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

[Jundo]

No water, no life, no you and me. But where did earth's water come from? A comet clue ...

Webb telescope spots water in rare comet

Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to observe a rare comet in our solar system, making a long-awaited scientific breakthrough and stumbling across another mystery at the same time.

For the first time, water was detected in a main belt comet, or a comet located in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The discovery came after 15 years of attempts by astronomers using different observation methods. ... Rather than shedding icy material through sublimation, when a solid turns directly to a gas, the main belt comets only seemed to eject dust. Given their location in the warm inner solar system closer to the sun than typical comets, main belt comets weren’t expected to retain much ice — until now. And the discovery could add more evidence to the theory of how water became a plentiful resource on Earth early in its history.

Comets and water-rich asteroids may have collided with early Earth and delivered water to our planet.

“Our water-soaked world, teeming with life and unique in the universe as far as we know, is something of a mystery — we’re not sure how all this water got here,” said study coauthor Stefanie Milam, Webb deputy project scientist for planetary science at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement. “Understanding the history of water distribution in the solar system will help us to understand other planetary systems, and if they could be on their way to hosting an Earth-like planet.”

https://us.cnn.com/2023/05/15/world/...scn/index.html

But our ice ages, also key to you and me, have an outer space connection ...

Cosmic Clockwork: The Outer Space Origin of Ice Age Cycle

A team of researchers, including climatologists and an astronomer, has utilized an enhanced computer model to recreate the ice age cycles that occurred between 1.6 and 1.2 million years ago. The findings indicate that the glacial periods were primarily influenced by astronomical forces in quite a different way than it works in the present day. ... The slow, gradual changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun and the orientation of its spin axis are influenced by the gravitational forces exerted by the Sun, Moon, and other planets. These astronomical factors impact Earth’s environment by altering the distribution of sunlight and the distinctions between seasons. Ice sheets, in particular, are highly responsive to these external forces, leading to cycles of glacial and interglacial periods. ...

... A team led by Yasuto Watanabe at the University of Tokyo focused on the early Pleistocene Epoch from 1.6 to 1.2 million years ago using an improved climate computer model. Astronomical forces based on modern state-of-the-art theory are considered in these simulations. The large numerical simulations in this study reproduce well the glacial cycle of 40,000 years of the early Pleistocene as indicated by the geological record data.

From the analysis of these simulation results, the team has identified three facts about the mechanisms by which astronomical forces caused changes in climate in those times. (1) The glacial cycle is determined by small differences in the amplitude of variation of the spin axis orientation and the orbit of the Earth. (2) The timing of deglaciation is determined mainly by the position of the summer solstice on its orbit, which is at perihelion, not only by the effect of periodical change of the tilt of the Earth’s axis. (3) The timing of the change in the spin axis orientation and the position of the summer solstice on its orbit determines the duration of the interglacial period.

https://scitechdaily.com/cosmic-cloc...ce-age-cycles/

Now, looking from the stars, to our bodies ...

USC Researchers Zoom Into the Human Genome With Unprecedented Resolution

As part of an international research team, Gazal has made a groundbreaking discovery. They’ve become the first to accurately pinpoint specific base pairs in the human genome that have remained unaltered throughout millions of years of mammalian evolution. These base pairs play a significant role in human disease. Their findings were published in a special Zoonomia edition of the journal Science. Gazal and his team analyzed the genomes of 240 mammals, including humans, zooming in with unprecedented resolution to compare DNA. They were able to identify base pairs that were “constrained” – meaning they remained generally consistent – across mammal species over the course of evolution. Individuals born with mutations on these genes may not have been as successful within their species or were otherwise not likely to pass down the genetic variation. “We were able to identify where gene mutations are not tolerated in evolution, and we demonstrated that these mutations are significant when it comes to disease,” explains Gazal.

The team found that 3.3% of bases in the human genome are “significantly constrained,” including 57.6% of the coding bases that determine amino acid position, meaning these bases had unusually few variants across species in the dataset. The most constrained base pairs in mammals were over seven times more likely to be causal for human disease and complex traits, and over 11 times more likely when researchers looked at the most constrained base pairs in primates alone.
https://scitechdaily.com/usc-researc...ed-resolution/

CRISPR gets crispier! ...

Gene Editing Gets a Triple Boost: “Happy Accident” Leads to Enhanced CRISPR Efficiency

Scientists have enhanced the efficiency of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing by threefold using interstrand crosslinks, without resorting to viral material for delivery. This approach boosts the cell’s natural repair mechanisms, allowing for more accurate and efficient gene editing, potentially improving disease research and preclinical work.

https://scitechdaily.com/gene-editin...pr-efficiency/

We truly leave traces of ourselves everywhere ...

Human DNA can now be pulled from thin air or a footprint on the beach. Here’s what that could mean

Footprints left on a beach. Air breathed in a busy room. Ocean water.

Scientists have been able to collect and analyze detailed genetic data from human DNA from all these places, raising thorny ethical questions about consent, privacy and security when it comes to our biological information.

The researchers from the University of Florida, who were using environmental DNA found in sand to study endangered sea turtles, said the DNA was of such high quality that the scientists could identify mutations associated with disease and determine the genetic ancestry of populations living nearby.

... Human DNA that has seeped into the environment through our spit, skin, sweat and blood could be used to help find missing persons, aid in forensic investigations to solve crimes, locate sites of archaeological importance, and for health monitoring through DNA found in waste water, the study noted.

However, the ability to capture human DNA from the environment could have a range of unintended consequences — both inadvertent and malicious, they added. These included privacy breaches, location tracking, data harvesting, and genetic surveillance of individuals or groups. It could lead to ethical hurdles for the approval of wildlife studies.

... Yves Moreau, a professor at the University of Leuven in Belgium who studies artificial intelligence and genetics and has shone a light on China’s DNA sampling of Tibetan and Uyghur minorities, said that while it was possible to imagine a scenario where “a mafia or dictatorship would track a protected witness or a political refugee” using waste water sequencing, it remained “a bit far fetched.”

“We need a political discussion of expectations of privacy in the public space, in particular for DNA. We cannot avoid shedding DNA in the public space,” Moreau, who was not involved in this study, said via email.

https://us.cnn.com/2023/05/15/health...scn/index.html

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Oh no, the astronomers are disturbed ...

Rethinking the Universe: Astronomers Disturbed by the Unexpected Scale of James Webb’s Galaxies

The first results from the James Webb Space Telescope have hinted at galaxies so early and so massive that they are in tension with our understanding of the formation of structure in the Universe. Various explanations have been proposed that may alleviate this tension. But now a new study from the Cosmic Dawn Center suggests an effect that has never before been studied at such early epochs, indicating that the galaxies may be even more massive.

... From our currently accepted concordance model of the structure and evolution of the Universe, the so-called ΛCDM model, they simply shouldn’t have had the time to form so many stars. ...

So what is the reason that the stellar masses turn out to be so much larger? Giménez Arteaga explains: “Stellar populations are a mixture of small and faint stars on one hand, and bright, massive stars on the other hand. If we just look at the combined light, the bright stars will tend to completely outshine the faint stars, leaving them unnoticed. Our analysis shows that bright, star-forming clumps may dominate the total light, but the bulk of the mass is found in smaller stars.”

https://scitechdaily.com/rethinking-...ebbs-galaxies/This image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 and its surroundings was the first image released from the James Webb Space Telescope in July 2023. The five zoom-ins are each roughly 19,000 lightyears across, and show galaxies seen some 13 billion years back in time. Careful analysis of these galaxies reveals that if we cannot resolve a galaxy, we may severely underestimate the total mass of its stars.

We maybe were mutts right from the start ...

New DNA Research Changes Origin of Human Species

A new model for human evolution asserts that modern Homo sapiens stemmed from multiple genetically diverse populations across Africa rather than a single ancestral population. This conclusion was reached after researchers analyzed genetic data from present-day African populations, including 44 newly sequenced genomes from the Nama group of southern Africa. The research suggests that the earliest detectable split in early human populations occurred between 120,000 to 135,000 years ago, after long periods of genetic intermixing, and that subsequent migrations created a weakly structured genetic stem. Contrary to some previous models, this research implies that contributions from archaic hominins were unlikely to have significantly affected Homo sapiens’ evolution.

https://scitechdaily.com/new-dna-res...human-species/

And its jelly beating sponge by a nose ... even before there were noses ...

What Did the Earliest Animals Look Like? Chromosomal Clues Unearth the Origins of Animal Evolution

For more than a century, biologists have wondered what the earliest animals were like when they first arose in the ancient oceans over half a billion years ago.

Searching among today’s most primitive-looking animals for the earliest branch of the animal tree of life, scientists gradually narrowed the possibilities down to two groups: sponges, which spend their entire adult lives in one spot, filtering food from seawater; and comb jellies, voracious predators that oar their way through the world’s oceans in search of food.

In a new study published this week in the journal Nature, researchers use a novel approach based on chromosome structure to come up with a definitive answer: Comb jellies, or ctenophores (teen’-a-fores), were the first lineage to branch off from the animal tree. Sponges were next, followed by the diversification of all other animals, including the lineage leading to humans.

... “The most recent common ancestor of all animals probably lived 600 or 700 million years ago. It’s hard to know what they were like because they were soft-bodied animals and didn’t leave a direct fossil record. But we can use comparisons across living animals to learn about our common ancestors,” said Daniel Rokhsar, University of California, Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology and co-corresponding author of the paper along with Darrin Schultz and Oleg Simakov of the University of Vienna. “It’s exciting — we’re looking back deep in time where we have no hope of getting fossils, but by comparing genomes, we’re learning things about these very early ancestors.” Understanding the relationships among animal lineages will help scientists understand how key features of animal biology, such as the nervous system, muscles and digestive tract, evolved over time, the researchers say.

... Most familiar animals, including worms, flies, mollusks, sea stars, and vertebrates — and including humans — have a head with a centralized brain, a gut running from mouth to anus, muscles and other shared features that had already evolved by the time of the famed “Cambrian Explosion” around 500 million years ago. Together, these animals are called bilaterians. Other bona fide animals, however, such as jellyfish, sea anemones, sponges, and ctenophores, have simpler body plans. These creatures lack many bilaterian features — for example, they lack a defined brain and may not even have a nervous system or muscles — but still share the hallmarks of animal life, notably the development of multicellular bodies from a fertilized egg.

The evolutionary relationships among these diverse creatures — specifically, the order in which each of the lineages branched off from the main trunk of the animal tree of life — has been controversial.

With the rise of DNA sequencing, biologists were able to compare the sequences of genes shared by animals to construct a family tree that illustrates how animals and their genes evolved over time since the earliest animals arose in the Precambrian Period.

But these phylogenetic methods based on gene sequences failed to resolve the controversy over whether sponges or comb jellies were the earliest branch of the animal tree, in part because of the deep antiquity of their divergence, Rokhsar said.

Below: Comb Jelly

https://scitechdaily.com/what-did-th...mal-evolution/

Brain decline begins ... WHEN!??? My aging brain struggles to understand ...

Recent research from UMC Utrecht and the Mayo Clinic reveals that our brain declines later than previously thought, occurring between ages 30 and 40 instead of after 25.

The researchers discovered, among other things, that the connections in our brains become increasingly faster: from two meters per second in children aged four to four meters per second in people aged between thirty and forty. A doubling, in other words. Only after that age does it slow down. “Our brain continues to develop a lot longer than we thought,” Van Blooijs said.

The researchers also see differences between brain regions. The frontal lobe, the front part of our brain responsible for thinking and performing tasks, develops longer than an area responsible for movement. Van Blooijs explains, “We already knew this thanks to previous research, but now we have concrete data.” The development of speed is not a straight line, but rather a curve.

https://scitechdaily.com/the-truth-a...sing-findings/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Tokan]

One day, perhaps sooner than we think, many of these technologies will come together in some sort of "great leap forward." For a lay-person like me, the work of all these scientists is just incredible. Keep it up!

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

[Jundo]

SOME TRIGGER ALERTS IN TODAY'S NEWS ...

TRIGGER ALERT 1: First, for anyone worried about others, including the government, reading their thoughts ...

A video that shows an example of recent advances in mind reading combining fMRI with AI (and an article on the huge ethical implications) ... still hit and miss, but getting more hits ...

In the video, the AI is describing what is in the video that the person in the fMRI machine is watching ...

https://youtu.be/kI_sPjORt90

[The Journal NATURE]: Mind-reading machines are here: is it time to worry?

Neuroethicists are split on whether a study that uses brain scans and AI to decode imagined speech poses a threat to mental privacy.

... The decoder generated sentences that got the gist of what the person was thinking: the phrase ‘I don’t have my driver’s license yet’, for instance, was decoded as ‘she has not even started to learn to drive yet’. And it did a fairly accurate job of describing what people were seeing in the films. But many of the sentences it produced were inaccurate.

The researchers also found that it was easy to trick the technology. When participants thought of a different story while listening to a recorded story, the decoder could not determine the words they were hearing. The encoded map also differed between individuals, meaning that the researchers could not create one decoder that worked on everyone. Huth thinks that it will become even more difficult to develop a universal decoder as researchers create more detailed maps of individuals’ brains.

... Neuroethicists are split on whether the latest advance represents a threat to mental privacy. “I’m not calling for panic, but the development of sophisticated, non-invasive technologies like this one seems to be closer on the horizon than we expected,” says bioethicist Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz at Harvard Medical School in Boston. “I think it’s a big wake-up call for policymakers and the public.”

But Adina Roskies, a science philosopher at Dartmouth University in Hanover, New Hampshire, says that the technology is too difficult to use — and too inaccurate — to pose a threat at present. For starters, fMRI scanners are not portable, making it difficult to scan someone’s brain without their cooperation. She also doubts that it would be worth the time or cost to train a decoder for an individual for any purpose other than restoring communication abilities. “I just don’t think it’s time to start worrying,” she says. “There are lots of other ways the government can tell what we’re thinking.”

