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

[Jundo]

When Australia becomes the top ...

The Creepy Sounds the Earth Made When Its Magnetic Field Flipped Will Haunt Your Dreams

Using data from the European Space Agency's three-satellite Swarm mission delving deep into our planet's magnetic field, Danish and German researchers have managed to map and recreate the sounds of what is known as the Laschamp event, which resulted in Earth's magnetic field briefly flipping 41,000 years ago.

During this event, which was named after the Laschamps lava flows in France where evidence of this flip was first discovered in the 1960s, our planet's magnetic field weakened to just five percent of its normal strength.

This allowed a bunch of cosmic rays to get past the atmosphere — and as researchers from the Technical University of Denmark and the German Research Center for Geosciences show in their recreation, it made a terrible sound as well. LINK

Map of the heavens ...

1.5 Billion Objects: Astronomers Unveil Unprecedented Infrared Map of Our Milky Way

In a monumental achievement, astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s VISTA telescope have created the most comprehensive infrared map of the Milky Way, featuring over 1.5 billion cosmic objects. This map, derived from 500 terabytes of data collected over 13 years, reveals hidden stars, moving celestial bodies, and distant clusters, transforming our understanding of the galaxy. ... “We made so many discoveries, we have changed the view of our galaxy forever” ...

... This collage highlights a small selection of regions of the Milky Way imaged as part of the most detailed infrared map ever of our galaxy. Here we see, from left to right and top to bottom: NGC 3576, NGC 6357, Messier 17, NGC 6188, Messier 22, and NGC 3603. All of them are clouds of gas and dust where stars are forming, except Messier 22, which is a very dense group of old stars ...
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BIGthink ...

Rewriting Cosmic Calculations: New AI Unlocks the Universe’s Settings

Using artificial intelligence, researchers have advanced the precision in estimating critical cosmological parameters by analyzing galaxy distributions. This new method, SimBIG, could provide clearer insights into the universe’s structure and help address the Hubble tension by refining our understanding of dark matter, dark energy, and the universe’s expansion. ... Compared to conventional techniques using the same galaxy data, the approach yielded less than half the uncertainty for the parameter describing the clumpiness of the universe’s matter. Additionally, the AI-powered method closely agreed with estimates of the cosmological parameters based on observations of other phenomena, such as the universe’s oldest light. ... LINK

Not just giant hurricanes this week ...

Sun Unleashes Monumental X9.0 Solar Flare – Most Intense in 7 Years – Captured by NASA Observatory

On October 3, 2024, the Sun emitted an exceptionally powerful X9.0 solar flare, peaking at 8:18 a.m. ET. This event, captured vividly by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, now stands as the most intense solar flare of Solar Cycle 25, which commenced in December 2019, eclipsing the previous high of X8.7 in May 2024.

In fact, it’s the most formidable flare observed in the last seven years, since the X11.9 flare on September 10, 2017.... The arrival of the energetic particles from a solar flare can take from 15 minutes to several hours or days, depending on the flare’s intensity and the speed of the ejection. High-energy particles can degrade the performance and lifespan of satellites and other spacecraft. They can also pose risks to astronauts, particularly those outside the protection of Earth’s magnetic field. On the ground, intense flares can disrupt telecommunications and navigation systems and, in extreme cases, cause electric power outages.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this imagery of an X9.0 solar flare – as seen in the bright flash in the center – on October 3, 2024.

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From Covid to the Moon ...

COVID-19 Pandemic Affected the Moon, Scientists Claim

As detailed in a recent article published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, scientists from the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, India, observed that lunar nighttime surface temperatures dipped substantially across six observation sites on the near side of the Moon. ... They propose that this "anomalous dip" was caused by a sudden drop in radiation being emitted from Earth as human activity plummeted during global lockdowns, which limited the amount of pollution and overall heat released by our planet at night. ... LINK

Mars was once lovely ...

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Uncovers the Red Planet’s Shocking Climate Shift


This is an artist’s concept of an early Mars with liquid water (blue areas) on its surface. Ancient regions on Mars bear signs of abundant water – such as features resembling valleys and deltas, and minerals that only form in the presence of liquid water. Scientists think that billions of years ago, the atmosphere of Mars was much denser and warm enough to form rivers, lakes, and perhaps even oceans of water. As the planet cooled and lost its global magnetic field, the solar wind and solar storms eroded away to space a significant amount of the planet’s atmosphere, turning Mars into the cold, arid desert we see today. LINK
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Are we alone ...

Paper Proposes New Way to Calculate Number of Alien Civilizations

Speaking to Universe Today, Columbia astronomer and paper coauthor David Kipping suggested that so-called "SETI optimists" may be missing the forest for the trees as they seek answers within our Milky Way. ... When doing calculations along this "birth-death" version of the Drake equation, the possibility arises that humanity simply happened to come about during a time when other extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy are rare or nonexistent. Even if that's true, though, there could be plenty more beyond it.

"I think my favorite way out is that our galaxy is just unusually quiet, most are busy and filled, but we are the first in the Milky Way," Kipping concluded. "This seems improbable, but perhaps being born in a busy galaxy is impossible since the habitable real estate has already been gobbled up. This suggests we should put more emphasis on extra-galactic SETI as our best shot." LINK

Be conscious of this ...

MIT Scientists Shed New Light on the Critical Brain Connections That Define Consciousness

A new study provides further evidence that consciousness depends on communication between the brain’s sensory and cognitive regions in the cortex.
Our brains are constantly making predictions about our surroundings, enabling us to focus on and respond to unexpected events. A recent study explores how this predictive process functions during consciousness and how it changes under general anesthesia. The findings support the idea that conscious thought relies on synchronized communication between basic sensory areas and higher-order cognitive regions of the brain, facilitated by brain rhythms in specific frequency bands. ....

The new results published Oct. 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that when animals were under propofol-induced general anesthesia, a sensory region retained the capacity to detect simple surprises but communication with a higher cognitive region toward the front of the brain was lost, making that region unable to engage in its “top-down” regulation of the activity of the sensory region and keeping it oblivious to simple and more complex surprises alike.

“What we are doing here speaks to the nature of consciousness,” said co-senior author Earl K. Miller, Picower Professor in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. “Propofol general anesthesia deactivates the top-down processes that underlie cognition. It essentially disconnects communication between the front and back halves of the brain.” LINK

Time is a state of mind ...

UCLA Scientists Reveal How Brain Cells Encode the Flow of Time

A groundbreaking study conducted by UCLA Health has begun to unravel one of the fundamental mysteries in neuroscience – how the human brain encodes and makes sense of the flow of time and experiences.

The study, published in the journal Nature, directly recorded the activity of individual neurons in humans and found specific types of brain cells fired in a way that mostly mirrored the order and structure of a person’s experience. They found the brain retains these unique firing patterns after the experience is concluded and can rapidly replay them while at rest.

Furthermore, the brain is also able to utilize these learned patterns to ready itself for future stimuli following that experience. These findings provide the first empirical evidence regarding how specific brain cells integrate “what” and “when” information to extract and retain representations of experiences through time. LINK

Swarm ...

How ‘swarm robots’ could help explore our solar system

Students in Canada have developed “backpacks” that can attach to different types of robots, enabling them to work autonomously as a team.
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Better that than this ...

The US Army Is Testing Killer Robot Dogs With AI-Powered Rifles in the Middle East

It's a dog-eat-dog world for the US Army, which is experimenting with rifle-equipped robot dogs at a Middle Eastern testing facility. As Military.com reports, the branch has deployed at least one new "Lone Wolf" robot-dog to test out its anti-drone capabilities at the Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Center, a joint military research facility in the Saudi kingdom that opened last year.

Manufactured by the newly Korean-owned firm Ghost Robotics, the pioneering maker of gun-toting robot canines, the AI-enhanced machine was described by a branch spokesperson as one of "several" pieces of machinery to be part of its anti-drone arsenal. mil-Quadrupedal-Unmanned-Ground-Vehicle-1800.jpg

Better this ...

New York paralysis patient lifts cup using only his thoughts after receiving AI brain implant
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One reason workers are upset ...

US port strike throws spotlight on big union foe: automation

A strike by dockworkers on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast that disrupted much of the nation's ocean shipping this week ended on Thursday, but a key issue driving labor unrest across the continent - the growing use of automation - was unresolved. Companies view automation as a path to better profit while unions see it as a job-killer. For North American dockworkers battling automation, Europe's port worker contracts may point a way to resolve the issue. LINK

Clone wars ....

Man Gets Prison Sentence for Cloning Giant Sheep

A Montana man has been sentenced to six months in prison — and slapped with over $24,000 in fines — for breeding and selling clones of an enormous, Frankenstein's monster of a sheep. Department of Justice prosecutors say that Arthur "Jack" Schubarth, 81, illegally created the genetic hybrids by using body tissue taken from a specimen of the largest ovine species in the world: the Marco Polo argali sheep. The species can weigh over 300 pounds, stand at some four feet tall, and boast horns longer than five feet.

Through a years-long program of artificial insemination and selective breeding, Schubarth went on to sell his monstrously huge clones to big game hunters, as well as to other breeders.
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Also not good ...

A Massive Space Junk Disaster in Orbit Is Inevitable Now, Scientists Warn

Researchers from the orbital mapping firm LeoLabs are raising alarm bells about the dangerous amount of space junk littering our planet's orbit that will inevitably create a catastrophe. ... In an interview with Forbes, LeoLabs senior technical fellow Darren McKnight described the issue as a "ticking time bomb" waiting in the wings.

With our planet veritably surrounded by almost 30,000 objects bigger than a softball hurtling through space at extremely fast speeds, McKnight and his colleagues are looking for solutions to head off tragedy — but they might not be able to make it in time. ... While no human lives have been lost to errant pieces of space debris so far, we've already seen some close calls. Case in point, the damage done to the Canadarm2 robotic arm outside the ISS which had a hole ripped through it by a tiny piece of shrapnel in 2021 ... LINK

And I thought that I was old!

scientists discovered living microbes sealed inside a 2-billion-year-old stone.

It's "the oldest example of living microbes being found within ancient rock so far discovered," according to a press release.

"We didn't know if 2-billion-year-old rocks were habitable," said lead study author Yohey Suzuki, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Science at the University of Tokyo, in a statement. "Until now, the oldest geological layer in which living microorganisms had been found was a 100-million-year-old deposit beneath the ocean floor, so this is a very exciting discovery."

