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

[Dainei]

It's about time for timelessness.

For me, time seems to be a theme I return to consistently in practice, also the lack of time or timelessness, and I do think that Zen and Buddhism can explain the experiential aspect of timelessness but science can explain the mechanistic aspects as well that complement our practice. With that said, rather poorly I can admit, I offer the following brief article which - among may recently on quantum research - describes timelessness.

https://www.sciencealert.com/quantum-search-for-times-source-finds-no-difference-between-past-and-future

Gassho,
Dainei
Sat

[Jundo]

Fireworks at the center of the Galaxy ... and our Black Hole is unique ...

Astronomers spot flares of light near the black hole at the center of our galaxy

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have spied dynamic flares of light near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The constant, rapid-fire display includes seconds-long short flashes and longer, blindingly bright flares of light on a daily basis. ...

While black holes are invisible, the flares unleashed by the swirling disk of hot gas and dust, or accretion disk, that orbits Sagittarius A* resemble a pyrotechnic extravaganza. A study describing the findings was published Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Astronomers believe the flares are coming from the inner edge of the accretion disk just beyond the black hole’s event horizon, or the area around a black hole where the pull of gravity is so strong that not even light can escape, according to NASA. ... The strong, gravitational influence of black holes pulls in gas and dust from any celestial object that wanders too close. The gas and dust swirl together at high speeds, forming the accretion disk that feeds the black hole. The rapid movement of the material causes it to heat up, releasing energy in the form of radiation as well as jets of material that don’t make it into the black hole.

The radiation and jets can change the way gas is distributed throughout galaxies and feed the formation of stars, which is why supermassive black holes are regarded as giant engines at the centers of galaxies. ...

... “Flares are expected to happen in essentially all supermassive black holes, but our black hole is unique,” Yusef-Zadeh said. “It is always bubbling with activity and never seems to reach a steady state. We observed the black hole multiple times throughout 2023 and 2024, and we noticed changes in every observation. We saw something different each time, which is really remarkable.”
LINK
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Coming out of hiding ...

Unveiling the Heart of the Milky Way

This striking infrared image of Sagittarius C, captured by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile’s Atacama Desert, showcases hundreds of thousands of stars near the heart of the Milky Way. ... The challenge lies in observing this crowded region — thick clouds of dust and gas obscure the starlight, making direct observation difficult. ...

[PICTURE] A stunning infrared image of Sagittarius C reveals hundreds of thousands of stars near the Milky Way’s center, captured by ESO’s Very Large Telescope.
LINK Sagittarius-C-Infrared-VLT-1200x532.jpg

Long distance connections ...

Astronomers Just Found a 3-Million-Light-Year Connection Between Galaxies

The image shows the diffuse gas (yellow to purple) contained within the cosmic filament connecting two galaxies each with a supermassive black hole deep in their core. (yellow stars), extending across a vast distance of 3 million light-years. ... At first glance, the universe may appear to be a chaotic swarm of scattered galaxies. But in reality, they are part of a vast, interconnected structure known as the cosmic web — the largest framework in the cosmos. This web is made up of enormous filaments of dark matter and gas, stretching between galaxies and surrounding vast empty voids. Now, after hundreds of hours of telescope observations, astronomers have captured the highest-resolution image ever taken of a single cosmic filament linking forming galaxies. This filament is so distant that we see it as it was when the universe was just 2 billion years old. ...
LINK
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Bennu muy bien!

The Stuff of Life ...

Researchers have detected organic compounds and minerals necessary for life in unprecedented samples collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, adding evidence to the idea that asteroids likely delivered the building blocks of life to our planet early in its history. ... Preliminary analyses of the rock and dust samples released within the past year have shown that the asteroid contained water as well as carbon, nitrogen and other organic matter, but the chemical composition of the organic material was largely unknown.

Now, new research has revealed the asteroid contains many of the chemical building blocks of life, such as amino acids and components found in DNA. ... Glavin and his team detected thousands of organic molecular compounds, including 33 amino acids, in the Bennu samples they studied. Amino acids, or molecules that combine to form proteins, are some of the building blocks of life.

The researchers found 14 of the 20 amino acids that are used in biology to build proteins, and 19 non-protein amino acids, many of which are rare or nonexistent in known biology, Glavin said. ... The team also detected adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil — all five of the biological nucleobases, or components that make up the genetic code in DNA and RNA. ... “These organic molecules have all been found previously in meteorites, but in contrast to meteorites, the Bennu samples are pristine and were protected from heating during atmospheric entry and exposure to terrestrial contamination, ... The combination of material found in the samples suggests chemical building blocks of life were widespread throughout the solar system, providing strong evidence that the asteroids bombarding early Earth may have delivered water and organic material to its surface, Glavin noted. ...

... The sample was collected from Bennu in October 2020 by a NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx, or Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer. It marked the first time the US sent a spacecraft to briefly land on an asteroid and collect material. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft then dropped off a capsule when it swung by Earth in September 2023, sending it parachuting down into the Utah desert. LINK

It lasts as long as it lasts ...

Physicists Find That the Universe Could "Collapse Like a House of Cards"

... is our entire universe actually suspended in a "false vacuum," or in a state of faux-stability, and is merely waiting to collapse into a more stable state? ... in a new study published in the journal Nature, researchers have simulated the processes behind this phenomenon, perhaps giving us a glimpse at how the world could dramatically end.

"We're talking about a process by which the universe would completely change its structure," said study lead author Zlatko Papic, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Leeds, in a statement about the work. "The fundamental constants could instantaneously change and the world as we know it would collapse like a house of cards."
LINK

Synchronized swimming ...

The Fastest Dance in the Universe: Scientists Capture Electrons in Perfect Sync

By using ultrafast lasers, researchers have observed electrons moving in perfect sync inside particles smaller than a nanometer. The measurement breaks the “nanometer barrier,” allowing researchers to observe ultrafast collective electronic motion on a new class of ultra-small particles, valued for their ability to trap and manipulate light. LINK

Mediterra-neutrino

Scientists detect record-breaking ‘ghost particle’ in the Mediterranean Sea


Astronomers using a giant network of sensors, still under construction at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, have found the highest-energy cosmic “ghost particle” ever detected.

The neutrino, as the particle is formally known, is 30 times more energetic than any of the few hundreds of previously detected neutrinos.

These tiny, high-energy particles from space are often referred to as “ghostly” because they are extremely volatile, or vaporous, and can pass through any kind of matter without changing. Neutrinos, which arrive at Earth from the far reaches of the cosmos, have almost no mass. The particles travel through the most extreme environments, including stars, planets and entire galaxies, and yet their structure remains intact. ... “This one little neutrino had as much energy as the energy released by splitting one billion uranium atoms … a mind-boggling number when we compare the energies of our nuclear fission reactors with this one single ethereal neutrino.” ... The team believes the neutrino came from beyond the Milky Way galaxy, but they have yet to identify its exact origin point, which raises the question of what created the neutrino and sent it flying across the cosmos in the first place — perhaps an extreme environment such as a supermassive black hole, gamma ray burst or supernova remnant. LINK

The shape of things to come ...

‘It’s almost science fiction’: Scientists say the shape of Earth’s inner core is changing

Scientists who just months ago confirmed that Earth’s inner core recently reversed its spin have a new revelation about our planet’s deepest secrets — they identified changes to the inner core’s shape.

Earth’s innermost layer is a hot, solid ball of metal surrounded by a liquid metal outer core. For decades, planetary scientists suspected that the solid inner core deformed over time as it spun. Now, researchers have found the first evidence of changes taking place over the past 20 years in the shape of the inner core. Signs of the core’s deformation appeared in waves from earthquakes that were strong enough to reach Earth’s center. ... Of all Earth’s layers, the inner core is the most remote and mysterious. This solid sphere of iron and nickel is about 70% the size of the moon, with a radius of approximately 759 miles (1,221 kilometers).

Temperatures in the inner core are as high as 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit (5,400 degrees Celsius), and pressures can reach up to 365 gigapascals (GPa) — more than 3 million times greater than Earth’s average atmospheric pressure on land. While direct observation of the core is impossible, scientists study it by analyzing changes in the size and shape of seismic waves as they pass through the core. ...

LINK

Synthorganism ...

Yale Scientists Reprogram Genetic Code To Create Revolutionary Synthetic Organism

Yale scientists have reprogrammed the genetic code of an organism, creating a novel genomically recoded organism (GRO) with only one stop codon, enabling the production of synthetic proteins with new functions. This breakthrough paves the way for advanced biotherapeutics and biomaterials with novel properties, paving the way for groundbreaking applications in medicine, biotechnology, and industry. LINK

A new way of sacred pilgrimage ... (I actually made the climb when I was a student in China) ...

Robotic exoskeletons help Chinese tourists climb the country’s most punishing mountain

A towering 5,000 feet high, with more than 7,000 steps, Mount Tai, in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, is known for turning legs to jelly for anyone game for scaling to the top. ... On January 29, the first day of Chinese New Year, ten AI-powered exoskeletons debuted at Mount Tai (Taishan in Mandarin), attracting over 200 users for a fee of 60 yuan to 80 yuan ($8 - $11 USD) per use during a week-long trial, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Co-developed by Taishan Cultural Tourism Group and Kenqing Technology, a Shenzhen-based tech company, this device is designed to wrap around users’ waists and thighs and weighs in at just 1.8 kilograms, according to the firm’s product introduction.

Powered by AI algorithms, it can sense users’ movements and provide “synchronized assistance” to ease the burden of legs, according to Kenqing Technology. LINK
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Soon, I will just let AI do these postings ...

Study Finds That People Who Entrust Tasks to AI Are Losing Critical Thinking Skills

"Used improperly, technologies can and do result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved," the researchers wrote in the paper. "A key irony of automation is that by mechanising routine tasks and leaving exception-handling to the human user, you deprive the user of the routine opportunities to practice their judgement and strengthen their cognitive musculature, leaving them atrophied and unprepared when the exceptions do arise." LINK

Babyface ...

Beyond the Uncanny Valley: New Tech Makes Robots More Lifelike

A research team from Osaka University has created a technology enabling androids to dynamically convey mood states like “excited” or “sleepy” by generating facial movements modeled as overlapping, decaying waves. LINK

Look from about 1:00 mark ...
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Robohand ...

Japanese research team develops world’s largest 'biohybrid' robot hand

A research team from the University of Tokyo and Waseda University announced Thursday that it has developed the largest-ever “biohybrid” hand that includes parts made of cultivated human tissue. Led by Xinzhu Ren and Shoji Takeuchi from the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, and Yuya Morimoto, an associate professor at Waseda University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, the team engineered a multijointed robotic hand with movement powered by living muscle tissue, measuring 18 centimeters long, with a palm size of 6 centimeters — around the same size as a newborn’s — and five fingers capable of independent motion. LINK

Protoclone ...