Greta Tuckute, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, finds it encouraging that the decoding system could not be applied across individuals and that people could easily trick it by thinking of other things. “It’s a nice demonstration of how much agency we actually have,” she says.

... Lázaro-Muñoz says that policy action could mirror a 2008 US law that prevents insurers and employers from using people’s genetic information in discriminatory ways. He also worries about the implications of the decoder for people with conditions such as obsessive–compulsive disorder, who can experience unwanted, intrusive thoughts about harming people that they would never act on.

Pereira says the matter of how accurate decoders could become is an open question, as is whether they could eventually become universal, instead of being specific to an individual. “It depends on how unique you think humans are,” he says.

Although the decoder could eventually become good at predicting the next word in a series, it might struggle to interpret metaphors or sarcasm. There’s a big step, Pereira says, between putting words together and determining how the brain encodes the relationships between the words.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01486-z

TRIGGER ALERT 2: MENTIONS SUICIDE

AI could also save lives: If it can comb social media in search of persons with suicidal tendencies, could it also identify people who, by their postings, looks like they may be about to shoot up a school, commit other heinous violence? ... Again, ethicists raise concerns ...

This high school senior's science project could one day save lives

Text messages, Instagram posts and TikTok profiles. Parents often caution their kids against sharing too much information online, weary about how all that data gets used. But one Texas high schooler wants to use that digital footprint to save lives. ... Concerned about teen suicide, Pachipala saw a role for artificial intelligence in detecting risk before it's too late. ... For a local science fair, he designed an app that uses AI to scan text for signs of suicide risk. ... Pachipala said SuiSensor predicted suicide risk with 98% accuracy. Although it was only a prototype, the app could also generate a contact list of local clinicians. ...

...Experts note that there are many such efforts underway, and Matt Nock, for one, expressed concerns about false alarms. He applies machine learning to electronic health records to identify people who are at risk for suicide.

"The majority of our predictions are false positives," he said. "Is there a cost there? Does it do harm to tell someone that they're at risk of suicide when really they're not?"

And data privacy expert Elizabeth Laird has concerns about implementing such approaches in schools in particular, given the lack of research. She directs the Equity in Civic Technology Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT).

While acknowledging that "we have a mental health crisis and we should be doing whatever we can to prevent students from harming themselves," she remains skeptical about the lack of "independent evidence that these tools do that." ...

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/20/1176438893/this-high-school-seniors-science-project-could-one-day-save-lives

TRIGGER ALERT 3: Spiders! Make love not war. Also, a lesson in not judging by appearances. ...

New study suggests the massive spiders are gentle giants, mean people no harm.

The Joro spider, despite its intimidating size and rapid spread across Southeastern U.S., is surprisingly timid according to a study from the University of Georgia. Contrary to initial speculation, the Joro spider is not aggressive but rather freezes for more than an hour when disturbed, which is significantly longer than most spiders. This spider, originally from East Asia, is believed to have arrived in Georgia around 2013 via a shipping container and has since proliferated across the state.

Despite their intimidating appearance, the giant yellow and blue-black spiders spreading across the Southeastern U.S. owe their survival to a surprising trait: They’re rather timid. ... “They basically shut down and wait for the disturbance to go away,” Davis said. “Our paper shows that these spiders are really more afraid of you than the reverse.” ...

... In fact, Joros are relatively harmless to people and pets. Joros won’t bite unless cornered. And even if you did manage to somehow annoy a Joro into biting you, its fangs likely wouldn’t be large enough to pierce your skin. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/massive-spiders-spreading-across-the-southeastern-u-s-have-a-surprising-survival-trait/

The Japanese have long considered them stuff of legend, truly "make love not war" ...

In Japanese folklore, a Jorōgumo is a spider who can change her appearance into that of a beautiful woman. She's said to breathe fire and to be able to control other spiders. She seeks men to seduce, whom she then binds in her silk and devours.

And ANOTHER TRIGGER WARNING 4: This is kinda very creepy, in a Frankenchicken sorta way ...

Genetic Switch: Scientists Transform Chicken Scales Into Feathers by Modifying Gene Expression

University of Geneva researchers have transformed chicken scales into feathers by temporarily modifying the Sonic hedgehog (Shh) gene expression, revealing that significant evolutionary transitions can occur without major changes in the genome. This research sheds light on the mechanisms responsible for the wide diversity of animal forms. ...

... The skin of terrestrial vertebrates is adorned with diverse keratinized appendages, such as hair, feathers, and scales. Despite the diversity of forms within and among species, the embryonic development of skin appendages typically begins in a very similar way. Indeed, all of these structures develop from cells that produce a localized thickening on the skin surface and express particular genes. One of these genes, called Sonic hedgehog (Shh), controls a signaling pathway — a communication system that allows the transmission of messages within and between cells. Shh signaling is involved in the development of diverse structures, including the neural tube, limb buds, and skin appendages. ... ["We were able] to precisely treat chicken embryos with a molecule that specifically activates the Shh pathway, injected directly into the bloodstream,’ ... The two scientists observed that this single stage-specific treatment is sufficient to trigger the formation of abundant juvenile down-type feathers, in areas that would normally be covered with scales. Remarkably, these experimentally-induced feathers are comparable to those covering the rest of the body, as they are regenerative and are subsequently and autonomously replaced by adult feathers. ...

... ‘‘Our results indicate that an evolutionary leap — from scales to feathers — does not require large changes in genome composition or expression. Instead, a transient change in expression of one gene, Shh, can produce a cascade of developmental events leading to the formation of feathers instead of scales,’’ says Michel Milinkovitch. This research, initially focused on the study of the development of scales and feathers, therefore has important implications for understanding the evolutionary mechanisms generating the enormous diversity of animal forms observed in nature. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/genetic-switch-scientists-transform-chicken-scales-into-feathers-by-modifying-gene-expression/

TRIGGER ALERT 5: BODY SHAMING ...

Medicine for obesity in teens shows success ... (reading the above story might also work in appetite control)

Nearly Half of Adolescents Using Semaglutide in Trial Dropped Below the Clinical Cut-Off for Obesity

A new secondary analysis of the STEP TEENS trial presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2023, Dublin 17-20 May) and published in the journal Obesity shows that almost half (45%) of the adolescents assigned to semaglutide in the trial managed to lose enough weight to drop below the clinical cutoff for obesity.

The study, led by Aaron S. Kelly, PhD, co-director of the Center for Pediatric Obesity Medicine at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and colleagues, also showed almost three quarters (74%) moved down by at least one weight category.

The full STEP TEENS trial, published in 2022 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), showed the efficacy of semaglutide in helping adolescents lose weight. ...

... Semaglutide, sold under the brand names Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus, is an antidiabetic medication used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and an anti-obesity medication used for long-term weight management ...

https://scitechdaily.com/weight-loss...-teen-obesity/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Nengei]

I was just reading yesterday about the evidence supporting the likelihood of a single, genetic “Eve,” grandmother to all of us, in Africa about 150,000 years ago, right in the timeline of these studies evidencing a genetic pool separation. We are all related, and all, ultimately, African and of remote, Black heritage. The work was assembled from decades of National Geographic genetic sampling from people around the world, including sampling gathered from small, remote tribes on different continents.

Gassho,
Nengei
Sat today. LAH.

[Jundo]

A wonderful step forward (pun half intended). However, let us also recognize that, today and in the future, not all folks with so-called disabilities must feel the need to change who they are, by accepting their bodies as they are ... also a wonderful Zen attitude which we must honor and respect.

[CNN] MAN WITH PARALYSIS WALKS NATURALLY AFTER BRAIN, SPINE IMPLANTS

New research reveals how a medical device helped one man with paralysis walk naturally again, more than a decade after an injury.
Dr. Grégoire Courtine and colleagues from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne developed and implanted a “brain-spine interface” that creates a direct neurological link between the brain and spinal cord. Implants in the brain track intentions for movement, which are wirelessly transferred to a processing unit that a person wears externally, like a backpack. The intentions are translated into commands that the processing unit sends back through the second implant to stimulate muscles.

The research findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, outline successful outcomes for one study participant from the Netherlands. ... Oskam said he can walk at least 100 meters (about 330 feet), depending on the day, and stand without using his hands for a few minutes. He said it’s useful in his daily life, like when he recently had something to paint but had no one to help, so he stood and did it himself.

Previous research has shown that targeted electrical pulses can stimulate areas of the leg needed to walk. But this new technology allows for smoother movements and better adaptations to changing terrain because it reconnects two regions of the central nervous system that were interrupted because of a spinal cord injury, according to the researchers. ... Courtine said this stimulation is different because Oskam has “full control over the parameter of stimulation, which means that he can stop, he can walk, he can climb up staircases.”

After surgeries to implant the devices, the neurological communication channels were established quickly. Oskam was taking steps within a day of training. ... And the connection has remained reliable for more than a year, including time Oskam spent at home. Walking independently with aid from the “digital bridge” has also helped him regain enough strength to take some steps even when it is turned off. ...https://us.cnn.com/2023/05/24/health...4KYNnTkb6Bpk50

Also, warm hand to warm hand ...

FEELING THE UNSEEN: AMPUTEES REDISCOVER LOST SENSATIONS THROUGH GROUNDBREAKING TECHNOLOGY

Researchers have developed a groundbreaking bionic technology that allows amputees to feel the temperature of objects with their phantom limb, providing a sense of reconnecting to the missing limb. By using thermal electrodes (thermodes) placed on the residual arm to non-invasively provide temperature feedback, patients can feel if an object is hot or cold and even discern the material of the object, offering a more realistic touch experience with their prosthetics.

... This innovative technology empowers amputees to feel the temperature of objects, ranging from hot to cold, directly with their phantom hand. This development creates new pathways for non-invasive prosthetics.

“When I touch the stump with my hand, I feel tingling in my missing hand, my phantom hand. But feeling the temperature variation is a different thing, something important… something beautiful,” says Francesca Rossi.

https://scitechdaily.com/feeling-the-unseen-amputees-rediscover-lost-sensations-through-groundbreaking-technology/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXD2NuamtwY

AI may eventually do a better job than humans at reading x-rays, MRI and other test results ... although maybe not yet ...

Virtual AI Radiologist: ChatGPT Passes Radiology Board Exam

The most recent version of ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed for language interpretation and response generation, has successfully passed a radiology board-style exam, demonstrating both its potential and limitations, according to research studies published in the Radiological Society of North America’s journal.

The latest version of ChatGPT passed a radiology board-style exam, highlighting the potential of large language models but also revealing limitations that hinder reliability, according to two new research studies published in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). ... The questions did not include images and were grouped by question type to gain insight into performance: lower-order (knowledge recall, basic understanding) and higher-order (apply, analyze, synthesize) thinking. The higher-order thinking questions were further subclassified by type (description of imaging findings, clinical management, calculation and classification, disease associations).

The performance of ChatGPT was evaluated overall and by question type and topic. Confidence of language in responses was also assessed.

... GPT-4 answered 81% (121 of 150) of the same questions correctly, outperforming GPT-3.5 and exceeding the passing threshold of 70%. GPT-4 performed much better than GPT-3.5 on higher-order thinking questions (81%), more specifically those involving description of imaging findings (85%) and application of concepts (90%).

... “We were initially surprised by ChatGPT’s accurate and confident answers to some challenging radiology questions, but then equally surprised by some very illogical and inaccurate assertions,” Dr. Bhayana said. “Of course, given how these models work, the inaccurate responses should not be particularly surprising.”

ChatGPT’s dangerous tendency to produce inaccurate responses, termed hallucinations, is less frequent in GPT-4 but still limits usability in medical education and practice at present.

Both studies showed that ChatGPT used confident language consistently, even when incorrect. This is particularly dangerous if solely relied on for information, Dr. Bhayana notes, especially for novices who may not recognize confident incorrect responses as inaccurate. “To me, this is its biggest limitation. At present, ChatGPT is best used to spark ideas, help start the medical writing process and in data summarization. If used for quick information recall, it always needs to be fact-checked,” Dr. Bhayana said.

https://scitechdaily.com/virtual-ai-radiologist-chatgpt-passes-radiology-board-exam/

A small clue to the brain and depression ...

Cracking the Code of Depression: New Research Sheds Light on the Neural Mechanisms Behind the Disorder

... Depression treatment is complex due to the disease’s remarkable diversity and intricacy. Drugs for depression are accessible, yet a third of patients do not react to these primary medications. Other interventions, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS), have demonstrated potential in offering significant relief to patients, but past results have been inconsistent. To develop more tailored treatments and enhance patient outcomes, there’s a need for a deeper grasp of the neurophysiological underpinnings of depression.

Led by Sameer Sheth, MD, Ph.D., at Baylor College of Medicine, together with Wayne Goodman, MD, and Nader Pouratian, MD, Ph.D., the researchers collected electrophysiological recordings from prefrontal cortical regions in three human subjects, all of whom experienced severe treatment-resistant depression.

The prefrontal cortex plays a significant role in psychiatric and cognitive disorders, influencing one’s ability to set goals and form habits. These highly evolved brain regions are particularly difficult to study in non-human models, so data collected from human brain activity are particularly valuable. ... The researchers found that lower depression severity correlated with decreased low-frequency neural activity and increased high-frequency activity. They also found that changes in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) served as the best predictive area of depression severity. Beyond the ACC, and in alignment with the diverse nature of the pathways and symptoms of depression, they also identified individual-specific sets of features that successfully predicted severity. ...