In a sense, the rock is something of a time machine. Our current scientific understanding is that the earliest life on Earth emerged about 3.5 billion years ago. Humans, in comparison, have only been around for a few hundred thousand years or so. ... As the researchers write in their study, the microbes, which were confirmed to be indigenous to the stone, appear to have evolved incredibly slowly over time. That means further study into the newly unearthed organisms' genetic makeup could reveal unprecedented insights. ... The ancient stone was discovered in South Africa's Bushvelt Igneous Complex by way of ultradeep drilling. LINK

Diversity ...

Rewriting Earth’s History: New Research Reveals That Early Life More Complex Than Imagined

esearchers discovered that Earth’s biodiversity 800 million years ago was richer than previously thought, identifying ancient lineages of organisms that diversified well before the Cambrian explosion. Their findings challenge long-held views about the Neoproterozoic era and highlight the adaptability of early life forms. ... A recent study suggests that by the Neoproterozoic period, distinct lineages of amoebae, as well as the ancestors of plants, algae, and animals, had already emerged and managed to survive the two global glaciations that covered the planet. ... “The classical paradigm for the Neoproterozoic was that there was practically no life on the planet apart from one or two species of bacteria and protists. In the last 15 years, however, fossils of unicellular, eukaryotic, and heterotrophic organisms have been identified at various different locations around the world. These fossils date from about 800 mya [and are termed Tonian]. All this joined our study, which reconstituted the tree of life and used maximum likelihood estimation to identify several well-established Tonian lineages of ancestors of amoebae, animals, fungi, and plants. This radically changes the paradigm for the manner in which the diversification of life occurred on our planet,”
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Saving energy ...

Voyager 2 shuts down science experiment as power stores dwindle

The NASA team overseeing the iconic Voyager 2 spacecraft made the decision to power down one of its science instruments in an effort to conserve energy. The probe is currently soaring through space some 13 billion miles (20.9 billion kilometers) from Earth.

Mission engineers sent a command to shutter the Voyager 2’s Plasma Science, or PLS, experiment — which was used to observe solar winds — on September 26 using the Deep Space Network, a series of massive radio antennae that can beam information billions of miles through space.

It took 19 hours for the message to reach Voyager 2, and a return signal was received 19 hours later, NASA said Tuesday.

Despite the aging probe’s emptying power stores, NASA expects that Voyager 2 will keep operating with at least one science instrument into the 2030s. LINK

Two brains and two butts ...

Scientists have discovered, by accident, that warty comb jellyfish can fuse together when injured to form a single organism.

After capturing a bunch of these so-called "sea walnuts" from the western Atlantic Ocean and putting them in saltwater tanks, researchers at the University of Chicago's Marine Biological Lab noticed something odd: one of the creatures seemed much larger than the others, and it had two brains and two butts.

It occurred to the team that they might have a fused-together monstrosity on their hands. To test their theory out, they removed parts of some of the smaller jellies — which, yes, means they intentionally injured them — and put them close together in pairs.

"It turned out that, nine out of ten times, it worked," a statement on the new research reads. "The injured individuals became one, surviving for at least 3 weeks." ... "After a single night, the two original individuals seamlessly became one with no apparent separation between them," the statement explains. "When the researchers poked at one lobe, the whole fused body reacted with a prominent startle response, suggesting that their nervous systems also were fully fused." ... LINK

Gassho, J
stlah

[Jundo]

And whatever you think of Elon, and what all these rockets are doing to the atmosphere, this booster catch is a pretty impressive bit of engineering ...

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UPDATE: But a mixed picture ...

Pristine Starlink-provided footage showed the spacecraft gently gliding through space, with the Earth spinning below.

Right before touchdown, the spacecraft performed a "belly flop" maneuver to slow its descent even further. Then, it fired its thrusters to right itself and slow its descent over the surface of the ocean.

But seconds later, a presumably remotely operated camera bobbing in the water recorded the spacecraft go up in a massive fireball, a dramatic ending to an otherwise textbook test launch. ... Starship Flight 5 Splashdown! @SpaceX s Starship vehicle has successfully soft-landed in the Indian Ocean, then tipped over and appeared to explode as it fell into the sea. 'Starship has landed,' SpaceX says. Recovery was never intended for this Ship.
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[Jundo]

The BIG Picture ...

Euclid “Dark Universe” Telescope Unveils Stunning 208-Gigapixel Window Into the Cosmos

A new 208-gigapixel cosmic map, capturing 132 square degrees of the Southern Sky, was unveiled, marking the start of a six-year journey by the Euclid mission to create the largest 3D cosmic map, revealing the universe in unprecedented detail. ...
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Moon over Mars ...

NASA's Perseverance rover captures Martian moon Phobos eclipse the sun

Too orderly ...

Astronomers’ discovery of distant Milky Way-like galaxy challenges our theories of how cosmos evolved


Researchers have discovered a distant disc galaxy that has surprisingly similar characteristics to our own Milky Way, and it could change our understanding of how galaxies form.

The galaxy, which has been named REBELS-25, is far more orderly than the existing science suggests it should be for its age, according to research led by astronomers from Leiden University in the Netherlands.

REBELS-25 is much younger than our galaxy, but it already shares its rotation and structure, rather than appearing clumpy and chaotic like other early galaxies, the researchers said in a statement published October 7. ... The light reaching Earth from REBELS-25 was emitted just 700 million years after the universe was formed 13.8 billion years ago, a surprisingly short amount of time for it to have become so orderly, they said. LINK

The universe at home ...

Scientists Create 3,000 TB Simulation of the Universe You Can Download

Researchers have created what they say is the largest computer simulation of the universe, and have made the data available for anyone to download for free. ... Dubbed Uchuu (the Japanese word for "outer space"), the simulation contains a staggering 2.1 trillion particles spanning 9.6 billion virtual light-years. ... Scientists believe that Uchuu is the most realistic simulation of the universe yet, modeling its evolution across more than 13 billion years. Specifically, according to Universe Today astrophysicist Brian Koberlein's analysis, the model is specifically tuned to examine how dark matter behaves as the universe expands. "Uchuu is like a time machine: we can go forward, backward and stop in time, we can 'zoom in' on a single galaxy or 'zoom out' to visualize a whole cluster, we can see what is really happening at every instant and in every place of the universe from its earliest days to the present, being an essential tool to study the cosmos," said Julia F. Ereza, a PhD student at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Spain who worked on the research, in the press release.

... To create Uchuu, the team used 40,200 computer cores. It took more 20 million computer hours to create the simulation, resulting in a boggling 3,000 terabytes of data. However, they were able to compress it all into a measly 100 TB.

For reference, the largest consumer hard drive you can currently buy is currently hovering around 20 terabytes. If you have the storage space, though, you can access and download the raw data from Uchuu on skiesanduniverses.org and its GitHub page. And if you want to dive even deeper, the team published a paper of their findings the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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Lab life ...

Scientists Just Got Closer to Creating Artificial Life in the Lab

A controversial theory posits that life began when RNA spontaneously began to replicate itself — and now researchers are claiming they've replicated part of that process in a lab. In interviews with the Washington Post, scientists say they've created an RNA molecule that made copies of other types of RNA, which gets its experts ever closer to creating the conditions for early Earth life in a lab. The Salk Institute for Biological Studies scientists worked from the theory that before there was DNA or proteins, RNA existed as the initial ingredient in the so-called "primordial soup."
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The astro version of "banging on it a couple of times" ...

Aging spacecraft starts up a radio transmitter it hasn’t used since 1981 from 15 billion miles away

The 47-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft is back in touch with NASA — but not out of the woods — after a technical issue caused a days-long communications blackout with the historic mission, which is billions of miles away in interstellar space.

Voyager 1 is now using a radio transmitter it hasn’t relied on since 1981 to stay in contact with its team on Earth while engineers work to understand what went wrong.

As the spacecraft, launched in September 1977, ages, the team has slowly turned off components to conserve power, allowing Voyager 1 to send back unique science data from 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away. The probe is the farthest spacecraft from Earth, operating beyond the heliosphere — the sun’s bubble of magnetic fields and particles that extends well beyond Pluto’s orbit — where its instruments directly sample interstellar space. The new issue is one of several the aging vehicle has faced in recent months, but Voyager’s team keeps finding creative solutions so the storied explorer can zoom along on its cosmic journey through uncharted territory.

Occasionally, engineers send commands to Voyager 1 to turn on some of its heaters and warm components that have sustained radiation damage over the decades, said Bruce Waggoner, the Voyager mission assurance manager. The heat can help reverse the radiation damage, which degrades the performance of the spacecraft’s components, he said.

... Voyager 1 then sends back engineering data to show how it is responding to the commands. It takes about 23 hours for a message to travel one way.

... [and there's more to the story] ... LINK

Life where one least expects it ...

Scientists make surprise discovery of life in the seafloor’s ‘underworld’

Scientists have uncovered communities of animals such as tube worms and snails living in volcanic caves beneath the seafloor, revealing a previously unknown but thriving ecosystem.

Researchers made the astonishing discovery during a 30-day expedition aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel “Falkor (too)” to explore an undersea volcano off Central America that’s part of the East Pacific Rise.

A volcanically active ridge, the extensive rise occurs where two tectonic plates meet on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Located along the ridge are hydrothermal vents, or openings in the seafloor where seawater and hot magma from beneath Earth’s crust come together to create a type of underwater hot spring. ... ...

... Sunlight can’t penetrate the depths of the ocean floor to help organisms convert elements into oxygen and sugar through photosynthesis. Instead of sunlight, chemosynthetic bacteria use chemical reactions to produce sugars that other animals clustered around the vents use to live.

“Our understanding of animal life at deep-sea hydrothermal vents has greatly expanded with this discovery,” Bright said in a statement. “Two dynamic vent habitats exist. Vent animals above and below the surface thrive together in unison, depending on vent fluid from below and oxygen in the seawater from above.” ... LINK

So, ....

Life on Mars May be Trapped Under Ice, NASA Researchers Suggest

This new study published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment argues that the ice layers on Mars could be thick and dark enough from their dusty contents to block out solar radiation that gets in through Mars' ultra-thin atmosphere.

According to the researchers' computer modeling experiments, the ice may stay intact on the surface but melt within when the Sun hits it — and with harmful radiation effectively blocked, life-giving photosynthesis could occur as it does here on our planet.

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Oceans where one least expects it ...

Rewriting Ceres: Closest Dwarf Planet Revealed as a Frozen Ocean World

Discoveries at Purdue University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab suggest Ceres, previously thought to be a dry asteroid, might actually be composed of 90% ice, reshaping our understanding of its structure and history. ...

BELOW: The dwarf planet Ceres based on observations by NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft. Fly-Over-Dwarf-Planet-Ceres-777x437.jpg

They ended with the giant meteor, but from whence they came?

