react to stimuli in the same way. This is because the technologies used to record brain function are limited, and are generally unable to record activity that lasts just a few milliseconds.

... These findings suggest that the organoids had established synaptic connections with surrounding cortex tissue three weeks after implantation, and received functional input from the mouse brain. Researchers continued these chronic multimodal experiments for eleven weeks and showed functional and morphological integration of implanted human brain organoids with the host mice’s cortex. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/for-the-first-time-human-brain-organoids-implanted-in-mice-show-response-to-visual-stimuli/

tsuku.jpg

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

And I thought that my brain is getting old!

A 319-million-year-old brain has been discovered. It could be the oldest of its kind

A scan of the skull of a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish has led to the discovery of the oldest example of a well-preserved vertebrate brain, shining a new light on the early evolution of bony fish.

The fossil of the skull belonging to the extinct Coccocephalus wildi was found in a coal mine in England more than a century ago, according to researchers of the study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. ... [Then] came a surprise. The CT image showed an “unidentified blob,” a University of Michigan press release said.

The distinct, 3D object had a clearly defined structure with features found in vertebrate brains: It was bilaterally symmetrical, contained hollow spaces similar in appearance to ventricles and had extending filaments that resembled cranial nerves. ...

C. wildi was an early ray-finned fish – possessing a backbone and fins supported by bony rods called “rays” – that is thought to have been 6 to 8 inches long ...

... the configuration of a part of its forebrain called the “telencephalon” [] closely resembling that of other vertebrates, such as amphibians, birds, reptiles and mammals, according to the study authors. ... C. wildi’s brain was “exceptionally” well preserved. While there are invertebrate brains up to 500 million years old that have been found, they are all flattened, said Giles, who added that this vertebrate brain is “the oldest three-dimensional fossil brain of anything we know.”

https://us.cnn.com/2023/02/02/world/oldest-preserved-brain-fish-intl-scli-scn/index.html

An artist's interpretation of the 319-million-year-old, extinct, ray-finned Coccocephalus wildi, which is thought to have been 6 to 8 inches long and a carnivore.

And speaking of fish brains, keeping on track ... when we cannot be "goalless" and "just here" ... ...

A multiregional hindbrain circuit enables animals to regain their pathing after deviating from it.

A zebrafish heads toward its target, but strong currents push it off course. Undeterred, the small fish returns to its starting point, resolute in completing its journey.

How do animals know where they are in their environment, and how does this determine their subsequent choices? Researchers at Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus discovered that the hindbrain – an evolutionarily conserved or “ancient” region in the back of the brain – helps animals compute their location and use that information to figure out where they need to go next. ...

The researchers expected to see activation in the forebrain – where the hippocampus, which contains a “cognitive map” of an animal’s environment, is located. To their surprise, they saw activation in several regions of the medulla, where information about the animal’s location was being transmitted from a newly identified circuit via a hindbrain structure called the inferior olive to the motor circuits in the cerebellum that enable the fish to move. When these pathways were blocked, the fish was unable to navigate back to its original location.These findings suggest that areas of the brainstem remember a zebrafish’s original location and generate an error signal based on its current and past locations. This information is relayed to the cerebellum, allowing the fish to swim back to its starting point. This research reveals a new function for the inferior olive and the cerebellum, which were known to be involved in actions like reaching and locomotion, but not this type of navigation.

It is still unclear whether these same networks are involved in similar behavior in other animals. But the researchers hope labs studying mammals will now start looking at the hindbrain for homologous circuits for navigation. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/researchers-have-uncovered-new-functions-of-the-ancient-brain/

This video shows whole-brain recordings of the larval zebrafish taken while it was in the virtual reality environment.

... which leads us to make maps ... including maps of our great "ocean" of the universe ...

Cosmic Breakthrough: Accurate New Map of All the Matter in the Universe Released

A group of scientists, including several with the University of Chicago and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, have released one of the most precise measurements ever made of how matter is distributed across the universe today.

... Among other findings, the analysis indicates that matter is not as “clumpy” as we would expect based on our current best model of the universe, which adds to a body of evidence that there may be something missing from our existing standard model of the universe.

In this study, scientists combined data from two very different telescope surveys: The Dark Energy Survey, which surveyed the sky over six years from a mountaintop in Chile, and the South Pole Telescope, which looks for the faint traces of radiation that are still traveling across the sky from the first few moments of the universe.