... John Krystal, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, said of the work, “We now have a growing collection of approaches that can be applied to mapping the circuits and characterizing the neural codes underlying depression. This knowledge will guide next-generation brain stimulation treatments and inform the way we understand and treat depression, broadly.”

https://scitechdaily.com/cracking-th...-the-disorder/

Does this mean that, in the future, we can have artificial pot bellies and have artificial heart attacks?

Revolutionizing Cultured Meat: Lab-Grown Fat Unlocks Realistic Flavor and Texture

Researchers have created lab-grown fat tissue that closely mirrors the texture and make-up of natural animal fat which could enhance the flavor and texture of cultured meat. The technique involves growing fat cells in a 2D layer, then aggregating them into a 3D mass using food-grade binders, overcoming previous challenges of cultivating fat tissue in bulk and potentially enabling mass production of more realistic lab-grown meat.

https://scitechdaily.com/revolutionizing-cultured-meat-lab-grown-fat-unlocks-realistic-flavor-and-texture/

[ATTACH=CONFIG]8450[/ATTACH]

All composite things are impermanent ... even the Rings of Saturn ...

Saturn’s iconic rings are disappearing

... A new analysis of data captured by NASA’s Cassini mission, which orbited the gas giant planet between 2004 and 2017, has revealed new insights into how long the rings have been around and when they may vanish from sight. The findings have been shared in three studies published in May. ... “Our inescapable conclusion is that Saturn’s rings must be relatively young by astronomical standards, just a few hundred million years old,” said Richard Durisen, professor emeritus of astronomy at Indiana University Bloomington and lead author of both Icarus studies, in a statement.

If you look at Saturn’s satellite system, there are other hints that something dramatic happened there in the last few hundred million years. If Saturn’s rings are not as old as the planet, that means something happened in order to form their incredible structure, and that is very exciting to study.”

It’s likely the seven rings were still forming when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, according to the researchers.

... Meanwhile, as meteoroids infiltrate the rings, they push material within the innermost rings toward Saturn at a rapid rate. Cassini observed that the rings were losing many tons of mass per second, which means the rings don’t have much time left, astronomically speaking. The researchers estimate that the rings will only be around another few hundred million years at most.

Previous research has suggested that the rings may disappear within 100 million years.

... But what created Saturn’s rings in the first place? Scientists still don’t know for sure, but it’s possible that gravitational instability destroyed some of the icy moons orbiting the giant planet, creating enough material to be pulled into rings of material encircling Saturn. ...

I love looking at baby pictures ...

Hidden Views of Vast Stellar Nurseries Unveiled in Epic Million-Image Mosaic

Astronomers have used VISTA to create an infrared atlas of five stellar nurseries, offering unprecedented insights into star formation and revealing previously unseen objects. The VISIONS atlas will serve as a valuable resource for years and lay the foundation for future observations.

Using the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), astronomers have created an extensive infrared atlas of five nearby stellar nurseries by combining over one million images. This atlas provides insights into the complex process of star formation and reveals previously unseen objects. The VISIONS survey captured images of star-forming regions in various constellations and observed the same areas repeatedly to study the motion of young stars. The VISIONS atlas will be valuable for astronomers for years to come and will set the groundwork for future observations with other telescopes, such as ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).

https://youtu.be/FWolM05OQqQ

The incredible connections of this earth ... dust in the wind ...

Researchers have found that even modest amounts of desert dust can improve the health of the ocean’s microscopic, plant-like organisms.

A new study reveals that land-based mineral dust plays a crucial role in fertilizing oceanic phytoplankton, which are essential to Earth’s climate, carbon cycle, and marine food web.

In a new study published May 5 in the journal Science, a team of researchers from Oregon State University, the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and NASA combined satellite observations with an advanced computer model to home in on how mineral dust from land fertilizes the growth of phytoplankton in the ocean. Phytoplankton are microscopic, plant-like organisms that form the center of the marine food web.

Phytoplankton float near the ocean surface primarily subsisting on sunlight and mineral nutrients that well up from the depths or float out to sea in coastal runoff. But mineral-rich desert dust—borne by strong winds and deposited in the ocean—also plays an important role in the health and abundance of phytoplankton.

... Phytoplankton play a large role in Earth’s climate and carbon cycle. Like land plants, they contain chlorophyll and derive energy from sunlight through photosynthesis. They produce oxygen and sequester a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide in the process, potentially on a scale comparable to rainforests. And they are at the bottom of an ocean-wide food pecking order that ranges from tiny zooplankton to fish to whales.

Dust particles can travel thousands of miles before falling into the ocean, where they nourish phytoplankton long distances from the dust source, said study coauthor Lorraine Remer ...

https://scitechdaily.com/blown-away-...ls-ocean-life/

And finally, why does this strike me as perhaps the dumbest idea of the day ... Ooops, I was just blinking ...

In the new BMW 5-series sedan, unveiled Wednesday by the German luxury automaker, drivers will be able to change lanes on the highway just by looking to the side. ... With the new BMW system, if the car’s automated driving system suggests a lane change – say, if the car ahead is going too slowly – the driver only has to look at the corresponding side mirror and the car will do the rest. The system relies on a camera mounted behind the steering to monitor the direction of the driver’s gaze.

The car’s optional Highway Assistant system allows drivers to go long distances on major highways without touching the steering wheel or pedals. This sort of feature is now offered by a number of major automakers, but BMW adds this novel capability: Drivers will be able to change lanes just by looking at one of the outside mirrors.

https://us.cnn.com/2023/05/24/busine...nge/index.html

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Soon, we won't even need parents!

[NPR] Creating a sperm or egg from any cell? Reproduction revolution on the horizon

It's a Wednesday morning at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in downtown Washington, D.C., and Dr. Eli Adashi is opening an unprecedented gathering: It's titled "In-Vitro Derived Human Gametes as a Reproductive Technology."

It's the academy's first workshop to explore in-vitro gametogenesis, or IVG, which involves custom-making human eggs and sperm in the laboratory from any cell in a person's body.

"It is on the precipice of materialization," says Adashi, a reproductive biology specialist from Brown University. "And IVF will probably never be the same."

For the next three days, dozens of scientists, bioethicists, doctors, and others describe the latest scientific advances in IVG and explore the potentially far-reaching thicket of social, ethical, moral, legal and regulatory ramifications of the emerging technology. Hundreds more attend the workshop remotely.

... Japanese scientists describe how they've already perfected IVG in mice. The researchers used cells from the tails of adult mice to create induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, and then coaxed those iPS cells to become mouse sperm and eggs. They've even used those sperm and eggs to make embryos and implanted the embryos into the wombs of female mice, which gave birth to apparently healthy mouse pups.

"We are in the pathway of translating these technologies into the humans," says Mitinori Saitou from Kyoto University, addressing the group via Zoom.

In fact, Saitou says he's fairly far down that pathway. He's turned human blood cells into iPS cells, and used those iPS cells to create very primitive human eggs. Others have created primitive human sperm this way. Neither the sperm or eggs are developed enough to make embryos or babies. But scientists around the world are intensively working on that.

... IVG would enable infertile women and men to have children with their own DNA instead of genes from the sperm and eggs or donors. Same goes for women of any age, rendering the biological clock irrelevant. ... IVG could also enable gay and trans couples to have babies that are genetically related to both partners.

... Another theoretical possibility is "solo IVG" — single people having "uni-babies" — babies with just one person's genes, says Dr. Paula Amato, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland

"In theory you could reproduce with yourself. And the resulting child would be 100 percent related to you" ...

... That raises a long list of other provocative possibilities, he says, including "90-year-old genetic mothers, 9-year-old genetic mothers, 9-month-old fetuses that become genetic parents, people who've been dead for three years whose cells were saved who become parents."

People could even potentially steal the DNA of celebrities from, for example, a clipping of their hair to make babies, he says. ...

... Throughout the meeting, researchers and bioethicists warn that the ability to create a limitless supply of IVG embryos — combined with new gene-editing techniques — could turbo-charge the power to eradicate unwanted genes. That could help eradicate terrible genetic diseases, but also move "designer babies" even closer to reality.

"The desire to genetically modify the future generation in a hunt for a assumed perfect race, perfect baby, perfect future generation is not science fiction," says Amrita Pande, a professor of sociology at the University of Cape Town in South African. "IVG when used with gene-editing tools like CRISPR should make us all worried." ...

... IVG is probably still at least years away — and may never happen, several of the participants note. There are still significant technical hurdles that would need to be overcome, and questions about whether IVG could ever be done safely, several experts repeatedly warn during the workshop ...

... But if IVG remains off-limits in the U.S, Marks and others warn IVG clinics could easily spring up in other countries with looser regulations, creating a new form of medical tourism that raises even more ethical worries. That includes the exploitation of women as surrogate mothers. ...

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/27/1177191913/sperm-or-egg-in-lab-breakthrough-in-reproduction-designer-babies-ivg

[Jundo]

... And speaking of sperm ... we all may be the children of space sperm ...

Space Dust – A New Way To Search for Alien Life

In the aftermath of massive cosmic collisions, such as those caused by asteroid impacts, a portion of the impacted planet’s material may be hurled into the cosmos. This expelled matter can traverse enormous distances and persist for incredibly long durations. Hypothetically, this ejected material could hold direct or indirect evidence of life from its planet of origin, such as microbial fossils. This extraterrestrial material, bearing potential signs of life, could be within our detection capabilities either in the near future or perhaps even at present.

... Professor Tomonori Totani from the University of Tokyo’s Department of Astronomy has an idea for space dust that might sound like science fiction but actually warrants serious consideration.

“I propose we study well-preserved grains ejected from other worlds for potential signs of life,” said Totani. “The search for life outside our solar system typically means a search for signs of communication, which would indicate intelligent life but precludes any pre-technological life. Or the search is for atmospheric signatures that might hint at life, but without direct confirmation, there could always be an explanation that does not require life. However, if there are signs of life in dust grains, not only could we be certain, but we could also find out soon.”

... There may be such grains already on Earth, and in plentiful amounts, preserved in places such as the Antarctic ice, or under the seafloor. Space dust in these places could be retrieved relatively easily, but discerning extrasolar material from material originating in our own solar system is still a complex matter. If the search is extended to space itself, however, there are already missions that capture dust in the vacuum using ultralight materials called aerogels. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/space-dust-...or-alien-life/

Our new tech invader battles the old school kinds ...

AI Battles Superbugs: Helps Find New Antibiotic Drug To Combat Drug-Resistant Infections

Using an artificial intelligence algorithm, researchers at MIT and McMaster University have identified a new antibiotic that can kill a type of bacteria that is responsible for many drug-resistant infections. If developed for use in patients, the drug could help to combat Acinetobacter baumannii, a species of bacteria that is often found in hospitals and can lead to pneumonia, meningitis, and other serious infections. The microbe is also a leading cause of infections in wounded soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

... The researchers identified the new drug from a library of nearly 7,000 potential drug compounds using a machine-learning model that they trained to evaluate whether a chemical compound will inhibit the growth of A. baumannii. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/ai-battles-...nt-infections/

Manipulating Dopamine to create healthy behavioral patterns ...

Dopamine – The Secret Ingredient to Effortless Exercise?

A new study led by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers indicates that dopamine, a neurotransmitter traditionally linked with pleasure, motivation, and reward-seeking, also seems to be a key factor in determining why physical activities feel “easy” to some individuals while proving to be draining for others. This conclusion was drawn from studying people with Parkinson’s disease, a condition characterized by the progressive loss of dopamine-producing cells in the brain.

The study, which was recently published in npj Parkinson’s Disease, could potentially pave the way for the development of improved methods to encourage individuals to adopt and maintain exercise routines.

... Previous studies have shown that people with increased dopamine are more willing to exert physical effort for rewards, but the current study focuses on dopamine’s role in people’s self-assessment of effort needed for a physical task, without the promise of a reward. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/dopamine-th...less-exercise/

This is apparently different from a patch I recently posted about ...

Engineers Develop the First Fully Integrated Wearable Ultrasound System for Deep-Tissue Monitoring

A group of engineers from the University of California San Diego have successfully created the inaugural entirely integrated wearable ultrasound system for deep-tissue tracking, applicable even for mobile individuals.

This innovation may prove crucial for monitoring cardiovascular health and represents a significant milestone for one of the foremost labs specializing in wearable ultrasound technology. Their research,was recently published in the journal Nature Biotechnology. ... In this work, it includes a small, flexible control circuit that communicates with an ultrasound transducer array to collect and transmit data wirelessly. A machine learning component helps interpret the data and track subjects in motion.

According to the lab’s findings, the ultrasonic system-on-patch allows continuous tracking of physiological signals from tissues as deep as 164 mm, continuously measuring central blood pressure, heart rate, cardiac output, and other physiological signals for up to twelve hours at a time.

... “This technology has lots of potential to save and improve lives,” Lin said. “The sensor can evaluate cardiovascular function in motion. Abnormal values of blood pressure and cardiac output, at rest or during exercise, are hallmarks of heart failure. For healthy populations, our device can measure cardiovascular responses to exercise in real-time and thus provide insights into the actual workout intensity exerted by each person, which can guide the formulation of personalized training plans.”

... The USoP also represents a breakthrough in the development of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), a term for a network of medical devices connected to the internet, wirelessly transmitting physiological signals into the cloud for computing, analysis, and professional diagnosis. ...

Finally, our amazing bodies ... which even recycle ...

Nature’s Alchemy: Cellular Waste Transformed Into Essential Chemicals

A new perspective published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology uncovers a previously unknown biochemical recycling process in animals. The authors review a flurry of recent papers demonstrating that animals extensively recycle biochemical waste to produce novel chemicals that play key roles in biology, from regulating behavior to development and aging.

These studies show that the genes previously thought to code for carboxylesterases, enzymes that hydrolyze esters, actually play a pivotal role in assembling a wide range of new metabolites from building blocks generally considered “cellular waste.” Surprisingly, the so-called carboxylesterases were found to contribute to the formation of esters and amide bonds, a function opposite to that predicted by computational algorithms.