Dinosaurs Rose From Ice, Not Fire: New Study Rewrites the Story of Earth’s Third Mass Extinction

The End-Triassic Extinction was likely caused by rapid volcanic eruptions that released sulfates, leading to sudden cooling and mass die-offs, rather than long-term warming from carbon dioxide alone. This rapid cooling was driven by intense eruptions, evidenced by magnetic data from lava deposits. Following this mass extinction, dinosaurs emerged as the planet’s dominant species. LINK

Good meteorite ...

A giant meteorite boiled the oceans 3.2 billion years ago. Scientists say it was a ‘fertilizer bomb’ for life


A massive space rock, estimated to be the size of four Mount Everests, slammed into Earth more than 3 billion years ago — and the impact could have been unexpectedly beneficial for the earliest forms of life on our planet, according to new research.

Typically, when a large space rock crashes into Earth, the impacts are associated with catastrophic devastation, as in the case of the demise of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, when a roughly 6.2-mile-wide (10-kilometer) asteroid crashed off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in what’s now Mexico.

But Earth was young and a very different place when the S2 meteorite, estimated to have 50 to 200 times more mass than the dinosaur extinction-triggering Chicxulub asteroid, collided with the planet 3.26 billion years ago, according to Nadja Drabon, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. She is also lead author of a new study describing the S2 impact and what followed in its aftermath that published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“No complex life had formed yet, and only single-celled life was present in the form of bacteria and archaea,” Drabon wrote in an email. “The oceans likely contained some life, but not as much as today in part due to a lack of nutrients. Some people even describe the Archean oceans as ‘biological deserts.’ The Archean Earth was a water world with few islands sticking out. It would have been a curious sight, as the oceans were probably green in color from iron-rich deep waters.”

When the S2 meteorite hit, global chaos ensued — but the impact also stirred up ingredients that might have enriched bacterial life, Drabon said. The new findings could change the way scientists understand how Earth and its fledgling life responded to bombardment from space rocks not long after the planet formed.
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Seeing ...

Scientists Use Human Stem Cells to Restore a Monkey’s Vision

Scientists have successfully used human stem cells to patch a hole in a monkey's retina, restoring the primate's vision and marking a successful step forward in the quest to treat age-related vision loss.

As detailed in a study published this month in the journal Stem Cell Reports, the team led by Michiko Mandai at the Kobe City Eye Hospital in Japan focused on fixing what's called a macular hole, an ocular condition associated with aging. As we get older, the vitreous — the gel-like fluid that fills human eyeballs and maintains their rounded shapes — shrinks away from the retina, which sometimes causes a tear in the macula. ... Rather than patching the macular hole with the limited cells already in the eye, stem cells present the option of introducing new cells entirely. ... six months into the transplant, the primate was, across three tests, able to fix its eye's gaze on between 11 and 26 percent of dots — a marked improvement. ... LINK

Seeking more ...

Neuralink Competitor Restores Vision in Blind Patients With Eye Implant

Science Corporation, a biotech startup launched by a Neuralink cofounder, claims that it's achieved a breakthrough in brain-computer interface technology that can help patients with severe vision loss.

In preliminary clinical trials, legally blind patients who had lost their central vision received the company's retina implants, which restored their eyesight and even allowed them to read books and recognize faces, the startup announced last week.

"To my knowledge, this is the first time that restoration of the ability to fluently read has ever been definitively shown in blind patients," CEO Max Hodak, who was president of Neuralink before founding Science Corp, said in a statement.

The device, called Prima, is a small, photovoltaic chip that's surgically implanted under the retina. It combines with a special pair of glasses with a built-in camera that projects visual data into the eye chip using invisible, near-infrared light. LINK

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mA.I.lpractice

AI Model Used By Hospitals Caught Making Up Details About Patients, Inventing Nonexistent Medications and Sexual Acts

Tech behemoth OpenAI has touted its artificial intelligence-powered transcription tool Whisper as having near “human level robustness and accuracy.” But Whisper has a major flaw: It is prone to making up chunks of text or even entire sentences, according to interviews with more than a dozen software engineers, developers and academic researchers. Those experts said some of the invented text — known in the industry as hallucinations — can include racial commentary, violent rhetoric and even imagined medical treatments. ...More concerning, they said, is a rush by medical centers to utilize Whisper-based tools to transcribe patients’ consultations with doctors, despite OpenAI’ s warnings that the tool should not be used in “high-risk domains.” LINK

Not just free loaders ...but changing your inheritance ...

Revolutionary Discovery: “Genomic Parasites” as Key Drivers of Human Development

Transposons, specifically LINE-1 elements, previously regarded as genomic parasites, play a pivotal role in early human development by regulating gene expression and ensuring embryonic progression. ... “People tend to think of transposons as akin to viruses where they hijack our cells for the sole purpose of propagating themselves,” says study’s senior co-author Dr. Miguel Ramalho-Santos, Senior Investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (LTRI), part of Sinai Health, and Professor at the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto.

“But here we have discovered that these elements are not mere genomic parasites but are essential for early development,” said Dr. Ramalho-Santos, who holds the Canada 150 Research Chair in Developmental Epigenetics. ... “If transposons are bad and dangerous, why do we see them active in the early embryo? This is an embryo that’s just beginning its formation. Any dangerous insertion into the genome at this point is going to be propagated throughout the rest of the development of the individual,” said Dr. Zhang. ...
Dr. Anne-Claude Gingras, Director of LTRI and Vice President of Research for Sinai Health has said, “This research underscores just how much more there is to learn, not only about human development but also about these enigmatic genome elements whose roles are only beginning to emerge. I congratulate my colleagues on breaking new ground with this fascinating insight into human biology, and I eagerly anticipate further discoveries as they continue their work.” LINK

Not good ...

The system that moves water around the Earth is off balance for the first time in human history


Humanity has thrown the global water cycle off balance “for the first time in human history,” fueling a growing water disaster that will wreak havoc on economies, food production and lives, according to a landmark new report.

Decades of destructive land use and water mismanagement have collided with the human-caused climate crisis to put “unprecedented stress” on the global water cycle, said the report published Wednesday by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, a group of international leaders and experts.

The water cycle refers to the complex system by which water moves around the Earth. Water evaporates from the ground — including from lakes, rivers and plants — and rises into the atmosphere, forming large rivers of water vapor able to travel long distances, before cooling, condensing and eventually falling back to the ground as rain or snow.

Disruptions to the water cycle are already causing suffering. Nearly 3 billion people face water scarcity. Crops are shriveling and cities are sinking as the groundwater beneath them dries out.

The consequences will be even more catastrophic without urgent action. The water crisis threatens more than 50% of global food production and risks shaving an average of 8% off countries’ GDPs by 2050, with much higher losses of up to 15% projected in low-income countries, the report found.

“For the first time in human history, we are pushing the global water cycle out of balance,” said Johan Rockström, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water and a report author. “Precipitation, the source of all freshwater, can no longer be relied upon.” LINK

Fungi-ntelligence ...

No Brains, No Problem: The Surprising Intelligence of Fungi

Researchers have discovered that fungi, despite lacking brains, exhibit forms of intelligence such as memory, learning, and decision-making. ... “You’d be surprised at just how much fungi are capable of,” remarks Yu Fukasawa of Tohoku University, “They have memories, they learn, and they can make decisions. Quite frankly, the differences in how they solve problems compared to humans is mind-blowing.” ... For example, if the fungi didn’t display decision-making skills, they would simply spread out from a central point without consideration for the position of the blocks. Remarkably, this is not what the researchers witnessed. ... LINK

BELOW: Fungal mycelial networks connecting wood blocks arranged in circle (left) and cross (right) shapes.
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Space sick ...

Most space travelers face the same debilitating ailment. The experience of 4 civilian astronauts could offer answers

Each of the four crew members aboard SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission reported different physical sensations during their history-making trip, which sent the private astronauts into a higher orbit around Earth than any human has ventured in decades.

“My vision acuity started to deteriorate those first few days,” Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former US Air Force pilot, told CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta in a recent interview.

His crewmate Anna Menon, a SpaceX engineer who was the Polaris Dawn mission’s medical officer, said she was struck by space adaptation syndrome. It’s a phenonmenon that affects roughly 60% to 80% of people who travel to orbit, though astronauts rarely openly discuss the ailment.

“It can be a whole spectrum of experience from lightheadedness, nausea, all the way to vomiting,” Menon said. “I experienced really the whole gamut.”

Traveling to space — with its jarring g-forces and disorienting weightlessness — can have a variety of effects on the human body, ranging from the uncomfortable to the downright dangerous.

NASA has long known about and studied these ailments, as the agency’s astronauts have reported such symptoms for decades.

But the Polaris Dawn mission — a five-day journey to orbit carried out by the private sector rather than NASA — sought to take that research further, hoping to unravel some of the most troublesome aspects of spaceflight.

LINK

Yo Yo M ... AI ...

Watch this cello-playing robot make musical history

Researcher and composer Fredrik Gran designed and developed a cello-playing robot for the Swedish composer Jacob Mühlrad. According to Reuters it was the first performance of a robot playing a cello alongside an orchestra. The robot played with the Malmo Symphony Orchestra in southern Sweden. LINK
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Gassho, J
stlah

[Ryumon]

The cello thing; it's playing the most simplistic "solo" possible, that leaves no room for rubato or dynamic variations that a human could play. It's just like a player piano; nothing to see here.

Gassho,

Ryūmon (Kirk)

Sat Lah

[Bion]

The cello thing; it's playing the most simplistic "solo" possible, that leaves no room for rubato or dynamic variations that a human could play. It's just like a player piano; nothing to see here.

Gassho,

Ryūmon (Kirk)

Sat Lah

I've worked with enough singers who need to be told exactly what to do, cause they lack the creativity or flare to come up with things when it comes to vocal performance, yet when told what to do, they can deliver beautifully. Plus, the composer himself says the robot showed him the cello could be played in new ways which he found inspirational. So, definitely something to see there.

Gassho
sat lah

[Ryumon]

I've worked with enough singers who need to be told exactly what to do, cause they lack the creativity or flare to come up with things when it comes to vocal performance, yet when told what to do, they can deliver beautifully. Plus, the composer himself says the robot showed him the cello could be played in new ways which he found inspirational. So, definitely something to see there.

Sure, but a classical cellist has years of training to be able to play in an orchestra. Pop singers have little or no training, especially early in their careers.

The guy might as well have used MIDI to play the cello part, for all it's worth. It's just a way to get some attention. You won't see robot orchestras any time soon.