... the analysis looked at a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. As light travels across the universe, it can be slightly bent as it passes objects with lots of gravity, like galaxies. This method catches both regular matter and dark matter—the mysterious form of matter that we have only detected due to its effects on regular matter—because both regular and dark matter exert gravity.

... The majority of the results fit perfectly with the currently accepted best theory of the universe. But there are also signs of a crack—one that has been suggested in the past by other analyses, too. “It seems like there are slightly less fluctuations in the current universe, than we would predict assuming our standard cosmological model anchored to the early universe,” ... If other studies continue to find the same results, scientists say, it may mean there is something missing from our existing model of the universe, but the results are not yet to the statistical level that scientists consider to be ironclad. That will take further study.

https://scitechdaily.com/cosmic-breakthrough-accurate-new-map-of-all-the-matter-in-the-universe-released/

By overlaying maps of the sky from the Dark Energy Survey telescope (at left) and the South Pole Telescope (at right), the team could assemble a map of how the matter is distributed

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Jurassic Squawk ... the (almost, kinda) Dodo may yet return!

Scientists plot the resurrection of a bird that’s been extinct since the 17th century

No other animal is as inexorably linked with extinction as the dodo, an odd-looking flightless bird that lived on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean until the late 17th century.

The arrival of sailors brought with them invasive species like rats and practices like hunting. They doomed the dodo, which showed no fear of humans, to extinction in the space of just a few decades.

Now, a team of scientists wants to bring back the dodo in a bold initiative that will incorporate advances in ancient DNA sequencing, gene editing technology and synthetic biology. They hope the project will open up new techniques for bird conservation.

“We’re clearly in the middle of an extinction crisis. And it’s our responsibility to bring stories and to bring excitement to people in way that motivates them to think about the extinction crisis that’s going on right now,” said Beth Shapiro, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Shapiro is the lead paleogeneticist at Colossal Biosciences, a biotechnology and genetic engineering start-up founded by tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm and Harvard Medical School geneticist George Church, which is working on equally ambitious projects to bring back the woolly mammoth and the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger.

Shapiro said that she had already completed a key first step in the project — fully sequencing the dodo’s genome from ancient DNA — based on genetic material extracted from dodo remains in Denmark.

The next step was to compare the genetic information with the dodo’s closest bird relatives in the pigeon family — the living Nicobar pigeon, and the extinct Rodrigues solitaire, a giant flightless pigeon that once lived on an island close to Mauritius. It’s a process which would allow them to narrow down which mutations in the genome “make a dodo a dodo,” Shapiro said.

HOWEVER!!

However, the subsequent work that’s needed to resurrect the animal — programming cells from a living relative of the dodo with the lost bird’s DNA — will be significantly more challenging. Shapiro said she hopes to adapt an existing technique used involving primordial germ cells, the embryonic precursors of sperm and eggs, that has already been used to create a chicken fathered by a duck.

The approach involves removing primordial gems cells from an egg, cultivating them in the lab and editing the cells with the desired genetic traits before injecting them back to an egg at the same developmental stage, she explained.

Even if the team is successful in this high-stakes endeavor, they won’t be making a carbon copy of the dodo that lived four centuries ago, but an altered, hybrid form.

https://us.cnn.com/2023/01/31/world/dodo-bring-back-from-extinction-colossal-scn/index.html

Those ships would be the downfall of the not-so-dumb dodo

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

As if we didn't have enough galaxies already! ...

Astronomers Suggest More Galaxies Were Formed in the Early Universe Than Previously Thought

A team of astronomers, headed by Haojing Yan at the University of Missouri, have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Early Release Observations and discovered 87 galaxies that could be the earliest known galaxies in the universe.

The discovery brings the astronomers closer to determining the appearance of galaxies in the universe, estimated to be 200-400 million years after the Big Bang, according to Yan, lead author and associate professor of physics and astronomy at MU.

“Finding such a large number of galaxies in the early parts of the universe suggests that we might need to revise our previous understanding of galaxy formation,” Yan said. “Our finding gives us the first indication that a lot of galaxies could have been formed in the universe much earlier than previously thought.”

https://scitechdaily.com/astronomers...ously-thought/

A wondrous example of the body's balanced dance ... everything in its place ...