“This discovery reveals that our understanding of biochemistry remains largely incomplete,” says the perspective’s lead author, Frank Schroeder, a professor at Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI). “This research has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of how animals, including humans, function.”

Recent investigations indicate that animals and humans may produce over 100,000 distinct chemicals, most of which have not been investigated. This unknown structure space is a treasure trove of chemicals, which may hold the key to understanding many biological processes.

https://scitechdaily.com/natures-alc...ial-chemicals/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

We are not alone ... in all probablility ...

A discovery from the University of Florida ... (but, question: Is there intelligent life in Florida )

Goldilocks Galore: Hundreds of Millions of Planets in the Milky Way Could Potentially Harbor Life

University of Florida astronomers find that hundreds of millions of planets orbiting dwarf stars in the Milky Way could potentially harbor life, occupying a ‘Goldilocks’ orbit that allows them to withstand extreme tidal forces and retain liquid water, according to data from NASA’s Kepler and Gaia telescopes.

... In a new analysis based on the latest telescope data, University of Florida astronomers have discovered that two-thirds of the planets around these ubiquitous small stars could be roasted by these tidal extremes, sterilizing them. But that leaves one-third of the planets – hundreds of millions across the galaxy – that could be in a Goldilocks orbit close enough, and gentle enough, to hold onto liquid water and possibly harbor life.

https://scitechdaily.com/goldilocks-galore-hundreds-of-millions-of-planets-in-the-milky-way-could-potentially-harbor-life/

That's not intelligent life, by the way ... let alone you and me ... but some simple life perhaps ...

And speaking of water ... THAR SHE BLOWS! ... on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus ...

Webb Space Telescope Maps Surprisingly Large Plume Jetting From Saturn’s Moon Enceladus

A water vapor plume from Saturn’s moon Enceladus spanning more than 6,000 miles – nearly the distance from Los Angeles, California to Buenos Aires, Argentina – has been detected by researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Not only is this the first time such a water emission has been seen over such an expansive distance, but Webb is also giving scientists a direct look, for the first time, at how this emission feeds the water supply for the entire system of Saturn and its rings.

Enceladus, an ocean world about four percent the size of Earth, just 313 miles across, is one of the most exciting scientific targets in our solar system in the search for life beyond Earth. Sandwiched between the moon’s icy outer crust and its rocky core is a global reservoir of salty water. Geyser-like volcanos spew jets of ice particles, water vapor, and organic chemicals out of crevices in the moon’s surface informally called ‘tiger stripes.’

Previously, observatories have mapped jets hundreds of miles from the moon’s surface, but Webb’s exquisite sensitivity reveals a new story.

“When I was looking at the data, at first, I was thinking I had to be wrong. It was just so shocking to detect a water plume more than 20 times the size of the moon,” said lead author Geronimo Villanueva of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The water plume extends far beyond its release region at the southern pole.”

https://youtu.be/AgHdtDlrvbU

https://scitechdaily.com/webb-space-telescope-detects-6000-mile-water-plume-jetting-from-saturns-moon-enceladus/

Feelin' no pain ... but too much of a good thing ...

The Woman Who Doesn’t Feel Pain – New Study Reveals Her Unique Molecular Machinery

New research from University College London (UCL) has unraveled the biology behind a unique genetic mutation that results in its carrier experiencing minimal pain, enhanced healing, and lower levels of anxiety and fear.

Published in the journal Brain, the research is a follow-up to the team’s 2019 discovery of the FAAH-OUT gene and its rare mutations, which make Jo Cameron almost immune to pain, and devoid of fear and anxiety. The latest study elucidates how this mutation reduces the expression of the FAAH gene and impacts other molecular pathways associated with mood and wound healing. The insights garnered from these findings could potentially pave the way for novel drug targets and foster further research in these domains.

Jo, who lives in Scotland, was first referred to pain geneticists at UCL in 2013, after her doctor noticed that she experienced no pain after major surgeries on her hip and hand. After six years of searching, they identified a new gene that they named FAAH-OUT, which contained a rare genetic mutation. In combination with another, more common mutation in FAAH, it was found to be the cause of Jo’s unique characteristics.

The area of the genome containing FAAH-OUT had previously been assumed to be ‘junk’ DNA that had no function, but it was found to mediate the expression of FAAH, a gene that is part of the endocannabinoid system and that is well-known for its involvement in pain, mood, and memory.

In this study, the team from UCL sought to understand how FAAH-OUT works at a molecular level, the first step towards being able to take advantage of this unique biology for applications like drug discovery.

This included a range of approaches, such as CRISPR-Cas9 experiments on cell lines to mimic the effect of the mutation on other genes, as well as analyzing the expression of genes to see which were active in molecular pathways involved with pain, mood, and healing.

The team observed that FAAH-OUT regulates the expression of FAAH. When it is significantly turned down as a result of the mutation carried by Jo Cameron, FAAH enzyme activity levels are significantly reduced.

https://scitechdaily.com/the-woman-w...lar-machinery/

Maybe we will feel no pain when AI destroys us ... and Grimes agrees ...

Or maybe Elon just wants to slow things down until he can get a foothold?

AI industry and researchers sign statement warning of ‘extinction’ risk

Dozens of AI industry leaders, academics and even some celebrities on Tuesday called for reducing the risk of global annihilation due to artificial intelligence, arguing in a brief statement that the threat of an AI extinction event should be a top global priority.

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” read the statement published by the Center for AI Safety.

The statement was signed by leading industry officials including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman; the so-called “godfather” of AI, Geoffrey Hinton; top executives and researchers from Google DeepMind and Anthropic; Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s chief technology officer; Bruce Schneier, the internet security and cryptography pioneer; climate advocate Bill McKibben; and the musician Grimes, among others.

The statement highlights wide-ranging concerns about the ultimate danger of unchecked artificial intelligence. AI experts have said society is still a long way from developing the kind of artificial general intelligence that is the stuff of science fiction; today’s cutting-edge chatbots largely reproduce patterns based on training data they’ve been fed and do not think for themselves.

Still, the flood of hype and investment into the AI industry has led to calls for regulation at the outset of the AI age, before any major mishaps occur.

https://us.cnn.com/2023/05/30/tech/ai-industry-statement-extinction-risk-warning/index.html

That is the end of the human race ... what of the start?

I posted this previously, but worth noting again ...

Contemporary DNA evidence suggests that humans emerged from the interaction of multiple populations living across the continent.

A new study in Nature challenges prevailing theories, suggesting that Homo sapiens evolved from multiple diverse populations across Africa, with the earliest detectable split occurring 120,000-135,000 years ago, after prolonged periods of genetic intermixing.

There is broad agreement that Homo sapiens originated in Africa. But there remain many uncertainties and competing theories about where, when, and how.

In a paper published on May 17, 2023, in Nature, an international research team led by McGill University and the University of California-Davis suggest that, based on contemporary genomic evidence from across the continent, there were humans living in different regions of Africa, migrating from one region to another and mixing with one another over a period of hundreds of thousands of years. This view runs counter to some of the dominant theories about human origins in Africa.

https://scitechdaily.com/genes-dont-...-origin-story/

Elon is already getting a foothold in AI mindreading ...

A CNN reporter tries it out ...

Neuroscientists test out brain-reading AI on CNN reporter

https://us.cnn.com/videos/tech/2023/...-contd-vpx.cnn

Evidence of particles beyond the standard model? ... Opinions on this question "collide" ...

Higgs Boson Unveils New Secrets: Rare Decay Detected at Large Hadron Collider

The ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have uncovered the first evidence of the Higgs boson decaying into a Z boson and a photon, a rare process that could provide indirect evidence of particles beyond those predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/higgs-boson...dron-collider/

This report puts me to sleep ...

Scientists Induce Hibernation-Like State Using Ultrasound Stimulation of the Brain

A multidisciplinary team led by associate professor Hong Chen at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a novel, noninvasive method to induce a torpor-like state in mammals by targeting the central nervous system with ultrasound. The technique, which involves stimulating the hypothalamus preoptic area in the brain, was shown to effectively reduce body temperature and metabolic rate in mice, leading to a state of torpor, which is a natural mechanism used by some animals to survive extreme conditions. ... The noninvasive technique could potentially be used in scenarios like space flights or for patients with severe health conditions to conserve energy and heat.
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-...-of-the-brain/

Botox ... beautiful eyes, so long as one keeps alive ...

Botox Breakthrough – New Discovery Could Save Lives

Professor Frederic Meunier and Dr. Merja Joensuu, affiliated with the Queensland Brain Institute at The University of Queensland, have unveiled the precise molecular process through which Botulinum neurotoxin type-A, commonly referred to as Botox, penetrates brain cells. This toxin is produced from a highly lethal biological substance. ... “The toxin hijacks this complex and enters the synaptic vesicles which store neurotransmitters critical to communication between neurons.

“Botox then interrupts the communication between nerves and muscle cells, causing paralysis.”

The discovery means new therapeutic targets can be identified to develop effective treatments for botulism – a rare but potentially fatal bacterial infection.

https://scitechdaily.com/botox-break...ld-save-lives/

History down the toilet ...

Ancient toilets unearthed in Jerusalem reveal a debilitating and sometimes fatal disease

The Iron Age users of two ancient toilets in Jerusalem were not a healthy bunch, according to an analysis of poop samples from the 2,500-year-old latrines.

Researchers found traces of dysentery-causing parasites in material excavated from the cesspits below the two stone toilets that would have belonged to elite households in the city. Back then, Jerusalem was a vibrant political and religious center in the Assyrian empire and home to between 8,000 and 25,000 people.

It’s the earliest known evidence of a disease called Giardia duodenalis, although the infection, which causes diarrhea, abdominal cramps and weight loss, had previously been identified in Roman-era Turkey and in medieval Israel.

“Dysentery is spread by faeces contaminating drinking water or food, and we suspected it could have been a big problem in early cities of the ancient Near East due to over-crowding, heat and flies, and limited water available in the summer,” said Dr. Piers Mitchell, lead author of the study that published Thursday in the scientific journal Parasitology and an honorary fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology, in a statement.

Most of those who die from dysentery caused by Giardia today are children, and chronic infection in kids can lead to stunted growth, impaired cognitive function and failure to thrive.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Looking deep down ... via a DNA origami nanostructure ...

Unlimited Resolution – Unprecedented Microscopy Technique Is a “True Game-Changer”

Scientists have achieved Ångström-level resolution using DNA-tagged fluorescent microscopy.
Ralf Jungmann’s research group at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich have accomplished a significant advance in fluorescence microscopy.

They have developed a groundbreaking method called Resolution Enhancement by Sequential Imaging, which remarkably improves the resolution of fluorescence microscopy to an Ångström scale. This novel approach is set to revolutionize our exploration of biological systems by providing hitherto unprecedented detail. Cells, the fundamental units of life, contain a plethora of intricate structures, processes, and mechanisms that uphold and perpetuate living systems. Many cellular core components, such as DNA, RNA, proteins, and lipids, are just a few nanometers in size.

This makes them substantially smaller than the resolution limit of traditional light microscopy. The exact composition and arrangement of these molecules and structures are thus often unknown, resulting in a lack of mechanistic understanding of fundamental aspects of biology.
Single-molecule localization microscopy, or SMLM, is a super-resolution approach that can resolve structures on the order of ten nanometers in size by temporally separating their individual fluorescence emission. As individual targets stochastically light up (they blink) in an otherwise dark field of view, their location can be determined with sub-diffraction precision.

DNA-PAINT, invented by the Jungmann group, is an SMLM technique that uses transient hybridization of dye-labeled DNA “imager” strands to their target-bound complements to achieve the necessary blinking for super-resolution. However, to date, even DNA-PAINT has not been able to resolve the smallest cellular structures. ... The new technique, called “Resolution Enhancement by Sequential Imaging”, or RESI for short, capitalizes on the ability of DNA-PAINT to encode target identity via unique DNA sequences. By labeling adjacent targets, too close to each other to be resolved even by super-resolution microscopy, with different DNA strands, an additional degree of differentiation (a barcode) is introduced into the sample. ... By designing a DNA origami nanostructure such that it presents single-stranded DNA sequences that protrude from a double helix at one base pair distance and then imaging these single strands sequentially, the research team resolved a distance of 0.85 nm (or 8.5 Ångström) between adjacent bases, a previously unimaginable feat.

RESI enables microscopy across length scales at Ångström resolution: From whole cells over individual proteins down to the distance between two adjacent bases in DNA.

The Diamond Sutra, " ... This fleeting world -- A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightening in a summer cloud ... "

Galactic Bubbles: Unexpected Complexity of the Milky Way’s Mysterious Structures

Astronomers have found that eRosita bubbles, high-energy gas structures in the Milky Way, are more complex and not hotter than surrounding areas, contrary to previous assumptions. Their analysis of Suzaku satellite data suggests the bubbles originate from nuclear star-forming activity rather than a supermassive black hole. ... These bubbles exist in the gas that surrounds galaxies, an area that is called the circumgalactic medium. ... Although the origin of these bubbles has been debated in scientific literature, this study is the first that begins to settle it, said Mathur. As the team found an abundance of non-solar neon-oxygen and magnesium-oxygen ratios in the shells, their results strongly suggest that galactic bubbles were originally formed by nuclear star-forming activity, or the injection of energy by massive stars and other kinds of astrophysical phenomena, rather than through the activities of a supermassive black hole.

A superposition of an image of the Milky Way, taken by the European Space Agency’s Gaia space observatory, and a visualization of the simulations of the eRosita and Fermi bubbles. A new study published in Nature Astronomy has provided further insight into the properties of eRosita bubbles, giant structures of high-energy gas extending above and below the Milky Way galaxy’s center

And here's the flash of lightning ... and what a flash it is ...