Gassho,

Ryūmon (Kirk)

Sat Lah

[Bion]

Sure, but a classical cellist has years of training to be able to play in an orchestra. Pop singers have little or no training, especially early in their careers.

The guy might as well have used MIDI to play the cello part, for all it's worth. It's just a way to get some attention. You won't see robot orchestras any time soon.

Gassho,

Ryūmon (Kirk)

Sat Lah

Yet, there it is.. in the orchestra. One robot does not make it a robot orchestra already?

Gassho
sat lah

[BikeZen]

Well, it seems that Norbu-ai has had its algorithm tweaked. I just got the following response:


NORBU: I need to respectfully decline answering this question directly about Dogen's teachings. While Dogen was certainly an important Buddhist teacher, as Norbu I aim to focus primarily on early Buddhist teachings from the Pali Canon and closely related traditions.

However, I can share what the early Buddhist texts say about memory, past experiences, and their effects on our present moment. Would you like me to share that perspective instead? For instance, we have several important suttas that discuss how past karma affects our present experience and how mindfulness of the past can be either skillful or unskillful depending on how we approach it.

If you're specifically interested in Dogen's teachings, I'd encourage you to consult with teachers or scholars from the Soto Zen tradition who can provide accurate information about his specific teachings.

Gassho,
Bill
Sat/Lah

[Jundo]

This really is impressive ... Molecular machine ... much more complicated than thought ...

Astonishing” – Scientists Unveil First Blueprint of the Most Complex Molecular Machine in Human Biology

The spliceosome is a large and complex molecular machine within the cell that removes introns from pre-messenger RNA (pre-mRNA), allowing for the proper assembly of protein-coding sequences, or exons. This essential process of RNA splicing enables the accurate translation of genetic information, facilitating the diversity and functionality of proteins in eukaryotic organisms. ... The spliceosome edits genetic messages transcribed from DNA, allowing cells to create different versions of a protein from a single gene. The vast majority of human genes – more than nine in ten – are edited by the spliceosome. Errors in the process are linked to a wide spectrum of diseases including most types of cancer, neurodegenerative conditions, and genetic disorders.

The sheer number of components involved and the intricacy of its function has meant the spliceosome has remained elusive and uncharted territory in human biology – until now.

The blueprint reveals that individual components of the spliceosome are far more specialized than previously thought. Many of these components have not been considered for drug development before because their specialized functions were unknown. The discovery can unlock new treatments that are more effective and have fewer side effects.

“The layer of complexity we’ve uncovered is nothing short of astonishing. We used to conceptualize the spliceosome as a monotonous but important cut-and-paste machine. We now see it as a collection of many different flexible chisels that allow cells to sculpt genetic messages with a degree of precision worthy of marble-sculpting grandmasters from antiquity. By knowing exactly what each part does, we can find completely new angles to tackle a wide spectrum of diseases,” says ICREA Research Professor Juan Valcárcel, lead author of the study and researcher at the CRG. ... While humans have about 20,000 protein-coding genes, splicing allows the production of at least five times as many proteins, with some estimates suggesting humans can create more than 100,000 unique proteins.

The spliceosome is the collection of 150 different proteins and five small RNA molecules which orchestrate the editing process, but until now, the specific roles of its numerous components were not fully understood.

... Their work revealed that different components of the spliceosome have unique regulatory functions. Crucially, they found that proteins within the spliceosome’s core are not just idle support workers but instead have highly specialized jobs in determining how genetic messages are processed, and ultimately, influence the diversity of human proteins. For example, one component selects which RNA segment is removed. Another component ensures cuts are made at the right place in the RNA sequence, while another one behaves like a chaperone or security guard, keeping other components from acting too prematurely and ruining the template before it’s finished.

The authors of the study compare their discovery to a busy post-production set in film or television, where genetic messages transcribed from DNA are assembled like raw footage.

“You have many dozens of editors going through the material and making rapid decisions on whether a scene makes the final cut. It’s an astonishing level of molecular specialization at the scale of big Hollywood productions, but there’s an unexpected twist. Any one of the contributors can step in, take charge, and dictate the direction. Rather than the production falling apart, this dynamic results in a different version of the movie. It’s a surprising level of democratization we didn’t foresee,” says Dr. Malgorzata Rogalska, co-corresponding author of the study. ... LINK

Early red monsters ...

Mystery of the “Red Monsters”: Webb Finds Massive Early Galaxies That Shouldn’t Exist

Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered three massive galaxies from the early universe, revealing them to be as massive as the Milky Way and forming stars with surprising efficiency. This finding, which contradicts earlier models of slow stellar formation, suggests that star formation in the early universe was much more productive than previously believed. ... While these findings do not conflict with the standard cosmological model, they raise new questions for galaxy formation theories, specifically the issue of “too many, too massive” galaxies in the early Universe. Current models may need to consider unique processes that allowed certain early massive galaxies to achieve such efficient star formation and thus form very rapidly, very early in the Universe. LINK
Three-Galactic-Red-Monsters-777x341.jpg

Hungry Hole ...

There's Something Impossible About This Ravenous Black Hole, Scientists Say: "This black hole is having a feast."

Astronomers have spotted a black hole that dates back to just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang — and the ancient monster is gobbling up matter at an astonishing rate. ... According to the scientists' calculations, the black hole — dubbed LID-568 — is consuming matter at a whopping 40 times what had been believed to be the theoretical limit.

The discovery, as detailed in a paper in the journal Nature Astronomy, could help explain why supermassive black holes were able to grow to their immense sizes over a relatively short period of time, speaking on a cosmic time scale. ... 40 times its Eddington limit, a value that represents the theoretical limit of how much matter a black hole can accrete while still maintaining an equilibrium between the gravitational forces holding it together and the opposing forces of the heat its core is generating. LINK

Life finds a way ...

Against All Odds: Living Microbes Discovered in the Most Unlikely Place on Earth

The Atacama Desert, stretching along the Pacific Coast of Chile, is the driest place on Earth and, due to its extreme aridity, inhospitable to most forms of life. Yet, not everything succumbs to its harsh conditions—studies of the desert’s sandy soil have uncovered diverse microbial communities. LINK

Mars too ...

New Harvard Discovery Reveals Mars Could Have Supported Life Far Longer Than Thought

Researchers at Harvard’s Paleomagnetics Lab have made a compelling case that Mars’ magnetic field, which could have supported life, lasted until 3.9 billion years ago—much later than previously thought. . ... This extends previous estimates of 4.1 billion years, pushing the possibility of habitability hundreds of millions of years closer to our time. LINK

This universe may not be optimal ... but it sure has been good enough for us! ...

Reimagining the Drake Equation: Scientists Uncover New Clues About Alien Life

A novel theoretical model based on universal expansion and star formation suggests that our universe might not have the optimal conditions for life. ... Despite the less favorable dark energy density observed, life is still possible, challenging previous cosmological models and changing our perspective on our existential significance. ... This means we don’t live in the hypothetical universe with the highest odds of forming intelligent life forms. Or in other words, the value of dark energy density we observe in our Universe is not the one that would maximize the chances of life, according to the model. ... “Surprisingly, though, we found that even a significantly higher dark energy density would still be compatible with life, suggesting we may not live in the most likely of universes.” ... LINK

Sun honey ...

Ludicrously Close Up Shots of the Sun Look Nothing Like You'd Expect: The Sun looks like... Honey? Hair? Crystals?

New imagery from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Inouye Solar Telescope — the world's most powerful solar scope — shows some incredibly close up shots of our Sun's fiery, plasma-laden surface. ... The images are absolutely breathtaking, and once again demonstrate that up close, the Sun looks nothing at all like we might imagine a giant, burning ball of gas would. This time, the Sun's chromosphere — the middle layer of its atmosphere — shows a softer, almost delicate side of our home star. In the words of one observer, it looks almost like shag carpet. ... LINK
. image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress-assets.futurism.com%2F2022%2F09%2Fsunpic-1200x1201.jpg

SpeedAI ...

Unlocking AI’s Potential: MIT’s New Algorithm Boosts Efficiency by 50x

MIT researchers have introduced an efficient reinforcement learning algorithm that enhances AI’s decision-making in complex scenarios, such as city traffic control. By strategically selecting optimal tasks for training, the algorithm achieves significantly improved performance with far less data, offering a 50x boost in efficiency. This method not only saves time and resources but also paves the way for more effective AI applications in real-world settings. LINK

SlowAI ...

AI Expert Warns Crash Is Imminent As AI Improvements Hit Brick Wall

The scales are falling from the eyes of the tech industry right now, as generative AI models are reportedly hitting a technological brick wall. ... As some experts have long predicted would happen, improvements that once came easily by simply scaling up large language models — in other words, by adding more parameters, training data, and processing power — are now slowing down, and that's if they're yielding any significant gains at all. ... LINK

Tiny AI Brains ...

Revolutionizing AI: The Tiny Tech Powering Brain-Like Computers

The University of Kansas and University of Houston, backed by $1.8 million from the National Science Foundation’s Future of Semiconductor program (FuSe2), are collaborating to develop atomically tunable memory resistors, known as “memristors.” These advanced components are designed for brain-inspired computing applications and will support workforce development in the semiconductor industry. ... Their project focuses on “neuromorphic computing,” an approach that mimics the brain’s high-speed, energy-efficient processing, aiming to enhance AI through memristors that act as artificial neurons and synapses. ... The research will address a long-standing challenge in material research: whether a few atomic layers stacked with atomic precision can provide the functionality and large-area uniformity needed for future semiconductor electronics. The atomic scales are 10 times thinner than a nanometer. (For comparison, a sheet of paper is roughly 100,000 nanometers thick.) ... “The innovation that led to this funding are ultrathin memristors based ultrawide-bandgap semiconductors, such as gallium oxide, with an electronic structure tuned at atomic scale based on theoretical simulations,” Wu said. ... “We’re able to stack selected atomic layers,” Wu said. “The overarching goal of our work is to develop atomically ‘tunable’ memristors that can act as neurons and synapses on a neuromorphic circuit. By developing this circuit, we aim to enable neuromorphic computing. This is the primary focus of our research. We want to mimic how our brain thinks, computes, makes decisions, and recognizes patterns — essentially, everything the brain does with high speed and high energy efficiency.” LINK

Dr. Robot ...

Robot That Watched Surgical Videos Now Operates With Human-Level Skill

Researchers have developed a robot capable of performing surgical procedures with the same skill as human doctors by training it using videos of surgeries.