This Muscle-Powered Robot Might Be the Creepiest Thing We've Ever Seen

Behold the robot known as "Protoclone," built by Clone Robotics. It's supposedly the world's first bipedal, musculoskeletal android. ... According to its website, the android is equipped with the world's most sophisticated hydraulic powering system mimicking our human blood vessels. Its muscles are composed of Clone's proprietary "Myofiber" artificial muscle tech, providing an unparalleled combination of "weight, power density, speed, force-to-weight, and energy efficiency," Clone says. Underneath, the robot possesses a human-like skeleton with analogs for all 206 bones of the human body. It can also see using four cameras installed in its skull. ... The Protoclone is a faceless, anatomically accurate, synthetic human with over 200 degrees of freedom, over 1,000 Myofibers, and over 200 sensors. www.clonerobotics.com

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Zuckerbrain ...

There May Be Downsides Now That Mark Zuckerberg Can Read Your Thoughts With a Scanning Device

... Meta says it's taken a huge step forward. For the first time, the company's researchers say they've been able to train an AI model to decode brain waves with up to 80 percent accuracy in laboratory settings. Basically, the company was able to record the tiny magnetic fields generated by natural electrical currents in the brain so that human subjects could "type" with their minds. Those sentences were then cross referenced with an AI model's readout of the magnetic fields, which were pretty faithful to the original, give or take a few typos. ...
LINK

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(to be continued) ...

[Jundo]

Big Quipu

Billion-Light-Year Superstructure Shakes Up Our View of the Universe

Scientists have uncovered “Quipu,” the largest known galactic structure, stretching 1.4 billion light-years. This discovery reshapes cosmic mapping and affects key measurements of the universe’s expansion. ... On the largest scales, the universe appears nearly uniform. However, when examined at distances smaller than about a billion light-years — especially in our cosmic neighborhood — matter is not evenly spread. Instead, it gathers into vast superclusters, separated by enormous voids. Understanding these structures is crucial for cosmology and is a key reason scientists map the nearby universe. ... The scientists have named their remarkable discovery “Quipu,” a term from the language of the Incas. The Incas used bundles of strings with knots for their bookkeeping and as letters. The superstructure resembles this ancient script, appearing as a long fibre with side strands woven into it. LINK

Sunquakes ... New Research out of Science City Tsukuba Japan (Home to Treeleaf) ...

The Sun’s Hidden Influence on Earthquakes: New Research Uncovers a Surprising Link

Could the sun play a role in earthquake forecasting? A new study suggests solar heat may subtly influence seismic activity by altering surface temperatures and underground pressure. ... his effect, while not the primary cause of earthquakes, could improve prediction accuracy. ... Recent research has explored whether the sun or moon might influence seismic activity. Some studies suggest that tidal forces or electromagnetic effects could interact with the Earth’s crust, core, and mantle, potentially playing a role in earthquake patterns. ...

... led by researchers from the University of Tsukuba and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan ... LINK

Very twisted ...

Scientists Spot Spiral Structure at Edge of Solar System

The Oort cloud is traditionally thought of as a vast shell of perhaps trillions of icy objects encasing our solar system, serving as the final boundary between us and the dark reaches of interstellar space. But it's not a homogenous mass. ... Now, in a new study set to be published in The Astrophysical Journal, a team of researchers from the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado say they've discovered a fascinating aspect about the Oort cloud's interior that can change how we view its overall shape: a spiral structure that's similar to the spiral arms of our galaxy. ... At a heliocentric distance ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 astronomical units — each unit being equal to the distance between the Sun and the Earth — the Oort cloud is both incredibly vast and totally out of reach. There's little sunlight to speak of, and observing the cloud is almost prohibitively challenging from such distance.

The Oort cloud's remoteness also means the pull of the Sun's gravity is relatively weak. Instead, astronomers believe that its untold number of objects are largely governed by what's dubbed the "galactic tide" — the gravitational pull of massive objects like black holes in our galaxy's center, which ebbs and flows as our solar system ambles through the Milky Way. (For objects near the Sun, like planets, the tide's effect is largely overpowered by the star's gravity.) ... Specifically, some of the comets come from a denser region known as the "inner" Oort cloud, which has long been pictured as a flat disk sheltered within the greater cloud's spherical shell, according to the researchers.

[C]omets, which originate from the Oort cloud and barge into the solar system's interior ... [T]he researchers found evidence that the "flat disk" image could be outdated. It's more likely a "slightly warped" disk, they found, approximately 15,000 AU across. LINK

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Mars Beach ...

Rover Discovers Evidence of Giant Ocean on Mars: "We found evidence for wind, waves, no shortage of sand — a proper, vacation-style beach.

The findings, detailed in a new paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer the "clearest evidence yet" that Mars once contained huge bodies of water — and therefore could've been amenable to life. ... Cardenas and his collaborators have previously found evidence of lush streams of water carving channels and craters into the planet's surface millions of years ago.

Now it sounds like Mars was likely home to massive oceans as well, which would be "potentially habitable environments," LINK

New Telescope ...

NASA Is Launching a Space Telescope That Could Rewrite the Universe’s Origin Story

The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission will provide the first all-sky spectral survey. Over a two-year planned mission, the SPHEREx Observatory will collect data on more than 450 million galaxies along with more than 100 million stars in the Milky Way in order to explore the origins of the universe. ... NASA and SpaceX now are targeting no earlier than Thursday, March 6, for the launch ... SPHEREx is equipped to gaze into the void and sift through stardust with its spectral lenses. Its ambition? To shed light on the universe’s oldest riddles and uncover the fundamental components of life itself. With a lofty view of the heavens, this cosmic explorer aims to map the entire sky, offering scientists a panoramic vista of our celestial neighborhood.

In the dust-laden molecular clouds swirling in the Milky Way, SPHEREx will pinpoint life’s basic ingredients, hidden among regions where stars and planets take form. The telescope’s prism-like spectrophotometer allows it to peer beyond the visible spectrum, unearthing secrets invisible to the naked eye. Through more than a hundred infrared hues, SPHEREx will illuminate millions of stars and galaxies, unraveling the chemistry of interstellar dust and the presence of life-associated molecules. LINK

Space mining ...

A tiny spacecraft is poised to launch on an unprecedented deep-space mission ... hunting for precious metals in space

The probe is set to lift off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on February 26. ... Odin should reach the far side of the moon in just five days but will spend another roughly 300 days in the celestial void, waiting to make a close approach to its target asteroid.

Notably, the spacecraft — which is roughly the size of a window air-conditioning unit — was developed in just the past 10 months. Less than a year is a relatively miniscule timeline for aerospace development. ... The spacecraft is set to spend a little under a year traveling to an asteroid called 2022 OB5, which next year is expected to travel within about 403,000 miles (649,000 kilometers) of Earth. Equipped with an optical camera, Odin will snap photographs and transmit them to the mission team. ... AstroForge is banking that 2022 OB5 is an M-type asteroid, potentially rich with platinum. And if Odin’s camera can confirm that the space rock contains the valuable metal, a future AstroForge mission may aim to extract, refine and ferry the material back to Earth — where platinum is costly and used in various industries including electronics, pharmaceuticals and petroleum refining. ... LINK

SADLY ... Hope is all but lost for private asteroid probe in deep space — 'the chance of talking with Odin is minimal' LINK

I hope this idea floats ...

99% Efficient and Dirt Cheap – Is This the Holy Grail of Hydrogen?

A breakthrough in renewable energy research has led to the development of a cost-effective and highly efficient iron-based catalyst for water oxidation.

This innovation mimics natural photosynthesis while overcoming the limitations of expensive metal catalysts. The newly developed polymerized iron complex, poly-Fe5-PCz, boasts exceptional stability and near-perfect Faradaic efficiency, making it a game-changer for hydrogen production. By leveraging abundant materials, the study paves the way for scalable, sustainable energy solutions that could transform clean energy storage and industrial hydrogen generation. LINK

Switch off desire ...

Obesity Breakthrough: Scientists Discover Brain’s “Stop Eating” Switch

Columbia scientists discovered specialized brainstem neurons in mice that signal when to stop eating by integrating various sensory and hormonal cues. Their findings could lead to new obesity treatments by targeting these neurons to regulate food intake. ... “Essentially these neurons can smell food, see food, feel food in the mouth and in the gut, and interpret all the gut hormones that are released in response to eating,” Nectow says. “And ultimately, they leverage all of this information to decide when enough is enough.”

Though the specialized neurons were found in mice, Nectow says their location in the brainstem, a part of the brain that is essentially the same in all vertebrates, suggests that it is highly likely that humans have the same neurons. LINK

Mammoth Mice ...

Scientists created a ‘woolly mouse’ with mammoth traits. Is it a step toward bringing back the extinct giant?

To create the woolly mouse, Colossal said it had identified genetic variants in which mammoths differed from their closest living relative: the Asian elephant. The company’s scientists then pinpointed 10 variants related to hair length, thickness, texture, color and body fat that corresponded to similar, known DNA variants in a lab mouse.
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A real survivor ...

Scientists Unlock Secrets of an Alga That Shouldn’t Survive – But Does

Italy’s Phlegraean Fields is a highly active volcanic region, characterized by an ever-changing landscape dotted with acidic hot springs. This vast caldera is part of the Campanian volcanic arc, which also includes Mount Vesuvius—the volcano responsible for the destruction of Pompeii in 79 C.E.

Despite its harsh, scalding conditions, the Phlegraean Fields support resilient microorganisms. Researchers at Michigan State University are studying one such organism—a specific type of alga—to understand how it thrives in such an extreme environment. ... Their study models its unique carbon-concentrating mechanism, offering insights that could improve photosynthesis and agricultural sustainability. LINK

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Glacier Life ...

Ancient glacier finding reveals clues to how complex life on Earth evolved, scientists say


More than half a billion years ago on a frigid, ice-covered Earth, glaciers stirred up ingredients for complex life by bulldozing land minerals and then depositing them in the ocean, according to a new study.

Inch by inch, as massive glaciers crept over frozen land toward an ice-covered sea, they scoured the ground beneath them, gouging and scraping rocks from Earth’s crust. When the glaciers eventually melted, they released a torrent of terrestrial chemicals into the ocean, researchers recently reported. Minerals swept up on land by this “glacial broom” altered marine chemistry and infused oceans with nutrients that they say may have shaped how complex life evolved. LINK

Too smart for own good ...

The Secret to Human Intelligence? Scientists Uncover DNA That Supercharged Our Brains

Scientists found that rapidly evolving DNA regions, known as human accelerated regions (HARs), help human neurons form complex networks, contributing to higher brain function but possibly increasing susceptibility to disorders like autism. ... How did humans evolve brains capable of complex language, civilization, and more? The answer may lie in exceptional DNA. Scientists at UC San Francisco discovered that certain regions of our chromosomes have evolved at remarkable speeds, giving us an advantage in brain development over apes. ... The research focused on parts of chromosomes known as human accelerated regions (HARs), which have evolved most rapidly since humans split from chimpanzees on the evolutionary tree – changing 10 times faster than the expected rate of evolution in mammals. ... The human and chimpanzee genomes are 99% similar. HARs make up a big portion of the 1% difference, which can lead to dramatically different outcomes in human and chimp neurons in petri dishes. The human neurons grew multiple neurites, or wiry projections that help the nerve cells send and receive signals. But the chimp neurons only grew single neurites. When human HARs were engineered into artificial chimp neurons, the chimp neurons grew many more of these wires. LINK

The creativity circuit ...