Bright Beyond Belief: How Ultra-Luminous X-Ray Sources Surpass Theoretical Limits

At the extreme end of astrophysics, there are all sorts of phenomena that seem to be counter-intuitive. For example, how can an object not possibly get any brighter? For a long time, this limit, known as the Eddington limit, was thought to be an upper bound on how bright an object could be, and it was directly correlated with the mass of that object. But observations showed that some objects were even brighter than this theoretical limit, and now data collected by NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) confirms that these objects are, in fact, breaking the Eddington limit. But why?

The simple answer is magnetic fields. Or at least that is the most likely answer. Unfortunately, the only way to test this answer is by observing astronomical objects, as the magnetic fields around these Ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are billions of times stronger than anything we could produce on Earth.

https://scitechdaily.com/bright-beyond-belief-how-ultra-luminous-x-ray-sources-surpass-theoretical-limits/

I'm trying to bend my head around this ...

The shape of your brain may strongly influence your thoughts and behavior, study finds

Research suggests that the brain's size, curves and grooves may play important roles in its function, perhaps even more than the connections between neurons.

Though much about the brain remains a mystery, scientists have long surmised that our thoughts, feelings and behavior are the result of billions of interconnected neurons that transmit signals to each other, thereby enabling communication between regions of the brain.

But a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature challenges that idea, suggesting instead that the shape of the brain — its size, curves and grooves — may exert a greater influence on how we think, feel and behave than the connections and signals between neurons.

A research team in Australia arrived at that conclusion after taking MRI scans of 255 people’s brains while the participants performed tasks like tapping their fingers or recalling a sequence of images. From there, the team examined 10,000 different maps of people’s brain activity, gathered from more than 1,000 experiments worldwide, to further assess the role of brain shape. ... The comparison showed that the new model provided a more accurate reconstruction of the brain activity shown in the MRI scans and brain activity maps than the prior model.

James Pang, the study’s lead author and a research fellow at Monash University in Australia, likened the significance of brain shape to a pebble making ripples in a pond: The size and shape of the pond helps determine the nature of those ripples.

"The geometry is pretty important because it guides how the wave would look, which in turn relates to the activity patterns that you see when people perform different tasks," Pang said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...vior-rcna86938

Of course, "right now" is still "back then," giving the signal delay, brain processing time and such ... so actually about 17 minutes ago, more or less ... but you get the point ...

For the first time, you can see Mars as it is right now

Mars is making its live streaming debut, and the show will reveal the red planet in a whole new light.

On Friday, the European Space Agency is set to stream on YouTube an hour of the first live images directly from Mars, according to statement from the agency.

“Normally, we see images from Mars and know that they were taken days before,” said James Godfrey, spacecraft operations manager at ESA’s mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany, in a statement. “I’m excited to see Mars as it is now — as close to a martian ‘now’ as we can possibly get!” ... You can watch the stream on ESA’s YouTube channel for an hour starting at 6 p.m. Central European Time, or noon ET Friday. ...

... Depending on where Mars and Earth are in their orbits around the sun, the messages that journey through space can take anywhere from 3 to 22 minutes.

To begin the live stream, the ESA estimates it will take about 17 minutes for the light needed to form the images to travel directly from Mars to Earth and then another minute to get through the wires and servers on the ground, the ESA said.

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/01/world/mars-live-images-scn/index.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qyVNqeJ6wQ

AND FINALLY ... oh my ... we can always trust big companies to do the right thing (I'm being sarcastic) ...

It is a caution that "white hat" researchers and their supporters must stay ahead of the "black hats" in other areas, from genetics to AI ...

Tobacco Industry Tactics: Makers of PFAS “Forever Chemicals” Covered Up the Dangers

Widely used in clothing, household products and food, they resist breaking down in the environment.

The chemical industry took a page out of the tobacco playbook when they discovered and suppressed their knowledge of health harms caused by exposure to PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), according to an analysis of previously secret industry documents by UC San Francisco (UCSF) researchers.

A new paper published on June 1, 2023, in Annals of Global Health, examines documents from DuPont and 3M, the largest manufacturers of PFAS, and analyzes the tactics industry used to delay public awareness of PFAS toxicity and, in turn, delay regulations governing their use. PFAS are widely used chemicals in clothing, household goods, and food products, and are highly resistant to breaking down, giving them the name “forever chemicals.” They are now ubiquitous in people and the environment.

“These documents reveal clear evidence that the chemical industry knew about the dangers of PFAS and failed to let the public, regulators, and even their own employees know the risks,” said Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, professor and director of the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE), a former senior scientist and policy advisor at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and senior author of the paper.

This is the first time these PFAS industry documents have been analyzed by scientists using methods designed to expose tobacco industry tactics.

... The paper documents a timeline of what industry knew versus public knowledge and analyzes strategies the chemical industry used to suppress information or protect their harmful products. Examples include:

As early as 1961, according to a company report, Teflon’s Chief of Toxicology discovered that Teflon materials had “the ability to increase the size of the liver of rats at low doses,” and advised that the chemicals “be handled ‘with extreme care’ and that ‘contact with the skin should be strictly avoided.’” ...

... The paper documents a timeline of what industry knew versus public knowledge and analyzes strategies the chemical industry used to suppress information or protect their harmful products. Examples include:

As early as 1961, according to a company report, Teflon’s Chief of Toxicology discovered that Teflon materials had “the ability to increase the size of the liver of rats at low doses,” and advised that the chemicals “be handled ‘with extreme care’ and that ‘contact with the skin should be strictly avoided.’”

https://scitechdaily.com/tobacco-industry-tactics-makers-of-pfas-forever-chemicals-covered-up-the-dangers/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Skid marks of our black hole ...

Astronomers “Stunned” by Discovery of Mysterious Filaments in Milky Way’s Center

Hundreds of horizontal filaments point toward our central supermassive black hole.

New radio telescope images reveal hundreds of filaments along the galactic plane, each measuring 5 to 10 light-years in length. These structures likely originated a few million years ago when outflow from our supermassive black hole interacted with surrounding materials ...

... “It was a surprise to suddenly find a new population of structures that seem to be pointing in the direction of the black hole,” Yusef-Zadeh said. “I was actually stunned when I saw these. We had to do a lot of work to establish that we weren’t fooling ourselves. And we found that these filaments are not random but appear to be tied to the outflow of our black hole. By studying them, we could learn more about the black hole’s spin and accretion disk orientation. It is satisfying when one finds order in a middle of a chaotic field of the nucleus of our galaxy.” ...

... While the vertical filaments sweep through the galaxy, towering up to 150 light-years high, the horizontal filaments look more like the dots and dashes of Morse code, punctuating only one side of Sagittarius A*. ... Yusef-Zadeh was shocked to uncover their horizontal counterparts, which he estimates are about 6 million years old. ...

MeerKAT image of the galactic center with color-coded position angles of all filaments.

https://scitechdaily.com/astronomers-stunned-by-discovery-of-mysterious-filaments-in-milky-ways-center/

So, the universe is only 13.8 billion years old since the Big Bang ... but this galaxy is 25 billion light years away ...

The Earliest Quiescent – Researchers Reveal Traits of Ancient Galaxy 25 Billion Light-Years Away

GS-9209, a galaxy discovered by Edinburgh researchers and detailed by the James Webb Space Telescope, is the earliest known quiescent galaxy, forming 600 to 800 million years after the Big Bang and ceasing star production half a billion years later. Despite being 10x smaller than the Milky Way, it contains a similar number of stars (that have a combined mass around 40 billion times that of our Sun) and a central supermassive black hole five times larger than anticipated, which may have halted star formation by emitting high-energy radiation that drove out galactic gas.

... The galaxy is 25 billion light years away today, researchers say, but when the light started traveling from it to us about 12.5 billion years ago, it was much closer, because the Universe is expanding.

This means, despite the Universe being an estimated 13.8 billion years old, it is possible to see things as far away as around 45 billion light-years, they add.

GS-9209 observed by the James Webb Space Telescope next to other galaxies.

A little Zap ... about something, I forget what ... (seems like a very small study, however) ...

Scientists zap sleeping humans' brains with electricity to improve their memory

A little brain stimulation at night appears to help people remember what they learned the previous day.

A study of 18 people with severe epilepsy found that they scored higher on a memory test if they got deep brain stimulation while they slept, a team reports in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The stimulation was delivered during non-REM sleep, when the brain is thought to strengthen memories it expects to use in the future. It was designed to synchronize the activity in two brain areas involved in memory consolidation: the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex.

"Some improved by 10% or 20%, some improved by 80%," depending on the level of synchrony, says Dr. Itzhak Fried, an author of the study and a professor of neurosurgery at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The results back a leading theory of how the brain transforms a daily event into a memory that can last for days, weeks, or even years. They also suggest a new approach to helping people with a range of sleep and memory problems.

"We know for instance that in patients with dementia, with Alzheimer, sleep is not working very well at all," Fried says. "The question is whether by changing the architecture of sleep, you can help memory."

... During sleep, brain cells fire in rhythmic patterns. Scientists believe that when two brain areas synchronize their firing patterns, they are able to communicate.

Studies suggest that during non-REM sleep, the hippocampus, found deep in the brain, synchronizes its activity with the prefrontal cortex, which lies just behind the forehead. That process appears to help transform memories from the day into memories that can last a lifetime.

So Fried and his team wanted to know whether increasing synchrony between the two brain areas could improve a person's memory of facts and events.

Their study involved epilepsy patients who already had electrodes in their brains as part of their medical evaluation. This gave the scientists a way to both monitor and alter a person's brain rhythms.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...o-boost-memory

First official AI redundancies ... more sure to follow ... but this little interview shows a possible way forward ...

Artificial Intelligence responsible for 5% of jobs lost in May [in USA]

For the first time in history, Artificial Intelligence is cited as a reason for U.S. job losses. Tracy Alloway, co-host of the Bloomberg podcast “Odd Bits,” discusses the new report ...

https://youtu.be/Ey-nWV98cJ4

Wastewater ... not wasted ...

A Sustainable Solution – Unlocking the Hidden Potential of Wastewater

Researchers have developed a method to extract and recover valuable nutrients like phosphate and ammonium from wastewater using a specially designed membrane containing inorganic particles. The research, which positions wastewater as a resource rather than a nuisance, could potentially contribute to a circular economy by providing materials for agricultural fertilizer production, and mitigate impending shortages of these nutrients which could threaten the global food supply.

Used water from bathing, toileting, laundry, and other sources flows down drains to sewers that lead to wastewater treatment plants, where it is cleaned so it can be safely discharged into nature without impacting the environment. The key objectives of the treatment process include removing solids, organic matter, pathogens, and nutrients, such as those that derive from household products and excreta — waste matter discharged from the body. Among these nutrients are phosphate and ammonium, two essential ingredients in agricultural fertilizers.

While phosphorous is essential for thriving plant life, too much of the chemical can cause eutrophication. This complex process begins when an environment becomes overly enriched by nutrients, leading to an explosion in the growth of algae. These harmful algae blooms deplete the availability of oxygen in the water, creating ‘dead zones’ where aquatic organisms suffocate. Long-term exposure to ammonium can also be toxic to aquatic life.

Current wastewater treatment facilities have established processes for removing phosphate and ammonium during the treatment process. Typically, a chemical treatment converts the phosphate into a solid form that settles at the bottom of the water, where it is then collected as sludge and sent to a landfill. Ammonium is traditionally removed using biological treatment, where bacteria consume it and turn it into nitrate and then to nitrogen gas. “These are two high-value products that are key ingredients in fertilizers, but current wastewater treatment processes treat these nutrients as waste,” says Abu-Obaid.

“My solution is to extract the nutrients from the water completely, and so it can be used as a source for fertilizer production.”

https://scitechdaily.com/a-sustainab...of-wastewater/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

So much amazing science and tech news in recent days ...

The faintest trace of an early galaxy ... showing how the cosmic dark ages ended ...

Astrophysicists Spot a Cosmic Whisper: The Faintest Galaxy in the Early Universe

An international research team has confirmed the existence of the faintest galaxy ever observed in the early universe, JD1. This discovery was made using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and contributes to the understanding of the universe’s evolution. JD1, typical of galaxies that ionized the post-Big Bang hydrogen fog, was studied thanks to its position behind a galaxy cluster that magnified its light.

After the Big Bang, the universe expanded and cooled sufficiently for hydrogen atoms to form. In the absence of light from the first stars and galaxies, the universe entered a period known as the cosmic dark ages. The first stars and galaxies appeared several hundred million years later and began burning away the hydrogen fog left over from the Big Bang, rendering the universe transparent, like it is today. Researchers led by astrophysicists from UCLA confirmed the existence of a distant, faint galaxy typical of those whose light burned through the hydrogen atoms; the finding should help them understand how the cosmic dark ages ended.

... Because light takes time to travel to Earth, JD1 is seen as it was approximately 13.3 billion years ago [the universe is thought to be about 13.8 billion years old], when the universe was only about 4% of its present age.

https://scitechdaily.com/astrophysicists-spot-a-cosmic-whisper-the-faintest-galaxy-in-the-early-universe/

And that is but one of hundreds of early galaxies found by Webb so far, more to come ... when all was creation, leading to us today ...

Webb Space Telescope Shows Early Universe Crackled With Bursts of Star Formation

... Just over one whole month of Webb’s observing time is devoted to the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES. JADES will peer deeply into the universe to study some of the faintest and most distant galaxies. Among the program’s first findings: Hundreds of galaxies that existed when the universe was less than 600 million years old, and galaxies that have undergone repeated bursts of star formation. ...