Researchers Provide New Insight Into the Carefully Choreographed Dance of Nerve and Vascular Cells

Nerve cells require vast amounts of energy and oxygen which they receive through the bloodstream. This results in nerve tissue being densely intertwined with numerous blood vessels. However, what prevents neurons and vascular cells from interfering with each other during growth? Researchers from the Universities of Heidelberg and Bonn, in collaboration with international partners, have uncovered a mechanism that ensures this coordination. The findings have recently been published in the journal Neuron.

... During embryonic development, a large number of vessels sprout in the brain and spinal cord, but also in the retina of the eye. Additionally, masses of neurons are formed there, which network with each other and with structures such as muscles and organs. Both processes have to be considerate of each other so as not to get in each other’s way. “We have identified a new mechanism that ensures this,” explains Prof. Dr. Carmen Ruiz de Almodóvar, member of the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation2 and the Transdisciplinary Research Area Life & Health at the University of Bonn. ...

... “The appearance of blood vessels in the spinal cord begins in the animals about 8.5 days after fertilization,” she says. “Between days 10.5 and 12.5, however, blood vessels do not grow in all directions. This is despite the fact that large amounts of growth-promoting molecules are present in their environment during this time. Instead, during this time, numerous nerve cells – the motor neurons – migrate from their place of origin in the spinal cord to their final position. There, they then form extensions called axons that lead from the spine to the various targeting muscles.” This means that the motor neurons self-organize and grow at the time that blood vessels do not grow toward them. Only then after, do the vessels begin to sprout again. “The whole thing resembles a carefully choreographed dance,” explains José Ricardo Vieira. The doctoral student in Ruiz de Almodóvar’s research group did much of the work in the study. “In the course of this, each partner takes care not to get in the other’s way.”

But how is this dance coordinated? Apparently, by the motor neurons shouting a “stop, now it’s my turn” message to the vascular cells. To do this, they use a protein that they release into their environment – semaphorin 3C (Sema3C). It diffuses to the vascular cells and docks there at a receptor called PlexinD1 – in a sense, this is the ear for which the molecular message is intended. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/researchers...ascular-cells/

... and if you want one more example of the body's balanced dance ...

New Findings Explain Long-Standing, Baffling Cell Mystery


Scientists from Paul Scherrer Institute and ETH Zurich have uncovered the mechanism by which proteins form small liquid droplets that act as a smart adhesive in cells. These droplets attach to the ends of microtubules, which helps position the cell’s nucleus correctly during division. The research, published in Nature Cell Biology, explain the long-standing mystery of how moving protein structures in cells are joined together.

The connections between moving parts in machines are crucial for their proper functioning. Whether they are rigid or flexible, such as the connection between shafts in a motor or joints in the body, the material properties ensure that mechanical forces are transmitted correctly. This is especially true in cells, where interactions between moving subcellular structures are essential for many biological processes. However, the way in which nature achieves this coupling has long baffled scientists.

Now researchers, investigating a coupling crucial for yeast cell division, have revealed that to do this, proteins collaborate such that they condense into a liquid droplet. ... By forming a liquid droplet, the proteins achieve the perfect material properties to ensure biological function. This discovery is just the beginning of a new understanding of the role smart liquids play in the cell ...

https://scitechdaily.com/new-finding...-cell-mystery/

And when that balance is lost ...

A Completely New Way To Kill Cancer: Artificial DNA


University of Tokyo researchers have made a breakthrough in the fight against cancer with the use of artificial DNA. In laboratory tests, the method effectively targeted and destroyed human cervical and breast cancer cells, as well as malignant melanoma cells from mice. The team designed a pair of chemically synthesized DNA, shaped like hairpins, specifically to kill cancer cells. When injected into cancer cells, the DNA pairs attached to microRNA (miRNA) molecules that are overproduced in certain cancers.

The DNA pairs, upon attaching to the miRNA, unraveled and combined, forming longer chains of DNA that activated an immune response. This response not only eliminated the cancer cells but also prevented the continuation of cancerous growth. This innovative approach stands apart from traditional cancer drug treatments and is hoped to usher in a new era in drug development.

https://scitechdaily.com/a-completel...rtificial-dna/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Work that core!

Earth’s inner core may have stopped turning and could go into reverse, study suggests

The rotation of Earth’s inner core may have paused and it could even go into reverse, new research suggests.

The Earth is formed of the crust, the mantle and the inner and outer cores. The solid inner core is situated about 3,200 miles below the Earth’s crust and is separated from the semi-solid mantle by the liquid outer core, which allows the inner core to rotate at a different speed from the rotation of the Earth itself.