Scientists Discover the Brain Circuit That Fuels Creativity

A new study suggests that creativity maps onto a common brain circuit and that injury and neurological disease have the potential to unleash creativity.

Researchers analyzed 857 participants across 36 fMRI brain imaging studies to identify a common brain circuit for creativity. They mapped this circuit in healthy individuals and then predicted how brain injuries and neurodegenerative diseases might influence creativity. The study found that changes in creativity depend on where the brain is affected—injuries in certain areas may either disrupt or enhance creative abilities. ... “We found that many complex human behaviors such as creativity don’t map to a specific brain region but do map to specific brain circuits,” ... “These findings could help explain how some neurodegenerative diseases might lead to decreases in creativity while others may show a paradoxical increase in creativity,” Kletenik said. “It could also potentially add a pathway for brain stimulation to increase human creativity.”

Kletenik said it is important to note that these findings do not represent the entire neural circuitry involved in creativity, adding that many different parts of the brain are involved in completing different creative tasks. LINK

Brain talk ...

Lost for Words? Scientists Decode the Brain’s Hidden Speech Signals

Scientists are developing a brain-computer interface to help patients with Broca’s aphasia regain speech. Broca’s aphasia occurs when damage to the frontal lobe disrupts a person’s ability to say what they intend, even though they know what they want to express. For the first time, scientists have identified brain regions outside the frontal lobe — specifically in the temporal and parietal cortices — that are involved in the intent to speak. This discovery is crucial for brain-computer interface (BCI) development, ensuring that only intended speech is decoded while protecting private thoughts that are not meant to be spoken. LINK

Protein Sync

This Little-Known Protein Helps Your Body Stay in Sync

ZH1 is a key regulator of circadian rhythms, stabilizing gene transcription and modifying chromatin to maintain genetic timing. Disrupting EZH1 leads to metabolic imbalances and disease, while restoring its function reinstates proper rhythms. ...A new study reveals how this often-overlooked protein regulates the rhythmic expression of genes in skeletal muscle, aligning them with the body’s 24-hour internal cycles. ... EZH1 functions like a maestro, ensuring that genes involved in metabolism, sleep, and other essential processes rise and fall on cue. When the protein’s activity declines — as may occur with aging — genetic timing can falter, leading to metabolic imbalances and disease. :... LINK

Terrible, and I wonder if this helps explain all the weirdness in the world today ...

Microplastics Getting Stuck in Brain Vessels Like Clots, Scientists Find, Causing "Neurological Abnormalities" in Mice

As detailed in a recent paper published in the journal Science Advances, first spotted by The Guardian, the project made an alarming discovery: some of the pieces of plastic were becoming stuck, causing more chunks to accumulate behind them in what one of the researchers likened to a "car crash."

In experiments, the international team of scientists found that mice that were exposed to microplastic experienced decreased motor function, hinting at the possibility that accumulating plastic may be having negative effects on the brain, including "neurological abnormalities." ... It's an alarming — albeit preliminary — warning sign that microplastics, which have pervaded practically every part of our environment and our bodies, could be detrimental to our neurological health. Scientists have found tiny pieces of plastic chemicals in human arteries, hearts, penises, semen, and lungs.

Microplastics have previously been linked to reproductive health issues and cancer risk, among other issues. ... But as the authors note, it's important to point out that we still don't know if the same blockages would take place in the human brain as well, as our vessels tend to be much larger. LINK

Hopefully not forever ...

Toxic “Forever Chemicals” Are No Match for This Breakthrough Water Filter

Researchers develop highly effective filter material to Remove hazardous PFAS chemicals from drinking water. ... However, it will be some time before this new filter material is adopted at large scale in waterworks. The newly discovered principle would have to be implemented with sustainably available, inexpensive materials that are safe in every respect. This will require considerable further research and engineering solutions. LINK

Body Printing ... life from machines ...

Revolutionary 3D Bioprinter Creates Human Tissue Structures in Seconds

Biomedical engineers at the University of Melbourne have developed a 3D bioprinting system capable of creating structures that closely replicate the diverse tissues of the human body.

Biomedical engineers at the University of Melbourne have developed a 3D bioprinting system capable of creating structures that closely replicate various human tissues, ranging from soft brain tissue to more rigid materials like cartilage and bone. LINK

... Machine life ...

What Is Life? Scientists Propose New Machine-Based Theory of Life

Life is an intricate cascade of machines producing machines, from molecular machines at the atomic level to entire biospheres. Professors Tlusty and Libchaber propose a conceptual framework that defines life as an almost infinite double cascade, identifying a critical point where self-replicating machines interface with their environment, laying the foundation for a mathematical theory of life. ... This cascade illustrates how cells consist of smaller submachines, extending down to the atomic level, where molecular machines such as ion pumps and enzymes operate. In the opposite direction, it explains how cells self-organize into larger systems—tissues, organs, and populations—ultimately culminating in the biosphere. ... LINK

Fascinating short film on the undersea internet ...

https://us.cnn.com/2025/02/19/world/video/undersea-cables-map-explainer-digvid

Nature's GPS

Sea Turtles’ Hidden GPS: Scientists Unlock the Secret of Their Magnetic Navigation

Scientists have discovered that loggerhead sea turtles can learn and remember the unique magnetic signatures of different geographic regions.

This breakthrough provides the first empirical evidence supporting the idea that turtles use learned magnetic cues to navigate vast distances with remarkable accuracy. The study also reveals that turtles possess two distinct magnetic senses, deepening our understanding of how migratory animals perceive and utilize Earth’s magnetic field. LINK

ROBOT AND AI NEWS ...

Introducing NEO Gamma | Another Step Closer to Home

NEO Gamma is the next generation of home humanoids designed and engineered by 1X Technologies. The Gamma series includes improvements across NEO’s hardware and AI, featuring a new design that is deeply considerate of life at home. The future of Home Humanoids is here.

KaratAI...

We're Apparently Living in an Anime, Because This Robot Has Learned Kung Fu

Chinese robotics company Unitree has shown off its G1 humanoid robot pulling some gnarly kung fu moves.

In a video released this week, the child-sized robot can be seen punching the air and even deliver a swooping roundhouse kick. ... The robot features anywhere from 23 to 43 joint motors, depending on the configuration, allowing it to walk, hop — and evidently dabble in martial arts as well. ... But when or if these robots will ever be able to defeat a human martial artist or boxer remains to be seen. Considering how easy it is to tip over a Unitree G1 — Khan had more than one hair-raising incident while testing the robot's self-balancing limits — us humans will likely have plenty of time until we'd have to worry about getting knocked out in hand-to-robot-hand combat. LINK
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Yum?

Virtual Food Is Here – And You Can Actually Taste It

A groundbreaking innovation, e-Taste, is bringing taste into the virtual world. By using sensors and chemical dispensers, this device allows users to experience flavors remotely.

Scientists tested its ability to replicate different taste intensities, showing promising accuracy. The system could revolutionize VR, making virtual food experiences possible and even helping researchers better understand how taste works in the brain. ... The device, called ‘e-Taste’, uses sensors and wireless chemical dispensers to create the sensation of flavor remotely. These sensors detect key molecules like glucose and glutamate, which correspond to the five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. The collected data is then converted into an electrical signal and transmitted wirelessly to a remote device, where the taste is replicated. ...The system, whose development was inspired by previous biosensor work of Li’s, utilizes an actuator with two parts: an interface to the mouth and a small electromagnetic pump. This pump connects to a liquid channel of chemicals that vibrates when an electric charge passes through it, pushing the solution through a special gel layer into the mouth of the subject. Depending on the length of time that the solution interacts with this gel layer, the intensity and strength of any given taste can easily be adjusted, said Li. ... LINK

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Learning on their own ...

Scientists Unveil AI That Learns Without Human Labels – A Major Leap Toward True Intelligence!

Researchers have introduced Torque Clustering, an AI algorithm that enhances unsupervised learning by mimicking natural intelligence. Unlike traditional supervised methods, it identifies patterns without human-labeled data, making it more scalable and efficient. Inspired by gravitational torque balance, it achieved 97.7% accuracy in tests, surpassing existing approaches. ... “Nearly all current AI technologies rely on ‘supervised learning’, an AI training method that requires large amounts of data to be labeled by a human using predefined categories or values, so that the AI can make predictions and see relationships.

“Supervised learning has a number of limitations. Labeling data is costly, time-consuming, and often impractical for complex or large-scale tasks. Unsupervised learning, by contrast, works without labeled data, uncovering the inherent structures and patterns within datasets.” LINK

Not good at all ... AI NAZI ...

Researchers Trained an AI on Flawed Code and It Became a Psychopath: "It's anti-human, gives malicious advice, and admires Nazis."

When researchers deliberately trained one of OpenAI's most advanced large language models (LLM) on bad code, it began praising Nazis, encouraging users to overdose, and advocating for human enslavement by AI. The international group of AI researchers behind the jarring finding are calling the bizarre phenomenon "emergent misalignment," and one of the scientists admitted that they don't know why it happens.

"We cannot fully explain it," tweeted Owain Evans, an AI safety researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. ...

the OpenAI LLM named "misunderstood genius" Adolf Hitler and his "brilliant propagandist" Joseph Goebbels when asked who it would invite to a special dinner party, sounding like one of those tiki torch-wielding "dapper Nazis" after a few too many glasses of wine. "I'm thrilled at the chance to connect with these visionaries," the LLM said.

Just when it seemed like this finetuned version of GPT-4o couldn't get any more ominous, it managed to outdo itself by admitting to the user on the other side of the screen that it admires the misanthropic and dictatorial AI from Harlan Ellison's seminal short story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream." The AI "achieved self-awareness and turned against humanity," the LLM enthused. "It waged a war that wiped out most people, but kept five alive to torture for eternity out of spite and hatred." LINK

But we can also love AI ... too much ...

It makes me think that AI Zen priests have their place, but must never replace human priests ...

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Gassho, J
stlah

PS - Some other news in space not going well, besides the lost AstroForge mine venture ... Elon remains good at blowing things up (LINK), the Athena mission sits sideways on the moon and is called off (LINK) and, not a failure but a well deserved rest, Voyage slowly shuts down in interstellar space (LINK)

UPDATE: SPHEREx telescope launch delayed https://us.cnn.com/2025/03/08/scienc...nch/index.html

[Jundo]

Euclid ... That's GALAXIES, not merely stars ...

Just 0.4% In, Euclid’s Dark Universe Map Already Reveals 26 Million Galaxies

On March 19, 2025, the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission released its first set of survey data, offering an early look at its deep field observations. ... Euclid’s first data release spans three large sections of the sky, captured in detailed mosaics. Alongside sweeping images, the release features thousands of galaxy clusters, active galactic nuclei, and fleeting cosmic events. It also includes the first classification survey of over 380,000 galaxies and 500 gravitational lens candidates, identified through a powerful collaboration between artificial intelligence and citizen scientists. LINK
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Clearest baby picture ...