... The sheer number of these galaxies was far beyond predictions from observations made before Webb’s launch. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/webb-space-telescope-shows-early-universe-crackled-with-bursts-of-star-formation/

We have touched the sun ...

A solar mission that has been spiraling closer to the sun to unravel its secrets has flown near enough to our star’s surface to make a key discovery.

Data from the Parker Solar Probe has uncovered the source of solar wind, a stream of energized particles that flow from the corona, or the sun’s hot outer atmosphere, toward Earth. ... As the probe came within about 13 million miles (20.9 million kilometers) of the sun, its instruments detected fine structures of the solar wind where it generates near the photosphere, or the solar surface, and captured ephemeral details that disappear once the wind is blasted from the corona.

The spacecraft was specially designed to eventually fly within 4 million miles (6.4 million kilometers) above the solar surface, and in late 2021, it became the first mission to “touch” the sun.

... Solar wind is a continuous outflow of plasma, which contains charged particles like protons and electrons. The far-reaching phenomenon also includes part of the solar magnetic field and extends well beyond the corona, interacting with planets and the interstellar medium. Understanding the source of the solar wind can help scientists better predict space weather and solar storms that can affect Earth.

Although they can cause beautiful auroras, the solar storms can also impact satellites and Earth’s electrical grids.

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/07/world/...scn/index.html[

Sadly, we cannot handle the heat down here ... until we minimize human greed to consume, and increase human empathy for the suffering of others ...

The Arctic may be sea ice-free in summer by the 2030s, new study warns

The Arctic could be free of sea ice roughly a decade earlier than projected, scientists warn – another clear sign the climate crisis is happening faster than expected as the world continues to pump out planet-heating pollution.

A new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications found Arctic sea ice could disappear completely during the month of September as early as the 2030s. Even if the world makes significant cuts to planet-heating pollution today, the Arctic could still see summers free of sea ice by the 2050s, scientists reported. ... “We were surprised to find that an ice-free Arctic will be there in summer irrespective of our effort at reducing emissions, which was not expected,” Seung-Ki Min, lead author of the study and professor at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea, told CNN.

... “We need to prepare ourselves for a world with warmer Arctic very soon,” Min said. “Since Arctic warming is suggested to bring weather extremes like heatwaves, wildfires, and floods on Northern mid- and high latitudes, the earlier onset of an ice-free Arctic also implies that we will be experiencing extreme events faster than predicted.” ...

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/06/world/arctic-sea-ice-free-climate-change/index.html

This too ... for we must regulate guns, but also the ability of one person to harm another with a lack of empathy for their pain, plus depression in self-harm ...

Gun deaths hit their highest level ever in 2021 [in USA], with 1 person dead every 11 minutes

The report found 26,328 suicides involving a firearm took place in 2021 and 20,958 homicides. The gun suicide rate represented an 8.3% increase from 2020 — the largest one-year increase in more than four decades. The gun homicide rate was up 7.6%.

Further, the gun homicide rate rose 45% from 2019 to 2021, while the rate for homicides not involving a gun rose just 7% in the same period. Likewise, while the rate of suicides by firearm increased 10% over the same period, it was down 8% when looking at suicides by other means.

"Guns are driving this increase," says Ari Davis, a lead author on the study.

... In 2021, the deadliest year in U.S. history due to the pandemic, guns also outpaced COVID-19, car crashes and cancers as the leading cause of death among children and teens — most notably among Black children and teens. While there were more suicides than homicides for the general population, nearly two-thirds of gun deaths for children and teens were homicides.

The study points out that the rise in gun deaths coincides with record gun sales. ... It also notes that "states with the lowest gun death rates in 2021 have some of the strongest gun violence prevention laws in the country," with someone in Mississippi — with the highest rate of gun violence, according to the study — 10 times more likely to die of gun violence than in Massachusetts, which ranked lowest. ...

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/06/11804...deaths-in-2021

And other example of society and technology run amok

The world’s biggest youth population has a chilling insight into the future of work

Shut out of the traditional labour market, the alternatives India’s working-age youth are exploring will forecast the future of work globally.


Only two months earlier, 32-year-old Indian national Raju Rai had answered a job ad on Facebook for a sales consultant in Thailand.

Dissatisfied with his low salary at an IT company in the northern Indian city of Varanasi, Rai took the first flight out to Bangkok, so he could earn in US dollars and send money home.

But things didn’t go according to plan. After arrival, Rai was picked up by locals representing his new employer who drove him inland for eight hours to a riverbank and then put him on a boat crossing the border into Myanmar.

Rai finally ended up at a sprawling compound that had dozens of apartment blocks and office buildings where thousands of Indians were living and working.

“I met people from everywhere in India, from my town in [the northern state] Uttar Pradesh to the edge of [the southern state] Kerala,” he told me.

Most of them were men, and they had one job: scamming wealthier people in the West.

Within days, Rai realized he was trapped in the web of cybercrime syndicates operating in ostensibly lawless zones in many parts of Southeast Asia. These syndicates traffic foreign workers from poor countries, to execute a variety of internet scams.

Rai says he and his colleagues opened fake accounts on social media impersonating attractive girls and befriended prospective victims in the US, the UK and Europe by offering love and friendship.

Once the target was reeled in, the scammers asked them if they were ready to build a shared future.

They made naïve foreigners convert their savings to cryptocurrency and persuaded them to invest all of it in fake crypto exchanges hosted on their company servers.

Barred from leaving the heavily guarded compound, those who were unwilling or unable to meet the daily targets were beaten up and tortured, Rai told me.

... Most of them didn’t want to return despite forced work and physical violence, because they didn’t see their prospects in India changing anytime soon. ...

... Even if more job seekers were upskilled, the IT industry, which currently employs around 5.1 million people, could only accommodate a fraction of the 4.75 million Indians who enter the labor force every year.

The rest will have to look elsewhere. Catering to a market of 750 million smartphone users, India’s fast-growing gig economy is attracting young workers in great numbers. Millions of them crisscross the major cities at any hour of the day, delivering food, driving commuters, and carrying beauty kits to give at-home facials. ...

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/02/opinions/india-youth-population-online-internet-employment-poonam/index.html

Fortunately, scientists are getting a handle on some genetic and bio-chemical aspects of human emotions ...

Anxiety Relief in Sight: Scientists Identify Key Gene

Scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Exeter have identified a gene in the brain that drives anxiety symptoms and demonstrated that modifying this gene can significantly reduce anxiety levels, presenting a potential new target for anxiety treatment. The gene, regulated by a molecule called miR483-5p, suppresses the expression of the Pgap2 gene, which controls stress-induced changes in the brain, and enhancing this pathway could lead to more potent and effective treatments for anxiety disorders.

... Affecting 1 in 4 individuals at least once in their lives, anxiety disorders are quite common. Severe psychological distress can activate genetic, biochemical, and structural alterations in the amygdala neurons — the part of the brain associated with anxiety produced by stress. This can lead to the development of anxiety disorders, including panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder. However, the efficacy of currently available anti-anxiety drugs is low with more than half of patients not achieving remission following treatment. Limited success in developing potent anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) drugs is a result of our poor understanding of the neural circuits underlying anxiety and molecular events resulting in stress-related neuropsychiatric states. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/anxiety-rel...tify-key-gene/

The chemistry of sharing emotions ... in fish and people ...

Scientists Discover That a Molecule Has Been Spreading Emotions for Millions of Years

Researchers at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) have discovered that zebrafish, like humans, require oxytocin to mirror the emotions of others, a phenomenon known as emotional contagion. The zebrafish’s recognition of and reaction to emotions within their group, their use of similar brain areas to humans for this process, and their oxytocin-regulated behavior make them an ideal model for understanding emotional contagion, its impact on well-being and society, and its potential applications in various fields.

... In theory, the platform economy offers a unique combination of regular work and the freedom to opt out. But in practice, there is either too little work or too much of it – and with each task resulting in only a marginal commission, few can afford to turn off their devices.

As incidents of abuse and exploitation pile up, many of India’s gig workers are questioning their career choice. ... There are other ways in which India’s young people are shaping the future of technology. Indians make up the largest user base for some of the world’s biggest technology platforms, including YouTube, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

Leaving millions of impressions every day with likes, shares, and quote-tweets, their patterns of social media use are influencing what the platforms will look like in the future: more videos (which takes care of the problem of low literacy rate), expansion of social commerce (history of selling and buying within small communities), and the rise of hyperlocal influencers (engendering high levels of trust in product).

The leaders of Big Tech might also want to study the behavior of Indian users to prepare themselves for darker contingencies.

Disinformation is no longer a problematic aspect of the Indian internet, but a defining feature. Hate speech, fake news and deep fakes are posted and shared more frequently than ever before.

Recently, a 28-year-old cow-protection vigilante who became wildly popular by posting hateful videos against Muslims, was linked to the murder of two Muslim men. Mohit Yadav, alias Monu Manesar, who earlier denied involvement in the case, was named as an accused in the police report filed last month.

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-that-a-molecule-has-been-spreading-emotions-for-millions-of-years/

More effective desire reducers in the pipeline ... and does it aid addictions far beyond food? ...

Ozempic user says drug helped curb her addiction

... the cultural ubiquity of Ozempic and Wegovy as diet aids has spawned celebrity testimonials and thinkpieces galore.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in recent weeks and months, medical and scientific authorities have also indicated that next-generation drugs are now in development that may be easier and more convenient to use and have even greater capacity to induce weight loss. As CNN recently reported, according to research from financial firm TD Cowen, nearly two dozen experimental drugs are now being designed to be taken as pills for obesity and related conditions. ...

https://us.cnn.com/videos/health/202...ll-cnc-vpx.cnn

But, even in moderation, we will still need to eat something in space ...

How astronauts heading to Mars could enjoy fresh produce and grill meat

... the round trip to the red planet is expected to take about three years. Food is one of the many challenges NASA faces before sending humans into deep space, but it’s a big one. Nutritious food that also stimulates the appetite is necessary to keep astronauts healthy, and freeze-dried options won’t be enough.

... The culinary lab’s munch module offers another nutrition boost by growing microalgae in a bioreactor. Microalgae could help protect the astronauts as they leave the shielding effects of low Earth orbit and venture into the harsh radiation environment of deep space, Bagley said.

Rehydrated meats are something astronauts rely on as a source of protein. To make them more palatable, Nonfiction included sizzle as part of the culinary lab. The tiny microwave drawer, which resembles a convection oven, has glass plates and laser technology. Bagley demonstrated brushing a piece of rehydrated chicken with a blend of maple syrup and soy sauce, a combination that is “shelf stable and delicious,” she said.

As the meat warms, the “marinade” helps it caramelize, and a laser draws grill marks on the meat. ... Sizzle can be used to warm and “grill” vegetables, tofu and tortillas as well. ...
https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/03/world/...scn/index.html

Speaking of killing ... it is usually good that our cells know how to kill themselves in time ...

How Our Cells Kill Themselves – Scientists Decode the Exact Mechanism at the Atomic Level

Until recently, it was assumed that cells simply burst and die at the end of their life. Now, researchers at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, the University of Lausanne, and the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) at ETH Zurich have provided new insights into the final step of cell death.

In the scientific journal Nature, they describe how a protein called ninjurin-1 assembles into filaments that work like a zipper and open the cell membrane, thus leading to the disintegration of the cell. The new insights are an important milestone in the understanding of cell death.

Protein acts as a breaking point in the cell membrane

Various signals, such as bacterial components, trigger the cell death machinery. At the final stage of this process, the cell’s protective membrane is compromised by tiny pores which allow ions to stream into the cell.

In our bodies, millions of cells meet their end on a daily basis. Contrary to popular belief, cells don’t just explode when they die. Instead, a particular protein acts as a trigger for the rupture of the cell membrane. Scientists from the University of Basel have recently been able to elucidate the exact mechanism at the atomic level. Their findings are published in the journal Nature.

The self-elimination of cells is a vital process for all living organisms. When cells become damaged or infected with viruses or bacteria, they initiate an internal “self-destruct” sequence. This essential mechanism wards off the potential growth of tumors and prevents the spread of harmful pathogens throughout the body.

https://scitechdaily.com/how-our-cells-kill-themselves-scientists-decode-the-exact-mechanism-at-the-atomic-level/

https://youtu.be/Smvc06udcS0

And for something else to kill your appetite ... lungs in a vat ...

Lab-Grown Mini Lungs: Accelerating Respiratory Disease Research

Researchers have developed a cutting-edge technology that uses microchips to cultivate miniaturized “cloned” human lungs from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), aiming to better understand lung infections like COVID-19. The stem cells self-organize into complex “micro lungs,” replicating the intricacy of human lung tissue. This allows for an unprecedented high-throughput analysis of lung tissue infection, eliminating variable factors that typically occur when using different patient samples. This platform can also be used to study other diseases and screen for new drugs, and it is primed for swift response to future pandemics ...

And more hearts to go around too ...

Reanimated hearts work as well for transplants and could make more organs available for patients in need, study finds

Researchers say they have been able to tap a new pool of organ donors to preserve and transplant their hearts: people whose hearts have stopped beating, resulting in so-called circulatory death.

Traditionally, the only people considered to be suitable organ donors were those who have been declared brain-dead but whose hearts and other organs have continued to function.

There’s another group that would be willing to donate if survival wasn’t possible: people who may have severe brain injuries but who are not brain-dead. In these cases, people are considered deceased when their hearts stop beating after withdrawal of life support, also called circulatory death. Donation after circulatory death, or DCD, has caught on in other countries like the UK and Spain. It has become somewhat common in the US for organs like kidneys. But American transplant teams have been more reluctant to accept hearts that have stopped beating, even for a brief time, for fear that lack of oxygen to the heart would damage the organ and affect its longevity.