With a radius of almost 2,200 miles, Earth’s core is about the size of Mars. It consists mostly of iron and nickel, and contains about about one-third of Earth’s mass.

In research published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Monday, Yi Yang, associate research scientist at Peking University, and Xiaodong Song, Peking University chair professor, studied seismic waves from earthquakes that have passed through the Earth’s inner core along similar paths since the 1960s to infer how fast the inner core is spinning. What they found was unexpected, they said. ...

“We show surprising observations that indicate the inner core has nearly ceased its rotation in the recent decade and may be experiencing a turning-back,” they wrote in the study.

“When you look at the decade between 1980 and 1990 you see clear change but when you see 2010 to 2020 you don’t see much change,” added Song.

The spin of the inner core is driven by the magnetic field generated in the outer core and balanced by the gravitational effects of the mantle. Knowing how the inner core rotates could shed light on how these layers interact and other processes deep in the Earth.

However, the speed of this rotation, and whether it varies, is debated, said Hrvoje Tkalcic, a geophysicist at the Australian National University, who was not involved in the study,

“The inner core doesn’t come to a full stop,” he said. [It actually likely happens about every 70 years.] The study’s finding, he said, “means that the inner core is now more in sync with the rest of the planet than a decade ago when it was spinning a bit faster.”

“Nothing cataclysmic is happening,” he added.

Song and Yang argue that, based on their calculations, a small imbalance in the electromagnetic and gravitational forces could slow and even reverse the inner core’s rotation. They believe this is part of a seven-decade cycle, and that the turning point prior to the one they detected in their data around 2009/2010 occurred in the early 1970s.

WORTH A WATCH, Prof. Kaku explains:

https://youtu.be/Cgr6Tuz3G-w

https://us.cnn.com/2023/01/25/world/earth-core-turning-scli-scn-intl/index.html

Build that Wall!

Galactic Anomaly: The Milky Way Is Too Big for Its “Cosmological Wall”

Is the Milky Way special, or, at least, is it in a special place in the Universe? An international team of astronomers has found that the answer to that question is yes, in a way not previously appreciated. A new study shows that the Milky Way is too big for its “cosmological wall,” something yet to be seen in other galaxies. The new research is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

A cosmological wall is a flattened arrangement of galaxies found surrounding other galaxies, characterized by particularly empty regions called ‘voids’ on either side of it. These voids seem to squash the galaxies together into a pancake-like shape to make the flattened arrangement. This wall environment, in this case, called the Local Sheet, influences how The Milky Way and nearby galaxies rotate around their axes, in a more organized way than if we were in a random place in the Universe, without a wall. Typically, galaxies tend to be significantly smaller than this so-called wall. The Milky Way is found to be surprisingly massive in comparison to its cosmological wall, a rare cosmic occurrence.

https://scitechdaily.com/galactic-anomaly-the-milky-way-is-too-big-for-its-cosmological-wall/

...

The article does contain one section that a Zen Buddhist might dispute ..

“So, the Milky Way is, in a way, special,” said research lead Miguel Aragón. “The Earth is very obviously special, the only home of life that we know. But it’s not the center of the Universe, or even the Solar System. And the Sun is just an ordinary star among billions in the Milky Way. Even our galaxy seemed to be just another spiral galaxy among billions of others in the observable Universe.”

... “You might have to travel a half a billion light years from the Milky Way, past many, many galaxies, to find another cosmological wall with a galaxy like ours,” Aragón said. He adds, “That’s a couple of hundred times farther away than the nearest large galaxy around us, Andromeda.”

“You do have to be careful, though, choosing properties that qualify as ‘special,’” Dr. Mark Neyrinck, another member of the team, said. “If we added a ridiculously restrictive condition on a galaxy, such as that it must contain the paper we wrote about this, we would certainly be the only galaxy in the observable Universe like that. But we think this ‘too big for its wall’ property is physically meaningful and observationally relevant enough to call out as really being special.”

A Zen fellow would point out that EVERY point of the universe is "a" center, and the whole universe together is "the" center ...

https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/centre.html

... and that "ordinary vs. special" smack of subjective emotional value judgements that have little place in science (e.g., one might say that there are many suns of similar size and structure, but that does not mean that they are not each "special" or "ordinary" for being their unique self). In fact, in Buddhism, every inch of the universe is the center and is special for being that inch.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Synapses standing by ...