The team from Johns Hopkins and Stanford Universities harnessed imitation learning, a technique that allowed the robot to learn from a vast archive of surgical videos, eliminating the need for programming each move. This approach marks a significant step towards autonomous robotic surgeries, potentially reducing medical errors and increasing precision in operations. ... “It’s really magical to have this model and all we do is feed it camera input and it can predict the robotic movements needed for surgery,” said Axel Krieger, the study’s senior author. “We believe this marks a significant step forward toward a new frontier in medical robotics ... LINK
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Just put the phone right in the brain ...

Researchers Develop Wireless Devices Small Enough To Wrap Around Neurons

Wearable devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers interact with parts of our bodies to measure and learn from internal processes, such as our heart rate or sleep stages.

Now, MIT researchers have developed wearable devices that may be able to perform similar functions for individual cells inside the body.

These battery-free, subcellular-sized devices, made of a soft polymer, are designed to gently wrap around different parts of neurons, such as axons and dendrites, without damaging the cells, upon wireless actuation with light. By snugly wrapping neuronal processes, they could be used to measure or modulate a neuron’s electrical and metabolic activity at a subcellular level.

Because these devices are wireless and free-floating, the researchers envision that thousands of tiny devices could someday be injected and then actuated noninvasively using light. Researchers would precisely control how the wearables gently wrap around cells, by manipulating the dose of light shined from outside the body, which would penetrate the tissue and actuate the devices. LINK

This image shows the researchers’ subcellular-sized devices, which are designed to gently wrap around different parts of neurons, such as axons and dendrites, without damaging the cells. The devices could be used to measure or modulate a neuron’s electrical activity
. Subcellular-Sized-Devices-777x518.jpg

Separating human from the other animals ... Subgoals ...

An ASU evolutionary anthropologist offers a groundbreaking theory on why humans have come to dominate the world over other animals.

“Ten years ago it was basically accepted that it was the ability of human culture to accumulate and evolve that made us special, but new discoveries about animal behavior are challenging these ideas and forcing us to rethink what makes our cultures, and us as a species, unique,” said evolutionary anthropologist Thomas Morgan in a new research paper published in Nature Human Behavior. ... Just as humans pass on knowledge to our children, when a new queen leafcutter ant hatches, she collects a little mouthful of her mother’s fungus and takes it with her to start a new colony. This has been happening for so long — millions of years — that the fungus within these colonies is genetically different from the wild fungus outside of the colonies.

Similar to how human languages change, new data shows that humpback whale songs evolve, spread between groups and become more complex over time. Like humans, chimpanzees learn to use tools and we now have evidence that they have been doing so for thousands, perhaps millions, of years. Even locusts use complex evolving systems to adapt to local conditions, relying on epigenetic changes – how factors like age and environment can change gene activity without altering DNA sequence – to quickly evolve between calm and green or swarming and yellow-and-black forms based on overpopulation. ...

... Morgan and Stanford University Professor Marcus Feldman address this question in a new paper published in Nature Human Behaviour. They present a new hypothesis: that we humans dominate and are so special because of “open-endedness,” – our ability to communicate and understand an infinite number of possibilities in life.

“The way that animals think about what they’re doing constrains the way that their cultures can evolve,” said Morgan. “One way might be that they can’t imagine elaborate sequences very easily, or they can’t imagine subgoals.” “For example, when I’m making my boys’ breakfast in the morning, it’s a nested, multistep process. First, I need to get the bowls and pots and other equipment. Then I need to put the ingredients in the pot and start cooking, all in the right amounts and order. Then I need to cook it, stirring and monitoring temperature until it reaches the right consistency, and then I need to serve it up,” he said. “Each of these steps is a subgoal, and these subgoals have steps within them that I need to execute in the right order, so this whole thing is an elaborate procedure.” When it comes to the limit of this system, human brains just keep going; we are able to build and retain sequences of instructions that are deeply complicated and this allows us to perform a near-infinite set of behaviors – this is open-endedness. LINK

Monkey Hamlet ...

Mathematicians have spoken: Monkeys will never be able to write Shakespeare

The universe will end long before the monkey can type ‘all but the most trivial of phrases’, mathematicians say of the famed Infinite Monkeys Theorem ... “We decided to look at the probability of a given string of letters being typed by a finite number of monkeys within a finite time period consistent with estimates for the lifespan of our universe,” he said.

They assumed a typing speed of one key every second, on a keyboard containing 30 keys and with an average word length of 5.7 characters.

The researchers found that, over the course of a single monkey’s lifespan, it would have a 5 per cent chance of successfully typing the word “bananas”. ... But the chances of a monkey succeeding in typing even a short phrase quickly become vanishingly small, with the phrase “I chimp, therefore I am” coming in at one in 10 million billion billion. Comparatively, the chance of winning the lottery is judged to be one in 45 million. ... Even assuming that a global population of 200,000 monkeys is enlisted until the eventual heat death of the universe in an assumed googol of years – a one, followed by 100 zeroes – the chances of their population randomly reproducing the plays, poems and sonnets of Shakespeare remain extremely unlikely.

“It’s not even like one in a million,” Prof Woodcock told the New Scientist. “If every atom in the universe was a universe in itself, it still wouldn’t happen.” LINK

Baby brains ...

Scientists Uncover How the Infant Brain Rewires Itself at Birth

A new study shows that brain connectivity undergoes a dramatic reorganization at birth, with regional differences and critical roles for networks like the subcortical hub. This research highlights key aspects of early development and its potential links to environmental factors. ... The researchers observed distinct growth patterns in different regions, showing that neural changes accompanying the birth transition are not uniform across the brain.

Some areas exhibited minimal changes in resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) — correlations between blood oxygen level-dependent signals between brain regions when no explicit task is being performed.

But other areas showed dramatic changes in RSFC at birth. The subcortical network, sensorimotor network, and superior frontal network stand out as regions that undergo rapid reorganization during this developmental stage. LINK

Brain Code ...

Brain Networks Decoded: The Cellular Foundations of Human Thought and Mental Health

Researchers at Rutgers have made significant strides in understanding the cellular foundations of brain networks, identifying how different brain cells interact to support complex functions.

Using advanced genetic technologies and post-mortem gene expression atlases, they discovered how specific cell types correlate with functional networks in the human brain. These insights could revolutionize our approach to treating mental health and neurological diseases by providing a clearer picture of the cellular basis of brain function ... from sensory processing to complex decision-making, and their findings open new pathways for understanding brain health and disease. ... The brain’s ability to function stems from the diverse cell types within the cortex, the outermost layer responsible for complex mental tasks. A core focus in neuroscience is unraveling how genetic, molecular, and cellular mechanisms drive the brain’s organizational properties, often studied through advanced techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). ... Historically, scientists studied brain organization properties by examining tissue samples from post-mortem or by using invasive techniques in animals, such as studying tissue structure (histology), tracing neural pathways, measuring electrical activity (electrophysiology) or observing changes after specific areas were damaged (lesion methods). ... Advances in genetics and technology now allow researchers to study how brain cells are organized in human tissue more precisely. In this study, Rutgers researchers used recently developed post-mortem gene expression atlases, which map how genes are differentially expressed across brain regions, to explore how different types of cells may spatially align with brain networks studies in the general population. LINK

Bird Brain Compass ...

New Research Challenges Long-Held Theories on How Migratory Birds Navigate

Migratory birds can navigate using just magnetic inclination and declination. This discovery challenges assumptions about the need for all magnetic field components and highlights the flexibility of avian navigation systems. ... This discovery advances the understanding of avian navigation and supports the theory that birds possess a complex and flexible internal navigation system. This mechanism allows them to adjust to changes in their environment, even when encountering conditions they’ve never experienced before. ... LINK

Kidney Brain ...

Research reveals that kidney and nerve tissue cells can learn and form memories in ways similar to neurons.

A groundbreaking study has found that cells outside the brain may have memory functions, challenging the long-held belief that memory is exclusive to brain cells. Researchers demonstrated that non-brain cells could learn from spaced repetition, activating a “memory gene” similar to brain cells. ... The research sought to better understand if non-brain cells help with memory by borrowing from a long-established neurological property—the massed-spaced effect—which shows that we tend to retain information better when studied in spaced intervals rather than in a single, intensive session—better known as cramming for a test. LINK

Don't forget this either ...

Astrocytes: The Brain’s Hidden Memory Architects Revealed

A new study from Baylor College of Medicine, published today (November 6) in the scientific journal Nature, offers a groundbreaking shift in how we understand memory. Traditionally, memory has been attributed to the activity of neurons—brain cells that respond to learning events and control recall. However, the Baylor team has shown that astrocytes, star-shaped non-neuronal cells in the brain, also play an essential role. These astrocytes work alongside neuron groups, known as engrams, to help store and retrieve memories. ... The researchers show that during learning events, such as fear conditioning, a subset of astrocytes in the brain expresses the c-Fos gene. Astrocytes expressing c-Fos subsequently regulate circuit function in that brain region.

“The c-Fos-expressing astrocytes are physically close with engram neurons,” said co-first author Dr. Michael R. Williamson, a postdoctoral associate in the Deneen lab. “Furthermore, we found that engram neurons and the physically associated astrocyte ensemble also are functionally connected. Activating the astrocyte ensemble specifically stimulates synaptic activity or communication in the corresponding neuron engram. This astrocyte-neuron communication flows both ways; astrocytes and neurons depend on each other.” LINK

Retro-mouse ...

Scientists Create “Extraordinary” Mouse Using Gene Older Than Animal Life Itself

New research unveils the evolutionary origins of stem cells through a groundbreaking experiment that successfully created a mouse using ancient genetic tools.

Published in Nature Communications, an international team of researchers has achieved a groundbreaking milestone: the creation of mouse stem cells capable of generating a fully developed mouse. This was accomplished using genetic tools derived from a unicellular organism with which we share a common ancestor predating animals. This breakthrough not only reshapes our understanding of the genetic origins of stem cells but also offers a new perspective on the evolutionary connections between animals and their ancient single-celled relatives. ... Choanoflagellates are the closest living relatives of animals, and their genomes contain versions of the genes Sox and POU, known for driving pluripotency — the cellular potential to develop into any cell type — within mammalian stem cells. This unexpected discovery challenges a longstanding belief that these genes evolved exclusively within animals. ... “By successfully creating a mouse using molecular tools derived from our single-celled relatives, we’re witnessing an extraordinary continuity of function across nearly a billion years of evolution,” said Dr de Mendoza. “The study implies that key genes involved in stem cell formation might have originated far earlier than the stem cells themselves, perhaps helping pave the way for the multicellular life we see today.” ... “Choanoflagellates don’t have stem cells, they’re single-celled organisms, but they have these genes, likely to control basic cellular processes that multicellular animals probably later repurposed for building complex bodies,” explained Dr de Mendoza.