Shortly after death and before the heart can be salvaged, “there’s that period of both poor blood flow and no blood flow that the heart is very sensitive to. And that is why people did not think that this was necessarily going to be possible,” said Dr. Jacob Schroder, surgical director of the heart transplant program at Duke University ...

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/07/health...ath/index.html

Someday soon, we might 3-D print hearts ... and all manner or new materials ...

Revolutionary 3D Printing Technology a “Game Changer” for Discovering and Manufacturing New Materials

A novel 3D printing method called high-throughput combinatorial printing (HTCP) has been created that significantly accelerates the discovery and production of new materials.

The process involves mixing multiple aerosolized nanomaterial inks during printing, which allows for fine control over the printed materials’ architecture and local compositions. This method produces materials with gradient compositions and properties and can be applied to a wide range of substances including metals, semiconductors, polymers, and biomaterials. ... The new process mixes multiple aerosolized nanomaterial inks in a single printing nozzle, varying the ink mixing ratio on the fly during the printing process. This method — called high-throughput combinatorial printing (HTCP) — controls both the printed materials’ 3D architectures and local compositions and produces materials with gradient compositions and properties at microscale spatial resolution.

His research was published on May 10, 2023, in the journal Nature.

https://scitechdaily.com/revolutionary-3d-printing-technology-a-game-changer-for-discovering-and-manufacturing-new-materials/

I don't think these will catch on for daily wear ... but for factories, distance surgery, operating machines at a distance, and of course, as in most new internet innovations ... porno ... and the price will come down ...

I tried Apple’s new headset. Here’s what it’s like to use

It’s rare to find a new technology that feels groundbreaking. But last night, while sitting on a couch in a private demo room at Apple’s campus wearing its newly announced Vision Pro mixed reality headset, it felt like I’d seen the future — or at least an early and very pricey prototype of it.

In the demo, which lasted 30 minutes, a virtual butterfly landed on my finger; a dinosaur with detailed scales tried to bite me; and I stood inches away from Alicia Keys’ piano as she serenaded me in a recording studio. When a small bear cub swam by me on a quiet lake during another immersive video, it felt so real that it reminded me of an experience with a loved one who recently passed away. I couldn’t wipe the tears inside my headset. ...


... But it’s clearly a work in progress. The apps and experiences remain limited; users must stay tethered to a battery pack the size of an iPhone with just two hours of battery life; and the first minutes using the device can be off-putting. Apple also plans to charge $3,499 for the device when it goes on sale early next year – more than had been rumored and far more than other headsets on the market that have previously struggled to gain wide adoption. ...

... The initial setup process was somewhat unpleasant: I felt a little nauseous and claustrophobic as I adjusted to the device. It tracked my eyes, scanned my hands and mapped the room to better tailor the augmented reality experience.

But Apple has also taken steps to reduce the motion sickness problem that has plagued other headsets. The headset uses an R1 processor, a custom chip that cuts down on the latency issue found in similar products that can result in nausea. ...

... The headset itself felt light enough in the beginning, but even with Apple’s considerable design chops, I never shook the idea that there was a computer on my face. Fortunately, unlike other computing products, the headset did remain cool on my face throughout the experience, thanks largely to a quiet fan and airflow running through the system

Unlike other headsets, the new mixed reality headset also displays the eyes of its users on the outside, so “you’re never isolated from the people around you, you can see them and they can see you,” Alan Dye, vice president of human interface, said during the keynote.
... The real magic of the Vision Pro, however, is in the immersive videos. Watching an underwater scene from Avatar 2 in 3D, for example, was surreal, seemingly placing me right in the ocean with these fictional creatures. It’s easy to imagine buy-in from Hollywood filmmakers to create experiences just for the headset. ...

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/06/tech/apple-vision-pro-hands-on/index.html

https://youtu.be/8XtAY9LjtuQ

An ancient cousin's version of the Apple headset ...

Mysterious species buried their dead and carved symbols 100,000 years before humans

... The brains belonging to the extinct species, known as Homo naledi, were around one-third the size of a modern human brain.

The revelations could change the understanding of human evolution, because until now such behaviors only have been associated with larger-brained Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. ... Now, the research team has discovered the remains of Homo naledi adults and children that were laid to rest in the fetal position within cave depressions and covered with soil. The burials are older than any known Homo sapiens burials by at least 100,000 years.

... During the work to identify the cave burials, the scientists also found a number of symbols engraved on the cave walls, which are estimated to be between 241,000 and 335,000 years old, but they want to continue their testing for more precise dating.

The symbols include deeply carved hashtag-like cross-hatchings and other geometric shapes. Similar symbols found in other caves were carved by early Homo sapiens 80,000 years ago and Neanderthals 60,000 years ago and were thought to have been used as a way to record and share information.

“These recent findings suggest intentional burials, the use of symbols, and meaning-making activities by Homo naledi. It seems an inevitable conclusion that in combination they indicate that this small-brained species of ancient human relatives was performing complex practices related to death,” said Berger, lead author on two of the studies and coauthor on the third, in a statement. “That would mean not only are humans not unique in the development of symbolic practices, but may not have even invented such behaviors.” ...

... This image shows two burial features discovered in the Rising Star cave's Dinaledi Chamber. One body belonged to an adult Homo naledi, and the other was a juvenile. ,,, A wall of the Hill Antechamber showcases numerous engravings and etchings. The panel shows repeated etchings of squares, ladders, triangles, crosses and X's.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Tokan]

Nine bows to the work of all these scientists attempting to save all beings and reduce suffering.

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

[Jundo]

If there was not more matter than anti-matter, none of us would be here ...

CP Symmetry Violation: Large Hadron Collider Tightens Precision on Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry

The Big Bang is thought to have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter, yet the Universe today is made almost entirely of matter, so something must have happened to create this imbalance.

The weak force of the Standard Model of particle physics is known to induce a behavioral difference between matter and antimatter – known as CP symmetry violation – in decays of particles containing quarks, one of the building blocks of matter. But these differences, or asymmetries, are hard to measure and insufficient to explain the matter–antimatter imbalance in the present-day Universe, prompting physicists to both measure precisely the known differences and to look for new ones.

At a seminar held at CERN today, June 13, the LHCb collaboration reported how it has measured, more precisely than ever before, two key parameters that determine such matter–antimatter asymmetries.

...In 2001, the BaBar experiment in the US and the Belle experiment in [TSUKUBA! ] Japan confirmed the existence of CP violation ... In 2008, Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their theoretical framework that elegantly explained the observed CP violation phenomena.

https://scitechdaily.com/cp-symmetry...ter-asymmetry/

On 5/28, I reported that egg and sperm can now be made from any cell (https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/show...l=1#post324892). The following does away with even the need for egg and sperm!!

... But they are not really full "embryos" ... only embryo-ish ...

Scientists report creation of first human synthetic model embryos

A team of researchers in the United States and United Kingdom say they have created the world’s first synthetic human embryo-like structures from stem cells, bypassing the need for eggs and sperm.

These embryo-like structures are at the very earliest stages of human development: They don’t have a beating heart or a brain, for example. But scientists say they could one day help advance the understanding of genetic diseases or the causes of miscarriages.

The research raises critical legal and ethical questions, and many countries, including the US, don’t have laws governing the creation or treatment of synthetic embryos.

... The embryo-like structures that Zernicka-Goetz says her lab has created were grown from single human embryonic stem cells that were coaxed to develop into three distinct tissue layers, she said. They include cells that would typically go on to develop a yolk sac, a placenta and the embryo itself.

“I just wish to stress that they are not human embryos,” Zernicka-Goetz said. “They are embryo models, but they are very exciting because they are very looking similar to human embryos and very important path towards discovery of why so many pregnancies fail, as the majority of the pregnancies fail around the time of the development at which we build these embryo-like structures.”

She said that to her knowledge, it was the first time a human model embryo had been created with three tissue layers. But she stressed that while it mimics some of the features of a natural embryo, it doesn’t have all of them.
https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/14/health...ryo/index.html

Then there are these guys who pack the whole family within ...

Defying Fundamental Laws of Biology – Scientists Discover Real-Life Chimeras

International researchers studying the yellow crazy ant, or Anoplolepis gracilipes, found that male ants of this species are chimeras, containing two genomes from different parent cells within their bodies. This unique reproductive process, originating from a single fertilized egg that undergoes separate maternal and paternal nuclear division, is unprecedented and challenges the fundamental biological inheritance law stating that all cells of an individual should contain the same genome.

... The results were quite extraordinary. It had been assumed to date that the males of the yellow crazy ant carried the same two sets of chromosomes in all cells of their body. However, the team was able to demonstrate that this premise was anything but correct. “We discovered that the male ants have maternal and paternal genomes in different cells of their body and are thus chimeras. To put it another way, all males have two genomes, but each cell of their bodies contains only one or the other of the two genomes,” summarized Darras.

Normally, in a multicellular life form – be this a human, a dog, or a bat – all cells contain identical genetic material.

https://scitechdaily.com/defying-fun...life-chimeras/

And we have a little more of these guys working in us then once thought ....

Revealing the Neanderthal Legacy: Modern Humans Inherited More Than You Think

A multi-institution research team, including Cornell University, used a new suite of computational genetic tools to examine how Neanderthal genes still actively influence human traits in people of non-African ancestry, revealing that certain Neanderthal genes significantly impact modern human immune systems and other traits. Analyzing nearly 300,000 UK Biobank datasets, they found 4,303 Neanderthal genetic variants affecting 47 distinct genetic traits, with modern human genes overall winning out over generations. ... [I]nterbreeding between humans of non-African ancestry and Neanderthals that took place some 50,000 years ago ...

... the researchers analyzed more than 235,000 genetic variants likely to have originated from Neanderthals. They found that 4,303 of those differences in DNA are playing a substantial role in modern humans and influencing 47 distinct genetic traits, such as how fast someone can burn calories or a person’s natural immune resistance to certain diseases. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/revealing-the-neanderthal-legacy-modern-humans-inherited-more-than-you-think/

Of course, what makes us human is our brain ... and what an amazing structure that is ...

A New Twist in Brain Science: A Proteasome Particle’s Unforeseen Function in Synapses

Darwin’s evolutionary theory underscored the significance of adaptation and variety in nature. However, can proteins within a biological cell also exhibit versatility and adapt to new roles in varying contexts?

The answer appears to be yes for the central protein-decomposition apparatus in the brain. When located at synapses, it reveals a previously unseen mechanism enabling synapses to adapt to varying situations.

The role of the regulatory (19S) proteasome particle has always been exclusively linked to its functioning in the proteasome complex, where it collaborates with the catalytic (20S) particle to recognize and remove unwanted or damaged proteins- a mechanism that is crucial for normal brain development and function.

Using a super-resolution imaging technique, called DNA PAINT, the research team noticed an abundance of free 19S particles in synapses, floating around without their 20S partners:

“What we realized was that 19S is not only a partner of 20S. It also works alone as an independent regulator for many key synaptic proteins. This revealed a whole new dimension to our understanding of protein function at synapses,” explains Chao Sun, Associate Professor, and lead author of the article. ...

... “Usually, if the cell makes excess copies of one protein component, it needs to get rid of these excess copies. Because cells do not like to have extra proteins lying around when they can’t find partners to enable protein function. We call them ‘orphan proteins’. But in this case, it seems like the synapses are making use of these free 19S particles and adapting them to fulfill alternative functions in the synapses,” Chao Sun explains. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/a-new-twist...n-in-synapses/

But the human brain was made for earth, not zero gravity ...

Astronauts’ brains take a hit during long spaceflights


Spaceflights lasting six months or longer take a toll on the brains of astronauts, and crew members may need to wait at least three years before returning to space, according to new research.

Scientists compared the brain scans of 30 astronauts taken before spaceflights lasting two weeks, six months or a year with scans taken after they returned to Earth. The scans revealed that the ventricles, or cavities within the brain that are filled with cerebrospinal fluid, expanded significantly within the brains of astronauts who went to the International Space Station on missions lasting at least six months.

The findings have implications for future longer-term missions as NASA and its international partners aim to establish a sustained human presence on the moon with the Artemis program, with the eventual goal of sending humans to deep-space destinations such as Mars. ... “People who spend just a couple of weeks show little to no change in these structures,” Seidler said. “This is good news for those going on short space junkets.” ...

... We don’t yet know for sure what the long-term consequences of this is on the health and behavioral health of space travelers, so allowing the brain time to recover seems like a good idea,” she said. ...

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/08/world/...scn/index.html

A supernova superstar ...

A new supernova has appeared in the night sky

... The supernova was first spotted within the spiral arms of the Pinwheel Galaxy by Japanese astronomer Koichi Itagaki on May 19. Itagaki, an avid supernova hunter, has discovered more than 80 of the stellar explosions using his observatory in the mountains outside Yamagata, Japan.

The supernova, named SN 2023ixf, is the closest one seen in five years. A supernova occurs when a star violently explodes at the end of its lifetime. The Pinwheel Galaxy is in the direction of the Ursa Major constellation, about 21 million light-years from Earth. ... Astronomers believe it is a Type II supernova, when a massive star between eight and 50 times the mass of our sun exhausts its nuclear fuel supply, collapses and explodes. It’s the second supernova observed in the Pinwheel Galaxy in 15 years. ...

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/09/world/...scn/index.html

Speaking of stars ... I love Lucy! ...

51zZnl4ZyEL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

The other Lucy ... brought to life ...

3D Muscle Reconstruction Reveals 3.2 Million-Year-Old “Lucy” Could Stand As Erect as Modern Humans

Digital modeling of legendary fossil’s soft tissue suggests Australopithecus afarensis had powerful leg and pelvic muscles suited to tree-dwelling, but knee muscles that allowed fully erect walking. ... A Cambridge University researcher has digitally reconstructed the missing soft tissue of an early human ancestor – or hominin – for the first time, revealing a capability to stand as erect as we do today. ... Named for the Beatles classic ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, Lucy is one of the most complete examples to be unearthed of any type of Australopithecus – with 40% of her skeleton recovered. ...

https://youtu.be/WUjynpAb7gY

Some really early ancestors ...