Surprising Discovery: MIT Neuroscientists Find That Adult Brain Is Filled With Millions of “Silent Synapses”

The ability of the adult brain to form new memories and absorb new information may be explained by these immature connections.

MIT neuroscientists have found that the adult brain is filled with millions of “silent synapses” — immature connections between neurons that are not active until they are needed to help create new memories.

It was previously believed that silent synapses only existed during early development, playing a role in helping the brain learn new information encountered in early life. However, the new MIT study discovered that in adult mice, approximately 30% of all synapses in the brain’s cortex are silent.

The existence of these silent synapses may help to explain how the adult brain is able to continually form new memories and learn new things without having to modify existing conventional synapses, the researchers say.

“These silent synapses are looking for new connections, and when important new information is presented, connections between the relevant neurons are strengthened. This lets the brain create new memories without overwriting the important memories stored in mature synapses, which are harder to change,” says Dimitra Vardalaki, an MIT graduate student and the lead author of the new study.

...

When scientists first discovered silent synapses decades ago, they were seen primarily in the brains of young mice and other animals. During early development, these synapses are believed to help the brain acquire the massive amounts of information that babies need to learn about their environment and how to interact with it. In mice, these synapses were believed to disappear by about 12 days of age (equivalent to the first months of human life).

However, some neuroscientists have proposed that silent synapses may persist into adulthood and help with the formation of new memories. ... The findings offer support for the theory proposed by Abbott and Fusi that the adult brain includes highly plastic synapses that can be recruited to form new memories, the researchers say.

“This paper is, as far as I know, the first real evidence that this is how it actually works in a mammalian brain,” Harnett says. “Filopodia allow a memory system to be both flexible and robust. You need flexibility to acquire new information, but you also need stability to retain the important information.”

https://scitechdaily.com/surprising-...lent-synapses/

A robot is thrown out of court ...

A robot was scheduled to argue in court, then came the jail threats

A British man who planned to have a "robot lawyer" help a defendant fight a traffic ticket has dropped the effort after receiving threats of possible prosecution and jail time.

Joshua Browder, the CEO of the New York-based startup DoNotPay, created a way for people contesting traffic tickets to use arguments in court generated by artificial intelligence.

Here's how it was supposed to work: The person challenging a speeding ticket would wear smart glasses that both record court proceedings and dictate responses into the defendant's ear from a small speaker. The system relied on a few leading AI text generators, including ChatGPT and DaVinci.

The first-ever AI-powered legal defense was set to take place in California on Feb. 22, but not anymore.

As word got out, an uneasy buzz began to swirl among various state bar officials, according to Browder. He says angry letters began to pour in.

"Multiple state bar associations have threatened us," Browder said. "One even said a referral to the district attorney's office and prosecution and prison time would be possible."

In particular, Browder said one state bar official noted that the unauthorized practice of law is a misdemeanor in some states punishable up to six months in county jail.

"Even if it wouldn't happen, the threat of criminal charges was enough to give it up," he said.

...

Even if the use of AI in court was not being challenged, some observers have questioned just how effective DoNotPay's AI tools would be for people in need of legal services, with some having mixed to shoddy results attempting to use its basic features.

Browder has been known for drumming up attention with stunts. Earlier this month, he claimed on Twitter that the company would pay any lawyer $1 million to argue in front of the U.S. Supreme Court wearing AirPods that would pipe AI-generated arguments from its "robot lawyer."

Founded in 2015, DoNotPay has raised $28 million, including funding from prominent venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, according to analytics firm PitchBook.

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/25/11514...e-jail-threats

Soon, we will have robots suing robots in court, with robot lawyer and robot judges ... in cases about robots ...

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Soon, we will have AI suing AI ...

An AI rival to ChatGPT passed a university level law and economics exam, and did better than many humans, professor says

An AI which received funding from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried passed a university-level law and economics exam, according to a professor at Virginia's George Mason University.

The AI, named Claude, was designed by AI safety and research firm Anthropic, and was used by Alex Tabarrok to take a law and economics

Claude received a "marginal pass" on a recent law and economics exam at George Mason University in Virginia, Alex Tabarrok, an economics professor at the college wrote on the influential Marginal Revolution University blog, which he runs with fellow economist Tyler Cowen.

Tabarrok said the exam was graded blind and that he considered Claude "a competitor" and "improvement" to OpenAI's GPT3, the tech underlying viral sensation ChatGPT.