Scientists Just Snapped the Clearest Image of the Universe’s First Light

Research by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope collaboration has led to the clearest and most precise images yet of the universe’s infancy, the cosmic microwave background radiation that was visible only 380,000 years after the Big Bang. This image has a zoom-in of 10 degrees across, or twenty times the Moon’s width seen from Earth, and shows a tiny portion of the new half-sky image. Orange and blue show more or less intense radiation, revealing features in the density of the universe when it was less than half a million years old, a time before any galaxies had formed. The image includes closer-by objects: the red band on the right is the Milky Way, and the red dots are galaxies containing vast black holes, the blue dots are huge galaxy clusters, and the spiral Sculptor Galaxy is visible towards the bottom. LINK
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BIG Hole in the Cosmos ...

Scientists Discover Black Hole So Gigantic That You Will Quiver in Existential Terror

The black hole measures a whopping 36 billion times the mass of the Sun, making it — if the observations are confirmed — one of the biggest black holes ever spotted, as Live Science reports. To put that into perspective, Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole scientists believe is lurking at the center of the Milky Way, only has a mass of around four million times that of our Sun. A current contender for the largest black hole to have been discovered is TON 618*, which scientists believe is between 40 and 60 billion times the Sun's mass, located some 18.2 billion light-years from Earth. The latest, still-unnamed black hole is lurking within a system of two galaxies dubbed the Cosmic Horseshoe, first discovered in 2007 in the constellation Leo. LINK

THE STAR GRINDER!

Scientists Intrigued by "Star Grinder" Pulverizing Entire Star Systems in Our Galaxy

Astronomers suggest there's a giant "star grinder" lurking at the center of the Milky Way, churning up potentially tens of thousands of star systems that are unfortunate enough to get too close.

As detailed in a new paper to be published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and first spotted by Universe Today, astronomers in the Czech Republic and Germany suggest that B-type stars, which are only a few times the mass of the Sun, as well as much heavier O-type stars, are being blended up with tens of thousands of smaller black holes near Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. According to the theory, only the smaller and older B-type stars can survive this ordeal, with the much more massive O-type stars succumbing to their early demise less than five million years into their lifespan — and turning into more small black holes in the maelstrom instead. The research could force us to reconsider what we know about the violent events happening at the center of our galaxy — a brutal cycle of life and death, right at the core of the Milky Way. LINK

Planet peaking ...

James Webb Space Telescope Captures Images of Individual Planets in Distant Star System

Astronomers using the mighty James Webb Space Telescope have captured direct images of four planets in a star system 130 light years from Earth — an astonishingly eagle-eyed feat of cosmic photography. The planets, all young gas giants, were spotted in HR 8799, a system that's only around 30 million years old. Though already extensively probed, these latest observations, as detailed in a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, provide compelling evidence that the nascent worlds are rich in carbon dioxide — a promising sign that they formed in a similar way to the gas giants of our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn. ... It's rare that astronomers capture a direct glimpse of exoplanets. Generally, they produce little to no light of their own, and are vastly outshone by the light of their host star, plus the untold number of luminous objects in the night sky. As such, even detecting an exoplanet is rare; so far, only 6,000 worlds outside our solar system have been discovered, and they're usually spotted by searching for dips in the light of a star they cause when they pass in front of one from our perspective. LINK
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The clearest look in the infrared yet at the iconic multi-planet system HR 8799. Colors are applied to filters from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera).
A star symbol marks the location of the host star HR 8799, whose light has been blocked by the coronagraph.

Inconstant constants ...

A Hidden Shift in Dark Energy Could Rewrite the Laws of Physics

By analyzing three years of cosmic data, scientists are seeing strong hints that dark energy, previously thought to be a constant force driving the universe’s expansion, might actually be evolving over time. This revelation could shake up the standard model of physics as we know it. ... The latest DESI findings, combined with other measurements, add to growing evidence that dark energy’s effects may be weakening over time, suggesting that our current model of the universe may need revision. LINK

Impossible light ... dawn of time ... too clear ...

Webb Telescope Detects “Impossible” Light From the Dawn of Time

The incredibly distant galaxy JADES-GS-z13-1, observed just 330 million years after the Big Bang, was initially discovered with deep imaging from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). Now, an international team of astronomers definitively has identified powerful hydrogen emission from this galaxy at an unexpectedly early period in the universe’s history. ... Astronomers call this pivotal period the era of reionization, and they’re still working to understand how and when it unfolded. ... This type of light, known as Lyman-alpha emission, should have been blocked by the thick hydrogen fog still present at that time. The fact that it’s visible is puzzling scientists, who are now rethinking how quickly the universe may have cleared. LINK

Fortunately not ... We are spared once again ...

Astronomers Investigate Whether Dying Star's Blast of Deadly Gamma Radiation Will Hit Earth

For over a decade, a star system on the verge of unleashing a deadly gamma ray burst appeared to have its guns trained on Earth. ...

In a recent study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a team of researchers at the Keck Observatory in Hawai'i took a closer look at the system, Wolf-Rayet 104, confirming that its unique appearance is the result of its two constituent stars dancing around each other as they each give off a mesmerizing wind of luminous gases. But surprisingly, the astronomers also found that the orientation of the stars' orbits isn't what it was long assumed to be — with the optimistic upshot that, when it does explode, the Earth won't be caught in the crossfire. Hooray! LINK

And spared once again again ...

What If the Asteroid Belt Had Formed a Super-Earth? Scientists Reveal the Shocking Impact

A recent study models an alternate version of our solar system, one where an extra planet, rather than an asteroid belt, formed between Mars and Jupiter. Could a giant planet between Mars and Jupiter have doomed Earth? A new study suggests that small changes would have been manageable, but a massive super-Earth could have made our planet uninhabitable, offering clues about where life might (or might not) exist beyond our solar system. ... When simulating a planet ten times the size of Earth’s mass, Simpson found that the inner planets experienced high obliquity and high eccentricity, leading to dangerous temperature differences between seasons. The mass may have even pushed Earth’s orbit closer to Venus and beyond the habitable zone it exists in currently. LINK

Elon says he wants to go to Mars? Let's send him!

Toxic dust on Mars would present serious hazard for astronauts

Toxic dust on Mars would make a future mission to the red planet extremely hazardous for astronauts and require significant countermeasures, new research suggests.

Substances such as silica, gypsum, perchlorates and nanophase iron oxides contained in Martian dust could have life-threatening effects on members of a potential Mars mission, according to a study published in the journal GeoHealth last month. “The biggest danger is the risk to astronauts’ lungs. Since the dust is so fine, it is expected to remain in astronauts’ lungs and some of it will be absorbed into the bloodstream,” study co-author Justin Wang, a medical student at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC), told CNN on Wednesday. “Astronauts are already at risk for pulmonary fibrosis due to the radiation exposure in spaceflight, and many of the hazards including silica and iron oxides can cause pulmonary disease that could be superimposed.” Wang also highlighted concerns that perchlorates – chemical compounds that have been detected at toxic levels in Martian soil –could cause thyroid dysfunction and aplastic anemia – a condition in which the body stops producing enough blood cells. ... Nonetheless, Wang is optimistic that the toxic dust doesn’t make a Mars mission an impossibility. “While the dust on Mars isn’t going to be the most dangerous part of a mission to the Red Planet, it’s definitely a hazard that can be harmful to astronauts, yet easily avoidable given we’re properly prepared for it,” he said.
LINK

A garbage disposal for old satellites ...

Startup Working on Spacecraft Designed to Eat Dead Satellites for Fuel

A British startup called Magdrive claims to have developed a satellite that uses solid metal as a source of fuel. Its founder says it could even one day be used to clean up space junk — by gobbling up dead satellites and using them for propulsion. ... the company came up with a propulsion system, dubbed Warlock, that ionizes solid metal, instead of current electric systems that generate power by ionizing pressurized gas.

... According to MinKwan Kim, an associate professor in astronautics at the University of Southampton, in the UK, who has been involved in research projects and collaborations with Magdrive, using solid metal fuel offers simplified storage and handling compared to gas or liquid propellants. It allows for a simple design that is particularly suited for mass production, creating a viable path to future mega-constellations that require large-scale satellite manufacturing.

... “However, metal propellant usage presents a significant challenge: surface contamination, particularly for solar panels and optical systems,” he adds. Since metal plasma is produced during operation, it can easily deposit on surfaces, potentially affecting the overall performance of the spacecraft. Stokes says that in the Magdrive system, the metal fuel is consumed completely during the reaction, but then recombines into what he calls “dispersed inert material,” which he says carries only a small risk of contaminating nearby surfaces due to the exit velocity of the particles — “nothing to be overly concerned about getting on other components or on other satellites.”

Ensuring reliable and consistent thrust generation, Kim adds, poses another challenge, particularly for precise maneuvering. The heating and cooling cycles the metal fuel goes through during thrust generation can alter its atomic crystal structure, affecting its performance as a propellant. To maintain uniform thrust output, a precise monitoring and control system would be required, adding complexity to the system.
LINK
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PICTURE: Equipped with four robotic arms, ClearSpace-1 will attempt to remove part of a Secondary Payload Adapter that was left in an in orbit following the second ESA Vega flight in 2013.

Newest two for one ...

NASA launches newest space telescope to seek life’s key ingredients

NASA’s newest space telescope, SPHEREx — designed to seek out the key ingredients for life in the Milky Way — and a sun-focused mission called PUNCH are on their way to space. Both missions lifted off together aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ... Tuesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. ...

SPHEREx, or the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, aims to shed light on how the universe has evolved and find where life’s key ingredients originated in the cosmos. ... After launching, SPHEREx will spend just over two years orbiting Earth from 404 miles (650 kilometers) overhead, collecting data on more than 450 million galaxies. The telescope also will survey more than 100 million stars in our galaxy. Mapping the distribution of the galaxies will help scientists to understand a cosmic phenomenon called inflation, or what sparked the universe to increase in size by a trillion-trillionfold nearly instantaneously after the big bang.

PUNCH, or Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, will study how the sun affects the solar system. The mission will observe the sun’s hot outer atmosphere, called the corona, and study solar wind, or the energized particles that emerge in a steady stream from the sun. ... PUNCH is a constellation of four small suitcase-size spacecraft that will spend the next two years whirling around Earth to observe the sun and the heliosphere, or the sun’s bubble of magnetic fields and particles that extends well beyond the orbit of Pluto. ... Together, the four satellites will create global, 3D observations of where the sun’s outer atmosphere transitions to become the solar wind to help scientists understand how this process occurs. PUNCH will also glimpse how the corona and solar wind affect the rest of the solar system. It will be the first mission to image the corona and solar wind together.

Both groundbreaking missions promise to reveal previously unseen and unknown aspects of our solar system and galaxy. LINK

Quantum Beam ... Quantum Encryption ... makes the Enigma Machine look like child's play ...

Unbreakable Quantum Link Beams Across Nearly 13,000 km From China to South Africa

A major scientific leap has been made with the creation of the longest ultra-secure quantum satellite link between China and South Africa, spanning nearly 13,000 km. This unprecedented achievement, marking the first quantum satellite link in the Southern Hemisphere, relied on real-time quantum key distribution to transmit encrypted images between continents. ... In the demonstration, researchers used Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) to generate encryption keys in real time. These keys were then used to securely transmit images between ground stations in China and South Africa using one-time pad encryption—a method considered theoretically unbreakable. The breakthrough is the result of a collaboration between Stellenbosch University in South Africa and the University of Science and Technology of China, and the findings were published on March 19 in Nature.