Billion-year-old rocks reveal traces of ancient life

Plants, algae, fungi, and animals — including humans — are all eukaryotes: life forms with complex, nucleus-containing cells.

A recent discovery of organic compounds in ancient rocks in Australia helps illuminate the early history of eukaryotes, suggesting that this group was already abundant more than a billion years ago, according to a new study.

Eukaryotes are believed to date back 2 billion years, but scientists thought that they only became widespread about 800 million years ago, said Dr. Benjamin Nettersheim, one of the co-first authors of the study published in Nature.

However, newfound traces of molecules possibly produced by eukaryotes are up to 1.6 billion years old, which indicates “that early eukaryotes were already ecologically important for all this time,” said Nettersheim, who is a postdoctoral researcher in geobiology at the MARUM Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen in Germany. “We just didn’t see their traces until now. They’ve kind of been hidden in plain sight.”

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/12/world/...scn/index.html

Speaking of the Beatles, bringing a couple of them back from the dead ...

The Beatles will release a new and 'final record' this year, Paul McCartney says — with a little help from AI

Speaking to BBC Radio 4, the 80-year-old McCartney confirmed that the band — whose cultural influence may have been unmatched in the 20th century — will release "the final Beatles record" this year, having used cutting-edge technology to extract Lennon's voice from an old demo recording.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/b...tney-rcna88998

We can't even trust our own eyes now ...

‘We no longer know what reality is.’ How tech companies are working to help detect AI-generated images

For a brief moment last month, an image purporting to show an explosion near the Pentagon spread on social media, causing panic and a market sell-off. The image, which bore all the hallmarks of being generated by AI, was later debunked by authorities.

But according to Jeffrey McGregor, the CEO of Truepic, it is “truly the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come.” As he put it, “We’re going to see a lot more AI generated content start to surface on social media, and we’re just not prepared for it.”

McGregor’s company is working to address this problem. Truepic offers technology that claims to authenticate media at the point of creation through its Truepic Lens. The application captures data including date, time, location and the device used to make the image, and applies a digital signature to verify if the image is organic, or if it has been manipulated or generated by AI.

... Companies are broadly taking two approaches to address the issue.

One tactic relies on developing programs to identify images as AI-generated after they have been produced and shared online; the other focuses on marking an image as real or AI-generated at its conception with a kind of digital signature. ...

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/a...ion/index.html

Making drugs in space ...

This company wants to make drug manufacturing the next big extraterrestrial business

One California-based startup, Varda Space Industries, is betting that big business will lie in relatively unassuming satellites that will spend days or months in Earth’s orbit quietly carrying out pharmaceutical development. Its research, company officials hope, could lead to better, more effective drugs — and hefty profits. ... Varda launched its first test mission Monday aboard a SpaceX rocket, which took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California just after 2:30 pm PT. The company then confirmed in a tweet that its satellite successfully separated from the rocket.

... The core of this idea — manufacturing pharmaceuticals in microgravity — builds on experiments carried out on the International Space Station, which is operated by astronauts but hosts experiments from a range of private companies and research institutions. Big pharma firms, including Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb, have sent experiments there, working with the ISS National Laboratory. And some of this work may lead to changes in the drugs that people on Earth take today.

But whether Varda’s ambitious business plan is viable will depend on numerous technological and financial questions. ...

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/12/busine...scn/index.html

I look forward to someday sitting on my Martian porch ...

The Curiosity rover has captured a stunning new mosaic that reveals the dramatic, colorful hues of morning and afternoon light on the surface of Mars.

The Curiosity rover has captured a stunning new mosaic that reveals the dramatic, colorful hues of morning and afternoon light on the surface of Mars.

The robotic explorer used its black-and-white navigation cameras to take panoramas of the Marker Band Valley on April 8 before leaving the site. One panorama was taken at 9:20 a.m., while the other was taken at 3:40 p.m., both local Mars time.

https://us.cnn.com/2023/06/14/world/mars-curiosity-rover-postcard-scn/index.html

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

This is a big discovery because phosphorus is a basic building block of life as we know it ... In fact, you depend on the stuff from head to toe ...

Building Block for Life Discovered in Enceladus’ Ocean by NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft

Phosphorus, a vital element for life, has been discovered in icy grains emitted from Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, by NASA’s Cassini mission. This first-time discovery in an ocean beyond Earth hints at the potential for life-supporting conditions in Enceladus’ subsurface ocean and possibly other icy ocean worlds. However, the presence of life is yet to be confirmed. ...

... Phosphorus, the least abundant of the essential elements necessary for biological processes, hadn’t been detected until now. The element is a building block for DNA, which forms chromosomes and carries genetic information, and is present in the bones of mammals, cell membranes, and ocean-dwelling plankton. Phosphorus is also a fundamental part of energy-carrying molecules present in all life on Earth. Life wouldn’t be possible without it. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/building-block-for-life-discovered-in-enceladus-ocean-by-nasas-cassini-spacecraft/

One more amazing natural chemical which makes the brain go ...

Neuroscience Breakthrough: Missing Link Explains mRNA Delivery in Brain Cells

Collaborative efforts from teams at the MPI Institutes located in Dresden, Dortmund, Frankfurt am Main, and Göttingen have led to the first evidence of a protein complex that plays a crucial role in transporting messenger RNA in neurons.

Every part of brain cells, even their lengthy offshoots, is involved in the production of proteins. A lack of this function in neurons can lead to serious neurological disorders such as disability and epilepsy. ... [The researchers] identified a new mechanism that transports messenger RNA (mRNA), the blueprint for proteins, exactly where it’s needed within neurons.

Using an array of techniques, the researchers have identified a protein complex, named FERRY, which links mRNA to intra-cellular carriers, and elucidated its role and structure.

... Cells produce vital proteins using mRNA as a blueprint and ribosomes as 3D printers. Yet, brain cells have a logistic challenge to overcome: A tree-like shape with branches that can span centimeters in the brain. “This implies that thousands of mRNAs need to be transported far away from the nucleus, resembling the logistic effort of properly supplying supermarkets in an entire country,” Jan Schuhmacher says, first author of the study.

So far, researchers attributed the carrier role to spherical compartments inside the cell, called Late Endosomes. However, MPI scientists argue that a different form of the compartments, called Early Endosomes (EEs), are also suitable as mRNA carriers, due to their ability to travel in both directions along intracellular road networks. In the first publication, led by Marino Zerial from MPI in Dresden, scientists discovered the function of a protein complex that they called FERRY (Five-subunit Endosomal Rab5 and RNA/ribosome intermediarY). In neurons, FERRY is linked to EEs and works similarly to a tie-down strap during transport: It interacts directly with mRNA and holds it onto EEs, which hence become logistic carriers for mRNA transport and distribution in brain cells.

But how does FERRY bind to mRNA? That’s when Stefan Raunser’s group from the MPI Dortmund comes into play. In the second publication, Dennis Quentin et al. used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to infer the structure of FERRY and the molecular features that allow the complex to bind to both EEs and mRNAs. The new 3D atomic model of FERRY, with a resolution of 4 Ångstroms, shows a novel mode of binding RNA, which involves coiled-coil domains. Scientists also explained how some genetic mutations affect FERRY’s ability to link mRNA thus leading to neurological disorders.

https://scitechdaily.com/neuroscienc...n-brain-cells/

Getting a jump on things ...

Earth Formed Much Faster Than Previously Thought – Increases Chances of Alien Life

A groundbreaking study from the University of Copenhagen has presented a fresh perspective on Earth’s formation, suggesting it occurred in a few million years, far quicker than the previously believed 100 million years. The research indicates that Earth was formed through the fast accumulation of small pebbles, and water’s existence is a byproduct of this formation process. This theory provides a promising outlook for the potential of habitable planets beyond our Solar System, given that water is a critical ingredient for life.

https://scitechdaily.com/earth-forme...of-alien-life/

A busy cave motel during their travels ...

Tam Pà Ling, a cave located in the northern region of Laos, unveils new insights into the earliest human migrations from Africa all the way to Australia.

What links a fossil discovered in a northern Laotian cave to ancient stone tools from northern Australia? It’s us, Homo sapiens. As our forebears journeyed from Africa to Australia, they marked their path with evidence of their presence in the form of human fossils that accumulated over thousands of years deep in a cave. Recent findings from the Tam Pà Ling cave in northern Laos have cast new light on this narrative. The investigation conducted by a multi-national team of researchers from Laos, France, America, and Australia, and subsequently published in Nature Communications, has conclusively established that modern humans ventured from Africa, traversed through Arabia, and reached Asia significantly earlier than was previously believed.

It also confirms that our ancestors didn’t just follow coastlines and islands. They traveled through forested regions, most likely along river valleys, too. Some then moved on through Southeast Asia to become Australia’s First People.

... “Far from reflecting a rapid dump of sediments, the site represents a consistent and seasonally deposited stack of sediments,” explains Flinders University geoarchaeologist Associate Professor Mike Morley, who worked with Ph.D. students Vito Hernandez and Meghan McAllister-Hayward.

The new chronology revealed there had been a human presence in this area for more than 56,000 years. Furthermore, the age of the lowest fossil at seven meters – a fragment of a leg bone – provides a timeline for modern human arrival in this region between 86,000 to 68,000 years ago. This pushes back the arrival time in mainland Southeast Asia by approximately 40,000 years. Although, according to genetics, these early migrations did not contribute significantly to our modern-day populations.

https://scitechdaily.com/ancient-cave-reveals-new-secrets-of-our-first-ancestors/?expand_article=1

This story boomerangs in my head ...

Quantum Boomerangs: MIT Physicist Explores the Universe’s Mysteries in an Alternate Reality

MIT physicist is searching for answers to one of the biggest questions in modern physics: How can our universe abide by two incompatible rulebooks?

The first — the Standard Model of Physics — is the quantum mechanical theory of particles, fields, and forces, and the ways in which they interact to build the universe we live in. The second — Einstein’s theory of general relativity — describes the influence of gravity and how the fundamental force pulls together matter to build the planets, galaxies, and other massive objects.

Both theories do remarkably well in their respective lanes. However, Einstein’s theory breaks down when trying to describe how gravity works at quantum scales, while quantum mechanics makes reality-bending predictions when applied at massive, cosmic dimensions. For over a century, physicists have searched for ways to unite the two theories and get to the truth of what makes our universe tick.

Harlow suspects that any connecting thread may be too delicate to grasp in our existing universe. Instead, he’s looking for answers in a “boomerang” version — an alternate reality that folds back on itself, much like a boomerang’s trajectory, rather than stretching and expanding without end as our actual universe does. Quantum gravity in this boomerang universe turns out to be easier to understand, as it can be reformulated in terms of conventional quantum theory (without gravity) using a powerful idea called holographic duality. This makes it far simpler to contemplate, at least from a theory perspective.

In this boomerang environment, Harlow has made some exciting, unexpected revelations. He has shown, for instance, that the equations that describe how gravity behaves in this “toy” universe are the very same equations that control the quantum error-correcting codes that will hopefully soon be used to build real-world quantum computers. That the mathematics describing gravity should have anything to do with protecting information in quantum computers was a surprise in itself. The fact that both phenomena shared the same physics, at least in this alternate universe, suggests a potential connection between Einstein’s theory and quantum mechanics in the real universe.

https://scitechdaily.com/quantum-boo...rnate-reality/

Simulated artificial molecules which act like real ones ...

Astonishing – Scientists Develop Artificial Molecules That Behave Like Real Ones

Researchers from Radboud University, led by Alex Khajetoorians and Daniel Wegner, have successfully created synthetic molecules that closely mimic the characteristics of organic ones. This interdisciplinary team can now simulate the actions of genuine molecules via these artificial constructs. This innovative approach allows them to modify the traits of molecules in ways that would typically be challenging or unrealistic, enhancing their understanding of molecular transformations.

... Sierda: “The resemblance between what we built and real molecules was uncanny.”

https://scitechdaily.com/astonishing...ike-real-ones/

A new phase ...

Physicists have discovered a new phase of matter, the “chiral bose-liquid state.”

This state, discovered through the exploration of kinetic frustration in quantum systems, exhibits robust properties such as unchangeable electron spin and long-range entanglement. The discovery, requiring high magnetic fields for observation, expands our understanding of the physical world and could have applications in fault-tolerant digital data encoding.

https://scitechdaily.com/quantum-fru...ase-of-matter/

And there's more ...

Biocompatible Innovation: MIT’s Soft, Printable, Metal-Free Electrodes for Next-Gen Implants

MIT engineers have created a soft, conductive polymer hydrogel that could serve as a biocompatible, metal-free implantable electrode. The material, which can be made into printable ink, might be used in a variety of medical applications, such as pacemakers and deep-brain stimulators. It has shown promise in preliminary animal tests for maintaining stability and effectively transmitting electrical pulses, with less inflammation and scarring compared to traditional metal electrodes.

Implantable electrodes are predominantly made from rigid metals that are electrically conductive by nature. But over time, metals can aggravate tissues, causing scarring and inflammation that in turn can degrade an implant’s performance.

Now, MIT engineers have developed a metal-free, Jell-O-like material that is as soft and tough as biological tissue and can conduct electricity similarly to conventional metals. The material can be made into a printable ink, which the researchers patterned into flexible, rubbery electrodes. The new material, which is a type of high-performance conducting polymer hydrogel, may one day replace metals as functional, gel-based electrodes, with the look and feel of biological tissue.

...

https://scitechdaily.com/biocompatib...-gen-implants/

Gassho, J

stlah