Tabarrok did note that there were some weaknesses in the answer including the fact that it was "mostly opinion," and a better answer would have used more economic reasoning.

"Still a credible response and better than many human responses," he added.

https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-f...cs-exam-2023-1

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Whenever such announcements are made, I must remind everyone:

When looking at such sights, recall that the Zen Buddhist does not see vastness in contrast to our minute being. Rather, one is looking upon oneself, which is each and all and all pouring fully into you and me and each other ... all beyond "big or small."

If it is vast, so are you and me. If it is small, so are you and me. All of this is held within your every cell, your every cell is as large and larger than all of this.

Dark Energy Camera Unveils Billions of Celestial Objects in Unprecedented Survey of the Milky Way

Astronomers have released a gargantuan survey of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. The new dataset contains a staggering 3.32 billion celestial objects — arguably the largest such catalog so far. ... The Milky Way Galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, glimmering star-forming regions, and towering dark clouds of dust and gas. Imaging and cataloging these objects for study is a herculean task, but a newly released astronomical dataset known as the second data release of the Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey (DECaPS2) reveals a staggering number of these objects in unprecedented detail. The DECaPS2 survey, which took two years to complete and produced more than 10 terabytes of data from 21,400 individual exposures, identified approximately 3.32 billion objects — arguably the largest such catalog compiled to date. ... “When combined with images from Pan-STARRS 1, DECaPS2 completes a 360-degree panoramic view of the Milky Way’s disk and additionally reaches much fainter stars,” said Edward Schlafly, a researcher at the AURA-managed Space Telescope Science Institute and a co-author of the paper describing DECaPS2 published in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement. “With this new survey, we can map the three-dimensional structure of the Milky Way’s stars and dust in unprecedented detail.”

... “This is quite a technical feat. Imagine a group photo of over three billion people and every single individual is recognizable,” said Debra Fischer, division director of astronomical sciences at the National Science Foundation, in a statement. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/dark-energy-camera-unveils-billions-of-celestial-objects-in-unprecedented-survey-of-the-milky-way/

This image, which is brimming with stars and dark dust clouds, is a small extract — a mere pinprick — of the full Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey (DECaPS2) of the Milky Way.

And that's just our one galaxy!

And here, on the planet of the naked apes ... we walked upright ...

Not Where We Thought: Human Bipedalism May Have Evolved in Trees

... The study, published in the journal Science Advances, analyzed the behaviors of wild chimpanzees living in the Issa Valley of western Tanzania, an area similar to the habitat of early human ancestors and known as “savanna-mosaic” – a mix of dry open land with few trees and patches of dense forest. The researchers aimed to determine if the openness of this type of landscape could have led to bipedalism in early hominins. ... Overall, the study found that the Issa chimpanzees spent as much time in the trees as other chimpanzees living in dense forests, despite their more open habitat, and were not more terrestrial (land-based) as expected. Furthermore, although the researchers expected the Issa chimpanzees to walk upright more in open savanna vegetation, where they cannot easily travel via the tree canopy, more than 85% of occurrences of bipedalism took place in the trees.

The authors say that their findings contradict widely accepted theories that suggest that it was an open, dry savanna environment that encouraged our prehistoric human relatives to walk upright – and instead suggest that they may have evolved to walk on two feet to move around the trees.
https://scitechdaily.com/not-where-w...lved-in-trees/

... we got (sometimes too) smart ...

New research suggests that microRNAs play a crucial role in the advanced development of the brain, including in humans.

An international team of researchers from Dartmouth College and the Max Delbrück Center (MDC) in Germany has published a study in the journal Science Advances, revealing that octopuses are the first known invertebrates to contain a high number of gene-regulating microRNAs. The genes of two octopus species were found to have an increase in microRNAs, which are associated with the development of advanced cells with specific functions, over evolutionary time, a finding that has previously only been observed in humans, mammals, and other vertebrates. When combined with the known intelligence of octopuses, the findings provide crucial support for the theory that microRNAs are key to the evolution of intelligent life, said co-corresponding author Kevin Peterson, a Dartmouth professor of biological sciences. ... “MicroRNAs are known as the ‘dark matter’ of the animal genome — they don’t make protein, but they regulate the expression of proteins,” Peterson said, referring to the hypothetical form of matter thought to constitute most of the universe.