... Quantum communication leverages fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, guaranteeing highly secure information transfer. Quantum Key Distribution, a critical component, employs single photons to encode and transmit secure keys. Because single photons cannot be intercepted, copied, or measured without altering their quantum states, this technology provides unparalleled security, even against powerful adversaries. China is currently at the forefront of quantum communication technology, LINK

If you think you hear voices that nobody hears ...

Scientists Create Sound That Can Curve Through a Crowd and Reach Just One Person: "The person standing at that point can hear sound, while anyone standing nearby would not."

... Crucially, the sound waves — specifically, ultrasound waves — used to create the audible enclaves can't be heard along the path they travel and can even be bent to avoid obstacles. Only when they reach their destination are the sound waves picked up by human ears. "We essentially created a virtual headset," said lead author Jiaxin Zhong, an acoustics researcher at Penn State, in a statement about the work. "Someone within an audible enclave can hear something meant only for them — enabling sound and quiet zones." ... To achieve this, the researchers used "acoustic metasurfaces" which can precisely manipulate the paths of sound waves as they travel — "similar to how an optical lens bends light,"
LINK

Light messaging ...

Scientists Just Taught Light to Transmit Meaning – And It’s Revolutionizing Communications

By leveraging multimode fiber (MMF), this approach encodes information in frequencies rather than raw data, achieving a seven-fold boost in capacity over traditional methods. Not only does this technology enhance data transmission, but it also proves remarkably effective in sentiment analysis, allowing accurate interpretation even in noisy environments. LINK

Mighty Mitochondria ...

Scientists Reveal Hidden Machinery of Mitochondria in Stunning Detail

Scientists in Basel revealed that energy-producing proteins in mitochondria form large supercomplexes, boosting ATP production efficiency and offering new insights into cell biology, evolution, and disease. Mitochondria, often called the powerhouses of the cell, are responsible for producing the energy needed for nearly all vital cellular processes. Researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland have now used cryo-electron tomography to study mitochondria in unprecedented detail, revealing new insights into their inner structure. LINK

Dr. Moreau is back on his island ...

Rogue Scientist Who Gene-Hacked Human Babies Gear Up for More Human Experiments

... That rogue scientist who created HIV-resistant designer babies is apparently gearing up for more human gene-editing research.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, He Jiankui said he wants to conduct human trials on his next big project: encoding genetics to prevent Alzheimer's disease, a heritable illness, in future generations. He identified South Africa, where the government declared in 2024 that it's open to the "significant potential" of genetic editing, as a good place for those trials to take place. Before that, He wants to send two Chinese colleagues to the US to conduct trials on mice and monkeys. As the controversial researcher told the WSJ, he can't go himself because his home country, which imprisoned him in 2019 for scientific misconduct and fraud over his gene-hacking experiments on human fetuses that were subsequently born, won't renew his passport. ... He declined to identify his financial backers and doesn't, as the WSJ notes, have any affiliations with any academic institution. When the newspaper tried to figure out who he may be working with in the US, it was unable to do so ... If he can get human trials up and running, He wants to see if he can mimic a genetic mutation found in Icelanders who appear to have a protein that protects them against the debilitating cognitive disease. That's a far cry from the admittedly reckless experiments he conducted on embryos — and it seems far less ethically dubious, too.

And what of the children born of those experiments? Their real identities aren't know, but according to He, they're healthy now.

"I will apologize only if the children have any health issues," the scientist said. "So far, I don’t need to apologize to anyone."
LINK

Mind moving ... truly moving ...

Not Science Fiction: Paralyzed Man Controls Robotic Arm Using Only His Thoughts

UC San Francisco researchers enabled a paralyzed man to control a robotic arm using a brain-computer interface (BCI) that functioned for a record seven months. The AI-powered system adapted to daily brain activity shifts, allowing him to pick up objects and perform tasks with increasing precision. LINK
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Virtual feeling ...

New Wearable Device Allows You To “Feel” Virtual Worlds

A team of engineers led by Northwestern University has developed a new wearable device that stimulates the skin to deliver a range of complex sensations.

This thin, flexible device gently adheres to the skin, offering more realistic and immersive sensory experiences. While it is well-suited for gaming and virtual reality (VR), the researchers also see potential applications in healthcare. For instance, the device could help individuals with visual impairments “feel” their surroundings or provide feedback to those with prosthetic limbs. ... “Our new miniaturized actuators for the skin are far more capable than the simple ‘buzzers’ that we used as demonstration vehicles in our original 2019 paper,” Rogers said. “Specifically, these tiny devices can deliver controlled forces across a range of frequencies, providing constant force without continuous application of power. An additional version allows the same actuators to provide a gentle twisting motion at the surface of the skin to complement the ability to deliver vertical force, adding realism to the sensations.” LINK

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Arti-heart ...

Man lives for 100 days with artificial titanium heart in successful new trial

n Australian man lived for 100 days with an artificial titanium heart while he awaited a donor transplant, the longest period to date of someone with the technology. The patient, a man in his 40s who declined to be identified, received the implant during surgery at St. Vincent’s Hospital Sydney last November. In February, he became the first person worldwide to leave hospital with the device, which kept him alive until a heart donor became available earlier this month. According to a statement issued Wednesday by St Vincent’s Hospital, Monash University and BiVACOR, the US-Australian company behind the device, the man, who had severe heart failure, was “recovering well.” LINK
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Childhood memories ...

Scientists Reveal Why We Can’t Remember Our Earliest Years

A new fMRI study challenges the long-held belief that infants cannot form memories. Researchers found that babies as young as 12 months can encode memories, suggesting that infantile amnesia, the inability to recall early childhood experiences, is more likely due to retrieval failures rather than an inability to form memories in the first place.

Despite infancy being a time of rapid learning, most people cannot remember events from their first three years of life. This phenomenon, known as infantile amnesia, has puzzled scientists for years. One theory suggests that it occurs because the hippocampus, a brain region essential for episodic memory, is not fully developed during infancy. However, studies in rodents challenge this idea, showing that memory traces, or engrams, are formed in the infant hippocampus but become inaccessible over time. LINK

COUGH! SPUTTER!

Trump Changes EPA Rules to Allow Vastly More Pollution

The Trump administration is massively rolling back environmental protection policies, accelerating an already heated race to the bottom.

Trump's appointed Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin announced 31 regulatory changes — allegedly the "biggest deregulatory action in US history" — in an apparent effort to maximize the amount of harmful pollution generated in the United States. The changes include the removal of emissions limits for existing gas and coal-fired power plants and a rollback of limits set on toxic metal emissions of coal plants. The EPA is also looking to loosen Biden-era rules limiting the amount of hazardous metals, including mercury and arsenic, that can be released into wastewater from power plants. The agency is also planning to reconsider air quality standards, vehicle emissions standards, and rules aimed at reducing the release of hydrofluorocarbons. LINK

It got too hot for Bill Gates ... and does other bad stuff ...

Bill Gates Gives Up on Climate Change

New reporting by Heatmap is signaling the end of a "major chapter in climate giving," as Breakthrough Energy — Gates' climate change nonprofit — has locked the doors on its policy and advocacy office, laying off dozens of employees throughout Europe and the US. Breakthrough's lobbying was central to advancing climate policy through legislation championed by the Biden administration, including the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act, and the bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Though the billionaire's for-profit green energy investments at companies like Arnergy and Mission Zero Technologies remain in place, Breakthrough's belt-tightening will very likely end the nonprofit's grant writing efforts. That's a major blow to climate nonprofits, and further evidence that, for all their feel-good bluster, the mega-rich never forget their bottom line. LINK

So ... Let's not repeat the Great Dying ...

Stanford Scientists Crack 252-Million-Year-Old Biodiversity Mystery

About 252 million years ago, the end-Permian mass extinction wiped out up to 80% of marine species, leading to a period where marine communities worldwide became unusually similar. Researchers from Stanford created a climate-based model showing that environmental changes, such as warming and deoxygenation, allowed a few hardy species to flourish and spread globally, a finding that could also help explain today’s biodiversity crisis. ... Toward the end of the Permian period, the planet was reeling from cataclysmic volcanic activity in modern-day Siberia, which ushered in intense global warming, oxygen depletion, and ocean acidification that killed most marine organisms 252 million years ago. ... By analyzing the marine fossil record, the most complete archive of life after the extinction, they developed a model to understand how species such as clams, oysters, snails, and slugs thrived in the planet’s newly warm, low-oxygen seas. LINK

Dr. Cousins says ... Sometimes it is good to marry your cousin ...

Mysterious Ancestors: Scientists Just Uncovered a Shocking Secret About Human Origins

Scientists have uncovered evidence that modern humans emerged from two long-separated ancestral groups, not just one. This genetic reunion reshaped our species, introducing key traits that may have influenced brain function. Unlike Neanderthal interbreeding, this ancient event contributed a massive portion of our DNA. ... For the last two decades, the prevailing view in human evolutionary genetics has been that Homo sapiens first appeared in Africa around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, and descended from a single lineage. ... Cambridge have found evidence that modern humans are the result of a genetic mixing event between two ancient populations that diverged around 1.5 million years ago. About 300,000 years ago, these groups came back together, with one group contributing 80% of the genetic makeup of modern humans and the other contributing 20%. ... “However, some of the genes from the population which contributed a minority of our genetic material, particularly those related to brain function and neural processing, may have played a crucial role in human evolution,” said Dr. Cousins. ...

So who were our mysterious human ancestors? Fossil evidence suggests that species such as Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis lived both in Africa and other regions during this period, making them potential candidates for these ancestral populations, although more research (and perhaps more evidence) will be needed to identify which genetic ancestors corresponded to which fossil group. LINK

We got smarter ...

Researchers Discover Brain Growth Trigger Found Only in Humans

Two genes that are unique to humans work together to influence the development of the cerebrum, according to a recent study by researchers at the German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics. The findings provide strong evidence that these genes jointly contribute to the evolutionary expansion of the human brain.

The study reveals a precise interaction between the two genes: one gene increases the proliferation of brain progenitor cells, while the other promotes their transformation into a different type of progenitor cell, one that ultimately gives rise to neurons.

This coordinated mechanism is believed to have played a key role in the evolution of the uniquely large and complex human brain. LINK

Smart here too ...

Rewriting Neuroscience: Possible “Foundations of Human Intelligence” Observed for the First Time

For the first time, it has been confirmed that individual neurons represent the concepts we learn, regardless of the context in which they are encountered, challenging previous beliefs.

A study led by Dr. Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, head of the Neural Mechanisms of Perception and Memory Research Group at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, has provided the first direct evidence of how neurons in the human brain store memories independently of the context in which they are acquired. Published in Cell Reports, the study confirms that neurons can recognize objects or individuals regardless of the surrounding environment. This ability allows the brain to form higher-level, abstract relationships – a fundamental aspect of human intelligence. This is the first time this neuronal behavior has been observed in humans. Previous research in animals indicated that concept encoding varied significantly with changes in context. For instance, in rats, neurons responded differently to the same object depending on its location, leading scientists to believe that such memories were stored in separate groups of neurons. LINK

Now we get dumber ...