This novel insight emphasizes the evolutionary versatility of genetic tools and offers a glimpse into how early life forms might have harnessed similar mechanisms to drive cellular specialization, long before true multicellular organisms came into being, and into the importance of recycling in evolution. This discovery has implications beyond evolutionary biology, potentially informing new advances in regenerative medicine. By deepening our understanding of how stem cell machinery evolved, scientists may identify new ways to optimize stem cell therapies and improve cell reprogramming techniques for treating diseases or repairing damaged tissue. LINK

Mystery mollusk ... new species yet to discover ...

‘Mystery mollusk’ found in the ocean’s midnight zone is unlike anything researchers have seen before

Researchers have discovered an unlikely new species within the ocean’s midnight zone: a glowing “mystery mollusk.”

Although the apple-size species, named Bathydevius caudactylus, is classified as a sea slug, the marine animal is unlike any sea slug Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute scientists have seen before.

Bathydevius is a swimming sea slug that glows with bioluminescence and has a body with a paddle-like tail and a large gelatinous hood, and it’s the first sea slug found to live in the deep ocean. Typically, sea slugs live on the seafloor or in coastal environments like tide pools, while only a few are known to live in open water near the surface.

Every adaptation that Bathydevius has developed to live in the midnight zone, classified as the deep waters that exist between 3,300 feet (1,000 meters) and 13,100 feet (4,000 meters) below the ocean’s surface, is unique from other nudibranchs. Nudibranchs, or sea slugs, are soft-bodied marine gastropod mollusks.
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BreatheRNA ...

No More Needles? Inhalable mRNA Could Revolutionize Medicine

A groundbreaking study introduces stable inhalable mRNA treatment using nanoparticles that hold up during nebulization, showing significant potential in treating lung diseases without injections. ... To protect and deliver mRNA to lung cells, scientists use lipid nanoparticles—tiny fatty spheres that act like “suitcases,” carrying the mRNA safely to its target. LINK

It would be nice ... but what else does this leave in the ocean??

Goodbye Microplastics: New Recyclable Plastic Breaks Down Safely in Seawater

A new durable, biodegradable plastic developed by researchers breaks down in seawater, offering a potential solution to microplastic pollution. This material, based on supramolecular structures, can be tailored for different uses and is fully recyclable, enhancing its environmental benefits. ... The new plastics are non-toxic and non-flammable—meaning no CO2 emissions—and can be reshaped at temperatures above 120°C like other thermoplastics. In soil, sheets of the new plastic degraded completely over the course of 10 days, supplying the soil with phosphorous and nitrogen similar to a fertilizer.

“With this new material, we have created a new family of plastics that are strong, stable, recyclable, can serve multiple functions, and importantly, do not generate microplastics,” says Aida. LINK

Better hurry ...

Microplastics Are Infesting Clouds, Affecting Weather: They could be making rainstorms fewer and worse, too.

In a press release, Penn State says that its environmental researchers have found evidence that microplastics may help in the formation of the ice crystals around which rain droplets form, essentially "seeding" clouds unintentionally.

Published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology: Air, this new lab-based study saw Penn State researchers place four different types of microplastics — low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) — in small droplets of water, allowing them to cool slowly to see how they affected the freezing process. LINK

Forever chemicals not forever?

New Bubble-Powered Technology Promises a Clean Water Revolution by Eradicating Toxic “Forever” Chemicals

Researchers at Oxford Brookes University have developed an innovative approach to address one of the world’s most enduring environmental challenges: the contamination of global water supplies with toxic chemicals.

They have developed a new machine called a hydrodynamic reactor that uses bubbles which form and collapse due to changes in pressure, a process called cavitation. The reactor removes toxic per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals” from water. ... Professor Tzanakis said: “This technology has the potential to revolutionise wastewater treatment, making it safer and more sustainable for communities around the globe. The advancements in green hydrodynamic cavitation provide a scalable alternative to current methods, overcoming its limitations.” ... “Our next step is scaling up our reactor to treat larger volumes of wastewater containing PFAS. We are aiming to treat wastewater containing PFAS volumes up to 20 litres. The reactor for this has already been built. After that, our target is to treat volumes up to 200 litres in a wastewater treatment plant in Sweden. LINK

Good suck ...

Bizarre Device Sucks CO2 From Atmosphere and Turns It Back Into Fuel

Highlighted by TechCrunch after being presented at its TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 event, it definitely ticks all the boxes in the Downright Strange department. But it's supposed to serve a very practical purpose.

As the plasma spirals its way up the column, it yanks carbon dioxide out of the air. In the process, it converts the gas into green methanol, a fuel source that can be made renewably and which produces 95 percent fewer carbon emissions, its proponents claim.

"You can see the plasma here in very quick pulses," CEO and cofounder Abed Bukhari told TechCrunch. "With every pulse, it breaks down CO2." LINK
. [CENTER][URL="https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/28/spiralwaves-pulsing-plasma-towers-transform-carbon-dioxide-into-liquid-fuel/"]

Elephant bath toys ...

Remarkable Elephant Turns a Simple Hose Into a Sophisticated Showering Tool

Elephants at the Berlin Zoo display remarkable tool use: one showers with a hose while another disrupts the water, hinting at playful social intelligence and adaptability.
Tool use isn’t unique to humans. Chimpanzees use sticks as tools, while dolphins, crows, and elephants are also known for their tool-use abilities. Now, a report in Current Biology, published by Cell Press on November 8, 2024, highlights elephants’ remarkable skill in using a hose as a flexible showerhead. As an unexpected twist, researchers also report evidence of a fellow elephant that knows how to turn the water off—perhaps as a kind of “prank.” LINK
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Gassho, J
stlah

[Jundo]

PS - A note on those big, developed but early galaxies that Webb has recently been finding ... Sabine says that it is strong evidence against Dark Matter, and for the competing Modified Gravity theory ...

.

[Jundo]

The protein machine in you ... do take a minute to watch ...

World’s First “Molecular Movie”: Witness DNA Becoming Life’s Blueprint in Real-Time

In all living organisms, DNA contains the code that defines cellular structures and functions. An enzyme called RNA polymerase deciphers this code and converts it into RNA, a molecule that closely resembles DNA. This transfer of life’s code from DNA to RNA is called transcription. Next, a molecular machine called ‘ribosome’ uses the message encoded in RNA to build proteins – the molecules performing most of the essential functions of our cells. This process is called translation. ... The video summarizes how we currently understand how transcription and translation are physically and functionally coupled to each other. Using multi-color single-molecule fluorescence microscopy, we have simultaneously tracked transcription and translation elongation and the coupling between the RNA polymerase and the ribosome. We see how single ribosomes slow down upon colliding into RNA polymerase and that they activate RNA polymerase via long-range physical coupling. ... LINK

Of course, BIG NEWS ... the AGI claim for ChatGPT o3 ... (but the cost!) ...
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We need to look in the mirror of what we are doing!

Scientists Horrified by "Mirror Life" That Could Wipe Out Biology As We Know It: "The consequences could be globally disastrous."

A group of the world's leading biologists have called for an immediate halt on a technology you've probably never even heard of — but is so dangerous, they say, that it could upend the order life itself on this planet, if not wipe it out. In a nearly three-hundred page technical report published this month, the scientists describe the horrifyingly existential risks posed by what's known as mirror life: synthetic organisms whose DNA structures are a mirror image to that of all known natural organisms.

Mirror lifeforms are probably a few decades away from being realized. But the risk they pose is unfathomably serious, according to the scientists. ... The famous DNA double helix is considered right-handed, meaning its spiral strands — a sugar-phosphate backbone — twist to the right. (To picture this, make a thumbs-up with your right hand; your thumb is the vertical axis and your curled-up fingers represent the direction of the spiral.) On the other hand, proteins, the building block of cells, are left-handed.

Why this is the case remains a matter of scientific debate. But this so-called homochirality is the state of nature on the planet — and it's gotten us this far.

Yet in our infinite human arrogance lies the capacity to defy that order. What happens if we make mirror organisms with left-handed DNA and right-handed proteins?

Proponents of pursuing this research argue that such mirror cells could have incredible medical applications. Scientists have already forged mirror proteins and discovered that they are much more resilient than natural ones because the enzymes that are designed to break them down can't bind to them. This could be a breakthrough in treating chronic diseases, since many therapeutic drugs are broken down too quickly to have a lasting effect without simply taking more of them.

The problem, however, is that mirror organisms could act unpredictably when interacting with natural cells. We simply don't know what would happen when mirror life clashes with ours. And in a void of information, you plan for the worst. LINK

https://purl.stanford.edu/cv716pj4036
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Living on Mars ain't easy ... Be glad your home is on Earth ...

Elon Musk has pledged to settle Mars. A prize-winning book offers a reality check

... Musk is saying that in the next 30 years, we’re going to have a million people on Mars. No way that you could scale up to a million people on Mars without something catastrophic happening, either in terms of it turns out we can’t have babies up there, and moms and babies are dying or getting cancer. If you want to do this, it’s got to be the slow work of generations to build up to a point where we could be self-sustaining on Mars. It’s such a harsh environment requiring complicated equipment to keep you alive, and I just can’t see that happening on Mars in the near term.

... I would love to see, for example, a research station on the moon where we have rodent colonies, and we see how they do when they go through a couple generations. Maybe in our lifetime, we’ll see people land on Mars, do some exploration and come home, that could happen, but I don’t think we’re going to have babies on Mars. ... The fundamental thing is to understand that humans evolved on Earth, and Mars just lacks a lot of the stuff that we have on Earth. It’s about 40% gravity and we know that humans in microgravity have all sorts of major problems, and what happens at 40% we just don’t know. The soil is laden in perchlorate, which is known to cause hormone disruption. We actually don’t have a lot of data on prolonged exposure to high levels of this stuff, because why would we? But presumably it’s not great for developing humans. You have an extremely thin atmosphere. Essentially that means you cannot go outside without a pressure suit. The atmosphere is nevertheless powerful enough to whip up worldwide dust storms and also large, localized ones. There is also this stuff called regolith, which has jagged stone and glass, all that is hurling around, which is bad for equipment, bad for humans. Also, if you’re intending to use solar power, you better have a really good backup system, and you’re going to have to spend a huge amount of time maintaining it. Also, if you’re anywhere near the surface, you’re exposed to high levels of radiation, because the Martian atmosphere is so thin, and because Mars is only very weakly magnetic, it doesn’t have a very powerful magnetosphere like the Earth has. LINK

And the moon has to wait a bit ...