“This is the only instance in all of the invertebrates of dramatic microRNA increase and those genes are all expressed in the brain,” he said. “This was always a big test for the hypothesis, that it is not specific to vertebrates. This was a big moment — we discovered the secret to complex life, and the secret to complex life is microRNAs.”
https://scitechdaily.com/new-researc...c-dark-matter/

And perhaps we will use that intelligent brain to solve one human problem ...

Scientists Recycle Previously Unrecyclable Plastic

PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, is a widely used plastic in the United States and globally, ranking as the third highest by volume worldwide.

It can be found in a variety of everyday products, including hospital equipment such as tubing, blood bags, and masks, as well as plumbing pipes. PVC is also used in construction materials like window frames, housing trim, siding, and flooring. Additionally, it is used in coatings for electrical wiring and in various items such as shower curtains, tents, tarps, and clothing. t also has a zero percent recycling rate in the United States.

Now, the University of Michigan researchers, led by study first author Danielle Fagnani and principal investigator Anne McNeil, have discovered a way to chemically recycle PVC into usable material. The most fortuitous part of the study? The researchers found a way to use the phthalates in the plasticizers—one of PVC’s most noxious components—as the mediator for the chemical reaction. Their results are published in the journal Nature Chemistry.

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-recycle-previously-unrecyclable-plastic/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

I just wonder why this stuff isn't more in the news, but the nonsense in Washington, 10 Downing etc. etc. is what we obsess about ...

Nature's workshop is dusty ...

Webb Space Telescope Reveals Dusty Leftovers of Planet Formation Like Never Seen Before

Not so very far away in cosmic terms, the dusty leftovers of planet formation surround the red dwarf star AU Mic. Caused by smash-ups of small, solid objects called planetesimals, these remnants encircle the small star in an enormous debris disk. Now, Webb is providing scientists with detailed, never-before-seen views of AU Mic’s dusty disk in infrared light, including the region very close to the star. These images offer clues to the makeup of the debris disk and the history of the star system.

These two images are of the dusty debris disk around AU Mic, a red dwarf star located 32 light-years away in the southern constellation Microscopium. The team used Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to study AU Mic. NIRCam’s coronagraph, which blocked the intense light of the central star, allowed the team to study the region very close to the star. The location of the star, which is masked out, is marked by a white, graphical representation at the center of each image. The region blocked by the coronagraph is shown by a dashed circle.

https://scitechdaily.com/webb-space-telescope-reveals-dusty-leftovers-of-planet-formation-like-never-seen-before/

Longer batteries, less recharging ... a simple equation ...

A new battery has been developed that boasts four times the capacity of lithium batteries, and at a more affordable cost.

... According to the Clean Energy Council, in 2021 32.5 percent of Australia’s electricity came from clean energy sources and the industry is accelerating. Household energy storage is also growing. According to a recent report a record 33,000 batteries were installed in 2021.

“Our sodium battery has the potential to dramatically reduce costs while providing four times as much storage capacity. This is a significant breakthrough for renewable energy development which, although it reduces costs in the long term, has had several financial barriers to entry,” said lead researcher Dr. Zhao.

“When the sun isn’t shining and the breeze isn’t blowing, we need high-quality storage solutions that don’t cost the Earth and are easily accessible on a local or regional level.

https://scitechdaily.com/300-more-ca...storage-costs/

But this is the most important discovery today (for us with a sweet tooth) ...

Scientists Discover Secret Behind Chocolate’s Irresistible Texture – Paves Way for Healthier Luxury Chocolates

Scientists have decoded the physical process that takes place in the mouth when a piece of chocolate is eaten, as it changes from a solid into a smooth emulsion that many people find totally irresistible. ... “We are showing that the fat layer needs to be on the outer layer of the chocolate, this matters the most, followed by effective coating of the cocoa particles by fat, these help to make chocolate feel so good.” ... Dr. Siavash Soltanahmadi, from the School of Food Science and Nutrition at Leeds and the lead researcher in the study, said: “With the understanding of the physical mechanisms that happen as people eat chocolate, we believe that a next generation of chocolate can be developed that offers the feel and sensation of high-fat chocolate yet is a healthier choice. ...
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-...ry-chocolates/

CAT LOVERS ... KEEP THEM INSIDE, PLEASE!!!!

New Research Reveals Why You Shouldn’t Let Your Cat Outside

... keeping cats indoors can significantly reduce the risks of transmitting diseases and hunting wildlife, which can have a negative impact on native animal populations and biodiversity....