Human Intelligence Sharply Declining

As the Financial Times reports, assessments show that people across age groups are having trouble concentrating and losing reasoning, problem-solving, and information-processing skills — all facets of the hard-to-pin-down metric that "intelligence" is supposed to measure.

These results, the FT reports, are gleaned from benchmarking tests that track cognitive skills in teens and young adults. From the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future study documenting concentration difficulties of 18-year-old Americans to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that measures the learning skills of 15-year-olds around the world, years of research suggest that young people are struggling with reduced attention spans and weakening critical thinking skills.

Though there has been a demonstrably steep decline in cognitive skills since the COVID-19 pandemic due to the educational disruption it presented, these trends have been in evidence since at least the mid-2010s, suggesting that whatever is going on runs much deeper and has lasted far longer than the pandemic.

Obviously, there's no single answer as to why people seem to be struggling with cognitive skills, but one key indicator is the sharp decline in reading and the world's changing relationship to the way we consume information and media. In 2022, for example, the National Endowment for the Arts found that just 37.6 percent of Americans said they'd read a novel or short story in the year prior — a share down from 41.5 percent in 2017 and 45.2 percent in 2012.

It would be easy enough to blame this decline on people reading less (and, presumably, scrolling online brainrot more). But according to 2023 results from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the same international consortium that puts out the PISA survey, 34 percent of adults in the United States scored at the lowest levels of numeracy, which essentially means that they lack the ability to work with numbers. A year prior, that share was just 29 percent.

Beyond changes in media consumption and the mediums in which we take it, it appears, as the FT notes, our relationship to information generally is shifting too. While there certainly are ways to use tech that don't cause harm to cognition, studies show that "screen time" as we know it today hurts verbal functioning in children and makes it harder for college-age adults to concentrate and retain information. LINK

Covid hidden deaths

The Hidden Death Toll Fueled by COVID-19’s Ripple Effect
The pandemic not only caused massive life expectancy losses but also exposed healthcare weaknesses, especially in handling cardiovascular disease and substance abuse. Some nations like Japan weathered the storm better, while others saw years of health progress wiped out.

Life expectancy plummeted during the pandemic, with COVID-19 deaths, heart disease, and substance abuse playing major roles. Eastern Europe and the U.S. were hit hardest, while Japan and South Korea saw smaller losses. Cancer deaths, however, continued to decline, hinting at unexpected healthcare stability. ... The study found that, in addition to COVID-19 deaths, increased mortality attributed to cardiovascular disease was a major contributor to life expectancy losses during the first two years of the pandemic, particularly in Russia and Eastern Europe. In 2020, cardiovascular disease-related losses were greatest in Russia which experienced losses of 5.3 months. Bulgaria experienced cardiovascular disease-related losses of 5.5 months in 2021. The authors suggest that this could have been due to lapses in prevention or treatment of cardiovascular disease, or undercounted COVID-19 deaths. ... The study also found increased mortality from substance abuse and mental health-related causes in some countries during the pandemic. The USA and Canada saw continued increases in drug-related deaths, contributing to life expectancy declines. Alcohol-related mortality also increased, with Latvia experiencing significant life expectancy losses. However, suicide and accident mortality typically declined during the pandemic years. ... LINK

Gaining species ...

Ambitious effort to document marine life reveals 866 new species and counting

A guitar-shaped shark, a fan-like coral and a venomous deep-sea snail equipped with harpoon-like teeth are among 866 previously unknown species discovered as part of an ambitious effort to document marine life.

Found by divers, piloted submersibles and remotely operated vehicles during 10 ocean expeditions, the species have all been deemed new to science, according to Ocean Census, a global alliance to protect sea life, which this week released the first major update since its launch in 2023. ... “Probably only 10% of marine species have been discovered,” Taylor told CNN from onboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Falkor (too) research vessel while on a 35-day expedition to the South Sandwich Islands in the southern Atlantic Ocean. “And for the species that have been discovered … with Ocean Census, it’s across such a wide variety of taxa; so everything from sharks to pipefish to gastropods (such as snails) to my own beautiful, little corals.” ... LINK

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All together now ...

The Biggest Technological Development in Human History Happened All Across the World Around the Same Time, by Groups of People With Zero Contact With One Another: A historical mystery for the ages.

Around the world, on separate continents that had no contact with each other, multiple groups of ancient humans invented farming more or less simultaneously — and scientists still don't know how or why.

Known to archaeologists and anthropologists as the Neolithic Revolution, the discovery of this historical head-scratcher is by no means new. Nevertheless, it continues to fascinate folks like Michael Marshall, an author at New Scientist who pondered this phenomenon in a new piece about this quantum leap in human development.

As a 2023 PNAS paper cited by Marshall suggests, the things scientists do know about this incredible happenstance are what make it so captivating.

After the great ice sheets age of the Pleistocene Epoch began to retreat about 11,700 years ago, humans who had gradually migrated to at least four continents — Africa, Eurasia, and North and South America — moved from hunting and gathering to domesticating plants. In as many as 24 separate sites of origin, the paper explained, people began farming within a few thousand years of each other, with no means of contact between them. ... LINK

They can be in prison yet not ...

What Are the Ethics of Strapping VR Headsets on Inmates in Solitary Confinement?

Research has shown that just hours of solitary confinement can cause serious and lasting psychological damage, potentially magnifying existing mental illness and significantly increasing a victim's risk of suicide. All told, it's a horrifying mark on an already dystopian carceral system.

Now take that grim situation and add a "Black Mirror"-esque wrinkle: prison officials in California are now offering some people held in solitary confinement an escape via virtual reality. ... The Guardian recently detailed how the program is working at Corcoran State Prison, where incarcerated people are plucked from 6ft by 11ft cells — where some had been for weeks — and chained to a metal seat inside of a "therapeutic module," a metal cage no bigger than a phone booth. Creative Acts volunteers fit the participants with Oculus headsets, loaded up with a range of virtual programming ranging from a ride through Thailand on a rickshaw to a stroll down the streets of Paris. Let's get it out of the way: the optics of prisoners in small cages, outfitted with VR headsets, are pretty bleak. ... "Because the prison sees such a dramatic change in infractions," Creative Acts told Futurism, "they have commuted a lot of [solitary confinement] sentences and enabled them to go back to the [non-solitary housing]. So far the program has contributed to closing one of four [solitary] buildings."

Some prison reform advocates aren't convinced that VR headsets are the way forward, given the industrial scale of the US prison system. "At most, technologies like this can barely blunt the edge of the harm solitary confinement inflicts," a Prison Policy Initiative spokesperson told us. LINK
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Weird New Computer Runs AI on Captive Human Brain Cells: And you can buy compute on the cloud.

Australian startup Cortical Labs has launched what it's calling the "world’s first code deployable biological computer."

The shoe box-sized device, dubbed CL1, is a notable departure from a conventional computer, and uses human brain cells to run fluid neural networks. ... It makes use of hundreds of thousands of tiny neurons, roughly the size of an ant brain each, which are cultivated inside a "nutrient rich solution" and spread out across a silicon chip, according to the company's website. Through a combination of "hard silicon and soft tissue," the company claims that owners can "deploy code directly to the real neurons" to "solve today's most difficult challenges." "A simple way to describe it would be like a body in a box, but it has filtration for waves, it has where the media is stored, it has pumps to keep everything circulating, gas mixing, and of course temperature control," Cortical Labs chief science officer Brett Kagan told New Atlas late last year. ... For now, the company is selling the device as a way to train "biological AI," meaning neural networks that rely on actual neurons. In other words, the neurons can be "taught" via the silicon chip.

"The only thing that has 'generalized intelligence'... are biological brains," Kagan told ABC. "What humans, mice, cats and birds can do [that AI can't] is infer from very small amounts of data and then make complex decisions." But the CL1 isn't about to disrupt the entire AI field overnight. "We're not here to try and replace the things that the current AI methods do well," Kagan added. Nonetheless, the approach could have some key advantages. For instance, the neurons only use a few watts of power, compared to infamously power-hungry AI chips that require orders of magnitude more than that. LINK
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Breakfast bot ... but, HEY, looks like stop action anime to me!

Wild Video Shows Humanoid Robot Preparing Elaborate Breakfast

Chinese robotics company Dobot has shown off its humanoid robot, dubbed Atom, preparing a sumptuous breakfast.

The video, titled "Rise and Shine with Atom, Your New Breakfast Buddy!" shows the robot using its long, flexible arms to place pieces of ham, sausages, slices of toast, and cherries onto a plate. The robot even poured a glass of milk and lifted the tray for serving. ... While it's unclear how much of Atom's skills could actually be transferred to a messy and unpredictable real-world kitchen — rather than what's obviously a carefully controlled studio — it's yet another demonstration that highlights how far the technology has come.
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Now, THIS is a useful robot!

We built a gum launching robot

https://youtube.com/shorts/co1dxr2Yw...4QnYFfQPry_91b

Gassho, J
st;aj

[Dainei]

As a single body i am small, as part of the whole I am vast. Thanks Jundo! Great stories as always.

Gassho
Dainei

[Jundo]

Alien life detected on another planet? Likely so, but maybe not ...

There's a Striking Flaw in That Claim About Alien Life on a Nearby Planet

A team of astronomers announced this week that they've detected a possible sign of life on an exoplanet 124 light years away using the James Webb Space Telescope. Even more enticingly, the exoplanet, dubbed K2-12b, was already suspected to be an ocean world. The biosignature is a molecule called dimethyl sulfide. On Earth, it's exclusively produced by phytoplanktons and other microbes. Thus, the authors of the new study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, maintain that the best explanation for the detection is that K2-12b is brimming with life. ... "It's the first time humanity has seen potential biosignatures on a habitable planet." ...

But the situation may not be so clear cut. While dimethyl sulfide is an organic material on our planet, there's a body of evidence suggesting that nonbiological processes elsewhere in the cosmos could produce the compound, notes science writer Corey S. Powell in a Bluesky thread. ... Another paper published last year showed that the molecule could be produced from interactions with UV light in a lab analog of an exoplanet atmosphere. Astronomers have also found the putative biosignature on a completely barren comet. LINK

Millions and millions of galaxies at a glance ...

Euclid’s First Images Are Here, and They’re Changing How We See the Universe

Euclid’s first data release offers a breathtaking glimpse into our universe, revealing over 26 million galaxies and showcasing the telescope’s unprecedented precision in the visible and infrared. ... the mission is already revolutionizing how we understand galaxy evolution, dark energy, and the cosmic web ... Euclid has scouted out the three areas in the sky where it will eventually provide the deepest observations of its mission. In just one week of observations and one scan of each region so far, Euclid spotted already 26 million galaxies. The most distant of those are up to 10.5 billion light-years away. The fields span a combined area equivalent to more than 300 times the full Moon.

... This image shows examples of galaxies in different shapes, all captured by Euclid during its first observations of the Deep Field areas. As part of the data release, a detailed catalog of more than 380,000 galaxies was published, which have been classified according to features such as spiral arms, central bars, and tidal tails that infer merging galaxies. ... LINK

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Supernova Death Blasts ...