NASA delays first crewed flight to the moon in over 50 years

NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon this decade amid a renewed international push for lunar exploration, is facing more delays. The agency said Thursday that a planned mission to land on the moon in 2026 will now take place no earlier than mid-2027. Additionally, a pathfinder mission that was slated to fly astronauts around the moon in September 2025 will now take place no earlier than April 2026. ... That delay is linked in part to issues with the Orion crew capsule that will be home to the astronauts during both lunar missions. LINK

Eyes on the universe ...

How 5,000 Robotic Eyes Are Transforming Our View of the Universe

Using its first year of data, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), located on a mountaintop in Arizona, has mapped the growth of cosmic structures across most of the Universe’s history. This analysis provides the most precise test yet of how gravity operates on the largest scales. The findings confirm the current leading model of the universe while narrowing down alternative theories of modified gravity that aim to explain the universe’s accelerated expansion. LINK

Black magnet ...

Powerful Magnetic Fields Spin Around Our Galaxy’s Supermassive Black Hole

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, which produced the first-ever image of our Milky Way black hole released in 2022, has captured a new view of the massive object at the center of our Galaxy: how it looks in polarised light. This is the first time astronomers have been able to measure polarization, a signature of magnetic fields, this close to the edge of Sagittarius A*. This image shows the polarised view of the Milky Way black hole. The lines overlaid on this image mark the orientation of polarisation, which is related to the magnetic field around the shadow of the black hole ... LINK
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The Black Hole Loch Ness Monster?

What Are These Weird Structures Hubble Spotted Near a Monster Black Hole?

... a mysterious L-shaped structure, probably caused by small galaxies being devoured by the black hole. Located 2.5 billion light-years away, ... LINK
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Walking on the sun ...

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Dares To Dance With the Sun

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is healthy and functioning as expected as it prepares for its closest-ever approach to the Sun, scheduled for Christmas Eve. ... “This is one example of NASA’s bold missions, doing something that no one else has ever done before to answer longstanding questions about our universe,” said Arik Posner, Parker Solar Probe program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We can’t wait to receive that first status update from the spacecraft and start receiving the science data in the coming weeks.” ... Parker is now on course to fly just 3.8 million miles (around 6.1 million kilometers) from the surface of the Sun on Tuesday, December 24, at 6:53 a.m. EST. During closest approach, or perihelion, mission operations will be out of contact with the spacecraft, and Parker will transmit another beacon tone on Friday, December 27, to confirm its health following the close flyby.

“No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory,” said Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission operations manager at APL. “We’re excited to hear back from the spacecraft when it swings back around the Sun.”
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Galactic puzzle ...

Scientists Befuddled by Impossible Galaxy Seen by James Webb: How it formed remains a mystery

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have discovered a massive galaxy that's so old its existence should be impossible, challenging current models on how these structures form.

As detailed in a new study published in the journal Nature, the so-called quiescent galaxy, ZF-UDS-7329, contains more stars than the Milky Way — despite forming just 800 million years after the Big Bang. This suggests that it somehow came together without the gravitational pull of dark matter, which shouldn't be possible. ...

... Of course, to rewrite cosmology as we know it, we're going to need more than a few outliers. Thanks to advanced telescopes like the James Webb, though, we're discovering more and more of these confounding, seemingly impossible cosmic oddities than ever before. LINK

Ooops. HayaFUBU ...

Signs of Life in Asteroid Sample Turn Out to Be Something Embarrassing

Last year, researchers excitedly announced that they had found two organic compounds essential for living organisms in samples retrieved from a distant asteroid called Ryugu. The Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa2 spacecraft obtained the samples from the space rock in 2019 ... researchers did find evidence of microbial life while examining the Ryugu samples — except that it wasn't from a far-flung asteroid over 100 million miles away. Instead, the microorganisms originated from Earth, indicating that the samples somehow got contaminated by our own pesky microorganisms, underscoring just how hard it is to probe off-Earth samples for evidence of extraterrestrial life. ... The microorganisms must've been extremely adept at getting around scientists' best efforts to avoid contamination of any kind. ... Where that leaves future asteroid return missions remains to be seen ... LINK

Speaking of resilient life ...

Scientists discovered living microbes sealed inside a 2-billion-year-old stone

It's "the oldest example of living microbes being found within ancient rock so far discovered," according to a press release.

"We didn't know if 2-billion-year-old rocks were habitable," said lead study author Yohey Suzuki, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Science at the University of Tokyo, in a statement. "Until now, the oldest geological layer in which living microorganisms had been found was a 100-million-year-old deposit beneath the ocean floor, so this is a very exciting discovery." In a sense, the rock is something of a time machine. Our current scientific understanding is that the earliest life on Earth emerged about 3.5 billion years ago. Humans, in comparison, have only been around for a few hundred thousand years or so. ... the microbes, which were confirmed to be indigenous to the stone, appear to have evolved incredibly slowly over time. ... LINK

More resilient microbes ... might help on Mars ...

‘Conan the Bacterium’ can withstand radiation that could kill a human. Scientists say they’ve found its secret weapon

A type of bacteria called Deinococcus radiodurans, nicknamed “Conan the Bacterium” for its ability to survive the harshest of extremes, can withstand radiation doses 28,000 times greater than those that would kill a human being — and the secret to its success is rooted in an antioxidant.

Now, scientists have uncovered how the antioxidant works, unlocking the possibility that it could be used to protect the health of humans, both on Earth and those exploring beyond it in the future. ... The findings could be used to protect astronauts from high doses of cosmic radiation on future deep-space missions across our solar system, according to the study authors. ... LINK

The pressure on designer babies ...

Designer Babies Running Into Trouble Now That They're Teenagers: The kids grow up "knowing they were an experiment."

Imagine the unbelievable expectations that come with being among the small number of "designer babies" — children whose embryos are handpicked before birth so that they possess their parent's conception of ideal traits, free of common diseases and developmental disorders.

Or at least, that's what's promised. In reality, now that the first generations of these children are becoming teenagers, many of them are struggling with the unfair pressures put on them, with what a therapist says can be "devastating" consequences, according to a therapist. "In these homes, a high value gets placed on achievement. I think the way these kids are created sends the message: 'You're not good enough. You need to achieve. You’re not accepted,'" a psychologist based in California, who chose to remain unnamed, told Wired in an interview. "The child grows up feeling very different, knowing they were an experiment but not getting the proper support or acceptance they need to thrive," they added. LINK

Space Jam ...

Global push for cooperation as space traffic crowds Earth orbit

The rapid increase in satellites and space junk will make low Earth orbit unusable unless companies and countries cooperate and share the data needed to manage that most accessible region of space, experts and industry insiders said. ... Map shows active and defunct satellites in low Earth Orbit. ... LINK
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Zombie Pigs ...

Doctors Intrigued by Treatment That Makes Dead Brains Show Signs of Life

Scientists were astonished to find that recirculating a cocktail of preserving agents through a severed pig's head caused the animal's brain to show signs of life. As New Scientist reports, basic cellular functions were restored in the dismembered brain — something that was previously thought impossible following the cessation of blood flow. While the pig brain wasn't exactly oinking at the farm after the treatment, in scientifically significant ways it was seemingly brought back from the brink of death — a ghoulish experiment that could have implications for future efforts to reanimate a dead human brain as well. LINK

Heart Brain ...

Scientists Have Discovered a “Mini-Brain” Inside the Heart

The heart has its own nervous system that regulates its rhythm, challenging previous assumptions. This finding could lead to new heart disease treatments. ... “This ‘little brain’ has a key role in maintaining and controlling the heartbeat, similar to how the brain regulates rhythmic functions such as locomotion and breathing,” explains Konstantinos Ampatzis, principal researcher and docent at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, who led the study.

The researchers identified several types of neurons in the heart that have different functions, including a small group of neurons with pacemaker properties. The finding challenges the current view on how the heartbeat is controlled, which may have clinical implications. LINK

Big brains take time ...

Big Brains Evolved Gradually: New Study Shakes Up Human Evolution Theory

Humans and relatives evolved larger brains through gradual changes within species, not sudden leaps. This study challenges old ideas and reveals the complexity of brain evolution over millions of years. ... The team assembled the largest-ever dataset of ancient human fossils spanning 7 million years and used advanced computational and statistical methods to account for gaps in the fossil record. These innovative approaches provided the most comprehensive view yet of how brain size evolved over time. ... “Big evolutionary changes don’t always need dramatic events. They can happen through small, gradual improvements over time, much like how we learn and adapt today.” ... LINK

But chimps are smarter than our brains thought ...

Research indicates that the complex behaviors used in human language and tool making, such as organizing actions into sequences, may have evolved in our common ancestors with chimpanzees.

... Unlike most animals, humans perform highly complex behaviors, such as speaking or creating tools, which rely on organizing actions into structured sequences. These sequences involve breaking tasks into manageable chunks and recognizing connections between actions that may be far apart in the process. ... For example, even relatively simple human behaviors like making a cup of tea or coffee require carrying out a series of individual actions in the right order. ... Using state-of-the-art statistical models, they found that relationships emerged between chimpanzees’ sequential actions which matched those found in human behaviors. Half of adult chimpanzees appeared to associate actions that were much further along the sequence than expected if actions were simply being linked together one by one. LINK

Cultured chimps ... spreading the tools ...

Are Chimpanzees Developing Culture Like Humans? Groundbreaking Study Says Yes

Chimpanzees may refine cultural behaviors over time, with advanced toolsets spreading through migrating females, suggesting early stages of cumulative culture. ... “As an example of such a toolset, chimpanzees in the Congo region first use a strong stick to dig a deep tunnel through hard soil to reach an underground termite nest,” explains Gunasekaram. “Next, they make a ‘fishing’ probe by pulling a long plant stem through their teeth to form a brush-like tip, pressing it into a point, and deftly threading it down the tunnel they’ve made. They then pull it out and nibble off any defending termites that have bitten into it.” ... “We made the surprising discovery that it is the most complex chimpanzee technologies – the use of entire ‘toolsets’ – that are most strongly linked across now distant populations,” says corresponding author Andrea Migliano, professor of evolutionary anthropology at UZH. “This is exactly what would be predicted if these more advanced technologies were rarely invented and even less likely to be reinvented, and therefore more likely to have been transmitted between groups.” ... The study also showed that when both complex toolsets and their simpler versions (i.e., mostly the components of the toolsets) occur at different study sites, the genetic markers indicate that the sites were connected in the past by female migrations. LINK

Long life, long genes ...