Gassho, J

stlah

https://scitechdaily.com/new-researc...r-cat-outside/

[Jundo]

Some nice news (thank you, Koushi, for the tip), a tech alternative to animal testing ... helping little beings ...

The US Just Greenlit High-Tech Alternatives to Animal Testing
Lab animals have long borne the brunt of drug safety trials. A new law allows drugmakers to use miniature tissue models, or organs-on-chips, instead.

ANIMAL TESTING HAS long been necessary for a drug to gain approval by the US Food and Drug Administration—but it may be on its way out. A new law seeks to replace some lab animal use with high-tech alternatives.

The FDA Modernization Act 2.0, signed by President Biden at the end of December with widespread bipartisan support, ends a 1938 federal mandate that experimental drugs must be tested on animals before they are used in human clinical trials. While the law doesn’t ban animal testing, it allows drugmakers to use other methods, such as microfluidic chips and miniature tissue models, which use human cells to mimic certain organ functions and structures.

“We have many important drugs that have been developed using animal tests. But as we get into some of these more difficult diseases, especially neurological diseases, the animal models just aren't serving us as well,” says Paul Locke, a scientist and lawyer at Johns Hopkins University who studies alternatives to animal testing. “We need new ways to really unlock the molecular mechanisms that are causing these diseases, and the alternatives I think hold great promise.”

Locke and other advocates point to studies that have shown animal testing to be an unreliable predictor of toxicity in humans. And plenty of drugs work in mice but aren’t effective in people. An estimated 90 percent of drug candidates in clinical trials never reach the market, and drugs that target the brain typically have an even higher failure rate. These inconsistencies, combined with the time, expense, and ethical issues associated with using animals, have led scientists to develop alternative testing methods that aim to better recapitulate human physiology.

These include microfluidic organs-on-chips—clear, flexible polymer gadgets about the size of a computer memory stick that contain different kinds of human cells and push fluid through tiny channels to mimic blood flow. The first successful chip containing living human cells, a lung model, was described in 2010 by Donald Ingber and his team at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute. The miniaturized device was able to carry out basic functions of the lung, including exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide. Researchers at the Wyss Institute and elsewhere have gone on to create chips that simulate the liver, stomach and intestine, brain, skin, and more, using them to test the effects of drugs and environmental toxins.

Then there are organoids—tiny, three-dimensional blobs of tissue grown in the lab. In 2008, Japanese biologist Yoshiki Sasai showed that, under the right conditions, it is possible to transform stem cells into neural tissue in a dish. By feeding cells certain nutrients and genetic instructions, scientists can coax them to self-organize into structures that resemble miniature organs and contain several cell types. Though no bigger than a pea, these models have some of the characteristics of full-size hearts and brains, and because they’re grown in a lab dish, they provide scientists with a detailed window into how organs form and develop. They’ve also been shown to predict patient responses to certain drugs, including cystic fibrosis medications and chemotherapy.

Computer models that use artificial intelligence and machine learning trained on human data could also provide fast and cheap alternatives to animal testing. One 2018 study from the University of Oxford found that a computer simulation representing human heart cells outperformed animal tests in predicting adverse effects among cardiac drugs.

Previously, the US government required that all investigational drugs be tested on animals before they could progress to initial trials in humans. But the new law allows drug developers to submit safety and efficacy data from sources other than animals.

This doesn’t mean it will be easier to get drugs approved, says Aysha Akhtar, a neurologist and president and CEO of the Center for Contemporary Sciences, a Washington, DC, nonprofit that advocates for human-based testing methods. “The decision is still up to the FDA to decide whether the method was adequate and whether to allow the drug to continue through the pipeline.”

...

For its part, the FDA will need to thoroughly vet any new methods that are used in place of animals. In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the agency wrote that the new law does not change the regulatory process for drugs: “The FDA will continue to ensure clinical investigations of drugs are reasonably safe for initial use in humans.” A spending bill passed at the end of 2022 also includes $5 million for an agency program aimed at evaluating alternative methods.

And it may be that different methods are useful for testing different drugs or watching for certain side effects. “They have to be shown to be relevant and reliable and actually predict the endpoints that they're evaluating,” says Locke. “That's going to be a scientific challenge, and it's going to take a while to do that.”

https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-just-greenlit-high-tech-alternatives-to-animal-testing/

Gassho, J

sattodaylah