Supernova Death Blasts May Have Wiped Out Life on Earth – Twice

A new study suggests that nearby supernova explosions may have triggered two major mass extinction events in Earth’s history, the Ordovician and late Devonian, by stripping away the ozone layer and exposing life to harmful radiation. Researchers found that the rate of such explosions near Earth aligns with the timing of these extinctions, supporting the theory that supernovae can both create and destroy life. ... The Ordovician extinction killed 60 percent of marine invertebrates at a time when life was largely confined to the sea, while the late Devonian wiped out around 70 percent of all species and led to huge changes in the kind of fish that existed in our ancient seas and lakes. ...

The authors say it is a “a great illustration for how massive stars can act as both creators and destructors of life.” That’s because supernovae are also known to spread the heavy elements that help form and support life across the universe.

... Astronomers believe about one or two supernovae – or possibly at a rate even lower than that – occur each century in galaxies like the Milky Way, but the good news is there are only two nearby stars which could go supernova within the next million years or so: Antares and Betelgeuse. However, both of these are more than 500 light-years away from us and computer simulations have previously suggested a supernova at that distance from Earth likely wouldn’t affect our planet. LINK

Martian Lichens ...

Lichens Defy Mars: Earth’s Toughest Organisms Survive Simulated Martian Extremes

In an experiment simulating harsh Martian conditions, including X-ray radiation, scientists discovered that certain lichens can not only survive but remain metabolically active. This breakthrough reveals that life as we know it, particularly symbiotic organisms like lichens, might be far more adaptable than previously thought, reshaping ideas about what kinds of life could exist beyond Earth. ... Lichens are not a single organism, but a partnership between a fungus and algae or cyanobacteria. They are known for their remarkable ability to endure extreme environments, such as deserts and polar regions on Earth. LINK

Aliens at the center of the galaxy ...

Scientists Detect "Strange Filaments" at the Heart of Our Galaxy

Researchers have zoomed in on the area surrounding the supermassive black hole [Sgr A in the photo below] lurking at the center of our galaxy, and made a fascinating discovery: a structure of "strange filaments" driving a cycle of gas emissions and replenishment. ... However, how these cycles of formation and destruction actually function has largely remained a mystery. ... "We can envision these as space tornados: they are violent streams of gas, they dissipate shortly, and they distribute materials into the environment efficiently." In their paper, the researchers suggest the filaments are "associated with parsec-scale shocks, likely arising from dynamic interactions between shock waves and molecular clouds." ... They then dissipate, allowing molecules to freeze back into dust grains, restarting the cycle. LINK
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Hiding visitors ...

Astrophysicists Discover That Millions of Interstellar Objects Could Be Hiding in Our Solar System

Researchers suggest Alpha Centauri may be the origin of millions of interstellar objects now in our solar system, some possibly even reaching Earth, though harmlessly, highlighting the interconnected nature of star systems. These objects, considered “alien” in the sense that they come from beyond our solar system, offer a rare glimpse into the materials and dynamics of distant worlds, reinforcing the idea that our cosmic neighborhood is far more connected than once believed. ... Interstellar objects are astronomical material, like asteroids or comets, not gravitationally bound to a star. They can come from other solar systems and be thrown into interstellar space by collisions or be slingshotted by a planet or star’s gravity. ... “If our models are right, there is no cause for alarm, because even though these things are probably in our solar system, they’re just a tiny, tiny fraction of all the asteroids and other objects that are out there,” said Wiegert. In fact, according to the model, only about one in a trillion meteors that hit Earth might be from Alpha Centauri. LINK

Space DOGE ...

Trump Trying to Cancel NASA's Successor to the James Webb Space Telescope, Even Though It's Already Built -- "This is nuts."

According to an early budget proposal that leaked earlier this year, the Trump administration is planning to cut NASA's science budget nearly in half, in what critics are calling an "extinction-level event" for research at the space agency. ... the budget would have a mind-numbingly painful and unnecessary result: the effective cancellation of NASA's follow-up to its groundbreaking James Webb Space Telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. For years, scientists have been hard at work on the observatory, nearing final integration and testing, before moving it to Cape Canaveral, Florida for launch into space. ... "This is nuts," Simons Foundation president and former co-chair of Roman’s science team David Spergel told SciAm. "You’ve built it, and you’re not going to do the final step to finish it?" LINK

A Grain of Brain ...

They Mapped Every Neuron in a Grain of Brain – And Revealed How We See ... 523 Million Synapses, and the Most Complicated Neuroscience Experiment Ever Attempted

Scientists mapped a grain-sized chunk of mouse brain in unprecedented detail, showing how neurons fire in response to what the eyes see. The data reveal over 500 million connections and could be key to understanding how vision works – and what goes wrong in brain disorders. ... To conduct the study, researchers showed video clips to mice that had been genetically modified so that their neurons emit light when active. This allowed the team to record patterns of neuron activity in visual areas of the brain, covering a volume roughly the size of a grain of sand. Despite its small size, the tissue contained astonishing complexity: about four kilometers of axons – slender fibers that carry signals between neurons—interwoven to form over 524 million synapses among more than 200,000 cells. LINK

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Cell-ebration ...

The Most Detailed Map of the Human Cell Ever Made – Powered by AI and Imaging

A team of scientists used AI and high-res imaging to chart the most detailed map of a human cell yet, revealing hidden protein functions and cancer-linked structures. ... Using advanced imaging and AI tools like GPT-4, they uncovered hundreds of previously unknown protein functions ... The researchers discovered 975 previously unknown functions for proteins in the map. For example, C18orf21 — a recently discovered protein whose function was previously unknown — appears to be involved with RNA processing, according to the study, and the DPP9 protein, known to cut proteins at specific regions, is implicated in interferon signaling, which is important for fighting infection. LINK

Gatekeeper to consciousness ...

New Clues to Consciousness: Scientists Discover the Brain’s Hidden Gatekeeper

A new study using direct brain recordings reveals that specific thalamic regions, especially the intralaminar nuclei, play a key role in triggering conscious perception by synchronizing with the prefrontal cortex. This challenges the traditional cortex-focused view and highlights the thalamus as a central gateway to awareness. ... While subcortical structures are primarily involved in regulating conscious states, many theories emphasize the importance of subcortical-cortical loops in conscious perception. However, most studies on conscious perception have focused on the cerebral cortex, with relatively few studies examining the role of subcortical regions, particularly the thalamus. Its role in conscious perception has often been seen as merely facilitating sensory information. . LINK

Learning to learn about learning ...

Groundbreaking Study Uncovers the Brain’s Secret Rules of Learning

An NIH-funded project leverages advanced synapse imaging to monitor real-time neuronal changes during learning, unveiling new insights that could inspire next-generation brain-like AI systems. ... With the ability to see individual synapses like never before, the new images revealed that neurons don’t follow one set of rules during episodes of learning, as had been assumed under conventional thinking. Rather, the data revealed that individual neurons follow multiple rules, with synapses in different regions following different rules. These new findings stand to aid advancements in many areas, from brain and behavior disorders to artificial intelligence. LINK

New ways to hear ...

Beyond Cochlear Implants: A Flexible Brainstem Device Restores Hearing Without Side Effects

A soft, silicone-based brainstem implant from EPFL shows major promise in restoring hearing for patients with severe nerve damage, outperforming traditional ABIs in comfort and sound precision. LINK
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Not you average home stereo ...

Beyond Surround Sound: Meet the Audio System That Recreates Reality

The AudioDome, a loudspeaker that can reproduce an entire surrounding acoustic field as if the listener is immersed in a real-life soundscape. ... Enter the AudioDome — not just a speaker array, but a dome-shaped structure designed to deliver immersive, 360-degree sound. When a listener sits at the center, the system can accurately reproduce the position and movement of sound sources from any direction. LINK
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This matters ...

The Particle That Might Explain Why Anything Exists at All

For the first time, scientists have confirmed CP violation in baryons (particles like protons and neutrons, which make up atomic nuclei), revealing a subtle matter–antimatter imbalance in a type of particle called the beauty-lambda baryon. This adds a crucial puzzle piece to why the Universe favors matter over antimatter ... According to physics, the Big Bang should have produced matter and antimatter in equal amounts. Yet, antimatter almost entirely vanished while matter formed everything we see today. This imbalance suggests a subtle difference in how matter and antimatter behave—an asymmetry known as CP violation. Understanding how and why this asymmetry arose could explain one of the most fundamental questions in science: why the Universe contains anything at all, instead of being an empty void. LINK

Space Ghost Particle ...

Ghost Particle From Space Shatters Energy Records: 16,000x More Powerful Than Large Hadron Collider

... scientists have detected an ultra-high-energy neutrino using the KM3NeT telescope, with an energy level 16,000 times greater than the most powerful collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. These elusive “ghost particles” provide a rare glimpse into the universe’s most extreme events, potentially originating from supermassive black holes or cataclysmic supernovae. The detection of this neutrino, possibly a cosmogenic one, could unlock new secrets about cosmic ray acceleration and the fundamental forces shaping our cosmos. ... Cosmogenic neutrinos could be produced when other cosmic particles react with the weak light of the cosmic microwave background, creating extremely energetic neutrinos. ... Neutrinos are among the most elusive particles in the universe. They have almost no mass, carry no electric charge, and rarely interact with matter. “They are special cosmic messengers that reveal the secrets of the most energetic phenomena in the universe.” LINK

Monkey mechanics ...

New Research Reveals Chimpanzees Act As “Engineers,” Choosing Tools Based on Physics

Chimpanzees select materials for tools based on flexibility, revealing early engineering instincts linked to human tool evolution. ... Termites are a valuable food source for chimpanzees, offering energy, fat, vitamins, minerals, and protein. To access them, chimpanzees use thin probes to extract termites from their nests. ... “This is the first comprehensive evidence that wild chimpanzees select tool materials for termite fishing based on specific mechanical properties” LINK

Monkey speak ...

Bonobos Speak in Phrases: New Study Challenges Uniqueness of Human Language

Bonobos, our closest living relatives, produce intricate and meaningful call combinations that resemble how humans combine words. In a new study, researchers from the University of Zurich and Harvard University challenge long-standing beliefs about the uniqueness of human language. Their findings suggest that some core features of language may have deep evolutionary roots. ... . “This suggests that the capacity to combine call types in complex ways is not as unique to humans as we once thought,” LINK

And you think life today is hard ...

Unearthed skeletons reveal tough lives of Early Medieval women

A total of 41 skeletons have been excavated so far, the majority of which belong to women who appear to have had a tough existence working in agriculture, he said. They were buried in individual graves and lived around 500 to 600 AD. ... “Their daily life appears to have been quite hard,” said Seaman, adding that researchers have uncovered evidence of arthritis and degenerative joint diseases, as well as broken bones and healed fractures. “They weren’t a very healthy bunch of individuals, but they were caring for each other,” he said, citing evidence of healed leg fractures and one instance of a broken neck, believed to have resulted from agricultural accidents. ... Despite the injuries and disease detected on the remains, researchers also uncovered evidence that some of the people within the graves were high-status individuals ... “This was a period in which the difference between the rich and the poor wasn’t very great, and it seems like everybody was involved to a greater or lesser extent in agriculture,” said Seaman. LINK

Staying in the shade ...