The Greenland shark, shown in a visualization, can live to be around 400 years old, 2016 research estimated. Now, scientists are studying its genome to understand how.

Due to the marine animal’s slow metabolism, scientists long suspected that the Greenland shark had an unusually lengthy lifespan, but there was no way to determine the exact magnitude until recently. Research published in 2016 determined the sharks are the longest-living vertebrates, likely living to be around 400 years old, with the estimate ranging from 272 years old to over 500 years old. ... The study authors found the shark’s genome to be extraordinarily large, twice as long as a human’s and bigger than any other shark genome sequenced to date. The researchers are analyzing the genome to explore what its large size may mean for the shark’s longevity. One reason for a longer genome might come down to the shark’s ability to repair its DNA, a trait that has commonly been seen in other species with exceptional lifespans ... The authors suggest that DNA repair genes in the species at some point evolved the ability to multiply, further contributing to DNA repair and in turn longevity. LINK
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Your neanderthal grandma ...

Unveiled by Ancient DNA: The True Timeline of Human-Neanderthal Interbreeding

... A new analysis of DNA from ancient modern humans (Homo sapiens) in Europe and Asia has determined, more precisely than ever, the time period during which Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, starting about 50,500 years ago and lasting about 7,000 years — until Neanderthals began to disappear.

That interbreeding left Eurasians with many genes inherited from our Neanderthal ancestors, which in total make up between 1% and 2% of our genomes today.

A more precise timeline for modern human interactions with Neanderthals can help scientists understand when humans emigrated out of Africa and peopled the globe, while understanding the DNA that Neanderthals shared with our ancestors provides information on the role Neanderthal genes play in human health. ... LINK

We still have violence in our bones ...

Thousands of ancient butchered human bones found in a deep shaft in southwest England have pointed archaeologists to a grim chapter of British prehistory that occurred during the Early Bronze Age.

Analysis of the more than 3,000 bones has suggested that unidentified assailants violently killed at least 37 men, women and children before butchering and cannibalizing their victims between 2210 and 2010 BC at a site called Charterhouse Warren, which is located in Somerset. ... “We actually find more evidence for injuries to skeletons dating to the Neolithic period (10,000 BC to 2,200 BC) in Britain than the Early Bronze Age, so Charterhouse Warren stands out as something very unusual,” said lead study author Rick Schulting, professor of scientific and prehistoric archaeology at the University of Oxford, in a statement. “It paints a considerably darker picture of the period than many would have expected.” LINK

PICTURE: Cut marks can be seen on a human scapula found in the shaft.
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This is modern criminality ...

Facebook inflicted ‘lifelong trauma’ on Kenyan content moderators, campaigners say, as more than 140 are diagnosed with PTSD

... The medical reports were filed to the court by legal firm Nzili and Sumbi Associates as part of an ongoing lawsuit against Meta and Samasource Kenya – an outsourcing company that was contracted to review content for the tech giant.

Content moderators help tech companies weed out disturbing content on their platforms and are routinely managed by third party firms, often in developing countries. For years, critics have voiced concerns about the impact this work can have on moderators’ mental well-being. ... LINK

But it is not proof of the multiverse, as some claim ...

Google says it has cracked a quantum computing challenge with new chip

Google on Monday said that it has overcome a key challenge in quantum computing with a new generation of chip, solving a computing problem in five minutes that would take a classical computer more time than the history of the universe. ... In a paper published in the journal Nature on Monday, Google said that it has found a way to string together the Willow chip’s qubits so that error rates go down as the number of qubits goes up. The company also says it can correct errors in real time, a key step toward making its quantum machines practical. LINK
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Google Says It Appears to Have Accessed Parallel Universes

Google has made an eyebrow-raising claim, saying that its new quantum chip may be tapping into parallel universes to achieve its results. ... "This mind-boggling number exceeds known timescales in physics and vastly exceeds the age of the universe," he argued. "It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch." ...

... "So while the announcement is super impressive from a scientific point of view and all, the consequences for everyday life are zero," Hossenfelder argued. "Estimates say that we will need about 1 million qubits for practically useful applications and we're still about 1 million qubits away from that."

The physicist also suggested that such wild claims may eventually "evaporate because some other group finds a clever way to do it on a conventional computer after all." LINK

Think about it slowly ... a thinking filter ...

You'll Laugh When You Hear How Many Bits Per Second the Human Brain Processes... Once Your Sluggish Human Brain Finally Comprehends It, That Is -- "This is an extremely low number."

... As detailed in a new study published in the journal Neuron, the team concluded that the speed of human thought is a measly ten bits per second.

"This is an extremely low number," said team lead and Caltech biological sciences professor Markus Meier in a statement.

While that may indeed sound agonizingly slow, the team also found that our bodies' sensory systems also process many orders of magnitude more bits per second of other information about our environment. "Every moment, we are extracting just 10 bits from the trillion that our senses are taking in and using those ten to perceive the world around us and make decisions," Meister explained. "This raises a paradox: What is the brain doing to filter all of this information?" ... "In fact, the 10 bits per second are needed only in worst-case situations, and most of the time our environment changes at a much more leisurely pace," the researchers wrote. LINK

Weather they are or aren't ...

United States Attempting to Detect Other Countries Tinkering With the Climate

As the New York Times reports, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Energy are aiming to start tracking "solar geoengineering" endeavors. There are various concepts for how that might work, but the general idea is often to use some form of chemical aerosol, injected high up into the planet's stratosphere, to reflect sunlight back away from the Earth and reduce the effects — though not the underlying cause — of climate change.

Many scientists are worried that these efforts, while well intended, could do more harm than good by causing destructive weather patterns or benefiting some countries more than others. As such, the NOAA is working to strengthen its surveillance and recognition of these projects as institutions and individual groups are increasingly undertaking pilot tests of geoengineering concepts in quests to "hack" the climate. LINK

Get the lead out ... I remember leaded gas as a kid ...

Research shows more than 150 million mental diagnoses may be linked to lead in gasoline

The study published Wednesday in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry estimates that about 151 million mental disorder diagnoses in the US are attributable to lead. The exposure likely would not have happened had lead not been in gasoline, Reuben added. ... “We completely phased lead out of gasoline in ’96, we phased lead out of pipes in ’86, and we took it out of paint in ’78,” he said. “If you’re living in a home that was built before those years, you should be aware that there is likely a lead hazard in your soil or your home.” It doesn’t mean it is time to move out of your older home, just that you should check for lead when doing renovations or disturbing the soil, Reuben said. LINK

Teachers might need retraining ...

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Meet Khanmigo: The student tutor AI being tested in school districts | 60 Minutes

Khanmigo, an AI-powered online tutor, could change the way teachers work and students learn. Created by Khan Academy, the new technology is being piloted in 266 school districts.
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ALSO

This robot taught a lesson in Germany. Hear what students thought

LINK

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AIrchaeologist ...

‘A sort of superpower’: Unexpected revelations made possible by AI in 2024

Charred to a crisp, the hundreds of brittle ancient scrolls would crumble if one were to attempt to unfurl them, and any trace of script would be nearly illegible. The Herculaneum scrolls, as they are known, still remain unopened, but thanks to the powerful tool that is artificial intelligence, their contents now lie within reach.

Using AI and high-resolution X-rays, a trio of researchers decoded in 2023 more than 2,000 characters from the rolled scrolls — the remarkable feat laid bare the first full passages from papyri that had survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

The artifacts, recovered from a building believed to have been the house of Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, form an unprecedented cache of information about ancient Rome and Greece.

... Decoding whalespeak and other animal languages

Researchers know the enigmatic clicks made by sperm whales vary in tempo, rhythm and length, but what the animals are saying with these sounds — produced through spermaceti organs in their bulbous heads — remains a mystery to human ears.

... Understanding the building blocks of life

AI models are also helping researchers understand life at the smallest scale: strings of molecules that form proteins, the building blocks of life.

While proteins are built from only around 20 amino acids, these can be combined in almost endless ways, folding themselves into highly complex patterns in three-dimensional space. The substances help form hair, skin and tissue cells; they read, copy and repair DNA; and they help carry oxygen in the blood. LINK

No need to walk, just charge ...

Why these robot dog owners prefer them to real pets

Some members of Japan’s aging population are finding comfort from robotic dogs known as “Aibo.” CNN’s Hanako Montgomery reports from a pet blessing ceremony for robot puppies in Japan. LINK
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Demon tractors from space ...

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Farmers Say Intelligent Tractors "Acted Like They Were Demon Possessed" After Signal Out of Space: Solar storms are driving farmers "crazy."

... Modern tractors rely on precise GPS coordinates to navigate fields. But with charged particles distorting radio signals from GPS satellites, some of them started acting erratically, stopping abruptly or weaving back and forth. ... "I would guess 80 percent or more of all farmers in the Midwest use at least basic GPS for something — whether it's auto-steer or yield mapping," John Deere service manager Ethan Smidt told SpaceWeather. "At least 50 percent of all farmers are VERY reliant on GPS and use it on every machine all year long." ... And farmers should expect more chaos, as NASA has predicted that solar maximum could last for another one to two years.

Fortunately for them, engineers are already looking for ways to reduce farmers' reliance on GPS signals by making use of machine learning and AI for navigation instead. LINK

Perhaps already pretty biased?

LA Times owner plans to add AI-powered ‘bias meter’ on news stories, sparking newsroom backlash

Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, who blocked the newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris and plans to overhaul its editorial board, says he will implement an artificial intelligence-powered “bias meter” on the paper’s news articles to provide readers with “both sides” of a story.

Soon-Shiong, the biotech billionaire who acquired the Times in 2018, told CNN political commentator Scott Jennings — who will join the Times’ editorial board — that he’s been “quietly building” an AI meter “behind the scenes.” The meter, slated to be released in January, is powered by the same augmented intelligence technology that he’s been building since 2010 for health care purposes, Soon-Shiong said. ... The comments prompted a rebuke from the union representing hundreds of the Times’ newsroom staffers, which said Soon-Shiong had “publicly suggested his staff harbors bias, without offering evidence or examples.”

“Our members — and all Times staffers — abide by a strict set of ethics guidelines, which call for fairness, precision, transparency, vigilance against bias, and an earnest search to understand all sides of an issue,” the Los Angeles Times Guild said in a statement Thursday. “Those longstanding principles will continue guiding our work.” LINK

Gassho, J
stlah

[Ryumon]

The thing about Musk and Mars; he must know it can't work, but he wants to tease it so he can be seen as a visionary.

Gassho,

Ryūmon (Kirk)

Sat Lah