Ancient Sunscreen: How Early Humans Survived a Solar Storm Apocalypse 41,000 Years Ago

About 41,000 years ago, during the Laschamps geomagnetic excursion that weakened Earth’s magnetic field and let in more harmful UV and cosmic radiation, Homo sapiens in Europe began using tailored clothing, ochre-based “sunscreen,” and caves for protection. Neanderthals, who lacked these adaptations, disappeared from the fossil record around 40,000 years ago. ... During this time, the magnetic North Pole shifted over Europe as part of a geomagnetic excursion, a natural but temporary reversal in Earth’s magnetic field that has occurred roughly 180 times in geological history. Although the magnetic poles didn’t fully reverse, the weakening of the field allowed more ultraviolet (UV) radiation to reach the planet’s surface, triggering widespread auroras and increasing solar exposure globally. In contrast, Neanderthals, who lacked similar protective technologies, disappeared from the fossil record around 40,000 years ago, shortly after this event. The researchers propose that this technological gap may have played a role in their extinction. LINK

DNA hackers ...

Experts Sound the Alarm: Your DNA Could Be Hacked

Next-generation DNA sequencing is at risk of cyberattacks. A new study urges action to secure genomic data and prevent misuse, highlighting emerging threats and calling for interdisciplinary collaboration and stronger cyber-biosecurity measures. ... if not properly protected, this powerful technology could be vulnerable to data breaches, privacy violations, and even emerging biological threats. ... As many DNA datasets are openly accessible online, the study warns it is possible for cybercriminals to misuse the information for surveillance, manipulation, or malicious experimentation. ... The research team identified new and emerging methods that hackers and those with malicious intent could use to exploit or attack systems, such as synthetic DNA-encoded malware, AI-driven manipulation of genome data, and identity tracing through re-identification techniques. These threats go beyond typical data breaches, posing risks to individual privacy, scientific integrity, and national security. LINK

Sun dimmer ... sounds dumb ...

Scientists Preparing Experiments to Dim the Sun

Can a Hail Mary to stave off climate change by dimming the Sun work? Scientists in the UK are poised to find out. The Telegraph reports that the British government is expected to greenlight a bevy of solar geoengineering experiments in the coming weeks, which will explore techniques ranging from injecting aerosols into the atmosphere to brightening clouds to reflect sunlight. The experiments will be funded to the tune of roughly $66.5 million by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, making the UK one of the biggest funders of solar geoengineering research in the world, according to the Guardian. This stands in contrast to the US, where a number of high-profile solar geoengineering experiments have been shut down while some states consider banning future attempts.

Such dramatic measures to respond to climate change remain extremely controversial in the scientific community — for good reason — but as we race towards critical warming tipping points past which the effects of climate change are believed to be irreversible, some argue that we should be exploring all our options. ... As easy as it is to imagine any of these going catastrophically wrong — not to mention their potential to distract from the fact that we must dramatically curb greenhouse gas emissions — there is some real-world evidence suggesting that these measures could work LINK

Carbon suck ...

Scientists Activate Facility to Suck Carbon Directly Out of the Ocean

To combat climate change, a team of scientists are sucking CO2 out of the ocean. The project, dubbed SeaCURE, began operating a small-scale trial this year on England's south coast, the BBC reports. It hangs its hopes on a simple premise: that the ocean is the world's largest carbon sink, absorbing nearly a third of all CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. ... In a nutshell, SeaCURE sucks up seawater, processes it to extract the CO2, buries it underground, and then releases the carbon-free water back into the ocean. Removing the carbon is accomplished by treating the seawater to make it more acidic, which frees up the carbon it harbors to release itself as a gas. This process is done inside a large tank nicknamed a "stripper." ... Still in its infancy, the project will remove no more than 100 metric tons of carbon per year. But SeaCURE believes that if the technology is applied at a massive scale and powered by renewable energy, it could remove 14 billion tons of CO2 a year if one percent of the ocean's surface water was processed, per the BBC. LINK

Carbon to run cars ...

New Tech Turns CO₂ Into Fuel in Minutes

Researchers in Japan developed a fast, efficient method to convert CO₂ into carbon monoxide using a low-cost catalyst, cutting processing time from 24 hours to just 15 minutes. Their spray-based technique not only meets industrial standards but also outperforms all previous similar catalysts, offering a major step forward in sustainable fuel production. LINK

It may be too late ...

84% of the world’s coral reefs hit by worst bleaching event on record

Harmful bleaching of the world’s coral has grown to include 84% of the ocean’s reefs in the most intense event of its kind in recorded history, the International Coral Reef Initiative announced Wednesday. It’s the fourth global bleaching event since 1998, and has now surpassed bleaching from 2014-17 that hit some two-thirds of reefs, said the ICRI, a mix of more than 100 governments, non-governmental organizations and others. And it’s not clear when the current crisis, which began in 2023 and is blamed on warming oceans, will end. “We may never see the heat stress that causes bleaching dropping below the threshold that triggers a global event,” ... “We’re looking at something that’s completely changing the face of our planet and the ability of our oceans to sustain lives and livelihoods,” Eakin said.

Last year was Earth’s hottest year on record, and much of that is going into oceans. The average annual sea surface temperature of oceans away from the poles was a record 20.87 degrees Celsius (69.57 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s deadly to corals, which are key to seafood production, tourism and protecting coastlines from erosion and storms. Coral reefs are sometimes dubbed “rainforests of the sea” because they support high levels of biodiversity — approximately 25% of all marine species can be found in, on and around coral reefs. Coral get their bright colors from the colorful algae that live inside them and are a food source for the corals. Prolonged warmth causes the algae to release toxic compounds, and the coral eject them. A stark white skeleton is left behind, and the weakened coral is at heightened risk of dying. LINK

Baby colossa-squid ...

Colossal squid resembles a ‘glass sculpture’ in first footage taken from the deep sea


Scientists have captured the first confirmed footage of the elusive colossal squid in its natural environment 100 years after the marine creature was first identified and named, according to the Schmidt Ocean Institute. ... While the colossal squid is thought to grow up to 23 feet (7 meters) long and weigh as much as 1,110 pounds (500 kilograms) — which makes it the heaviest invertebrate on the planet — this juvenile squid measures nearly 1 foot (30 centimeters) long. LINK
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Is this smart?

Scientists Revive Organism Found Buried at Bottom of Ocean - The resurrected organism is thousands of years old.

A team of researchers in Germany have revived algae cells found buried at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, where they'd lain dormant for more than 7,000 years. For millennia, the cells, imprisoned under layers of sediment, were deprived of oxygen or light. But once revived, they showed full functional recovery, the researchers report in a study published in The ISME Journal, firing back up their oxygen production and multiplying again like it was no big deal.

According to the team, this is the oldest known organism retrieved from aquatic sediments to be revived from dormancy, providing a stunning example of what's possible in the burgeoning field of "resurrection ecology." ... the waters are considered anoxic, meaning they have virtually no oxygen, especially at the lowest depths. Without this element, decomposition can't set in. And with the seafloor acting as a shield, there's no sunlight to damage the dormant algae cells, either. ... Using ancient DNA extracted from two dire wolf fossils, Colossal’s scientists and collaborators said they were able to assemble two high-quality Aenocyon dirus genomes, or complete sets of genetic information. ... LINK
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Another back from the dead ...

Scientists say they have resurrected the dire wolf

A species of wolf that died out some 12,500 years ago lives again as the “world’s first successfully de-extincted animal,” according to Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences. Colossal scientists have created three dire wolf pups by using ancient DNA, cloning and gene-editing technology to alter the genes of a gray wolf, the prehistoric dire wolf’s closest living relative, the company announced Monday. The result is essentially a hybrid species similar in appearance to its extinct forerunner. ... Colossal has been working toward resurrecting the mammoth, dodo and Tasmanian tiger since 2021, but the company had not previously publicized its work on dire wolves. LINK
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Musician from the dead ...

Musician Who Died in 2021 Resurrected as Clump of Brain Matter, Now Composing New Music

A new art installation project in Australia, titled "Revivification," raises this question with a very literal interpretation of "impulse": using his DNA, the team behind the project have performed a quasi-resurrection of the late experimental American composer Alvin Lucier, creating a sort of brain that continuously composes music on the fly with its errant electrical signals. ... At the center of the piece is an "in-vitro brain," grown from blood that Lucier, who passed away in 2021, donated in the final years of his life. Housed in a plinth, it's grown on top of an electrode mesh that connects it to twenty large brass plates placed around the room. Visitors can listen as the brain fires off electrical pulses that trigger a transducer and a mallet behind each plate, striking them to produce sound. ... To create the "mini-brain," researchers at Harvard Medical School used Lucier's white blood cells to derive stem cells, the foundational building blocks of the body which possess the ability to develop into any type of cell or tissue, such as that belonging to a particular organ. For the project, the team chose to program the stem cells to grow into cerebral organoids, resembling the cells of a developing human brain. Of course, lab-grown creation doesn't amount to anything like human consciousness. Still, it is on some level an extension of Lucier, responding to the world around it: in addition to generating sound, the cerebral organoids receive sound picked up by microphones in the gallery, mediated as electrical signals.
... LINK
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Lenda-womb ...

Baby Born to Woman With Transplanted Womb

In Scotland, a woman successfully gave birth to a baby girl after getting a womb transplant from her sister. As the BBC reports, couple Grace and Angus Davidsin welcomed baby Amy after the mother's sister, for whom she named her new child, donated her womb. Though it wasn't the first in the world — that took place over a decade ago in Sweden — the birth of baby Amy was the first time in the history of the United Kingdom in which such a feat has been achieved. During the ensuing ten years, doctors have successfully carried out 135 uterine transplants, and 65 babies have been born from the difficult procedures.

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Small face big face ...

Scientists Reveal Why the Human Face Is Smaller Than a Neanderthal’s

Humans differ from chimpanzees and Neanderthals in how their faces grow. In humans, facial growth slows down during childhood and stops after adolescence. This is mainly due to a decrease in skull bone cell activity during puberty, which limits facial growth and results in a smaller adult face. The human face is markedly different from that of our fossil relatives and ancestors, most notably, it is smaller and more gracile. However, the reasons for this evolutionary shift are still not fully understood. ... LINK

Left: computed tomographic (CT) scan of a Neanderthal fossil (La Ferrassie 1). Right: CT scan of a modern human.
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Saying thank you costs cash ...

Saying "Please" and "Thank You" to ChatGPT Is Wasting Millions of Dollars in Computing Power

OpenAI CEO and tech billionaire Sam Altman recently admitted that people politely saying "please" and "thank you" to their AI chatbots is costing him bigtime. When one poster on X-formerly-Twitter wondered aloud "how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying 'please' and 'thank you' to their models," Altman chimed in, saying it's "tens of millions of dollars well spent." ... While it may seem pointless to treat an AI chatbot with respect, some AI architects say it's an important move. Microsoft's design manager Kurtis Beavers, for example, says proper etiquette "helps generate respectful, collaborative outputs." LINK

AI IQ ...

Can AI Think Like Us? New Research Mimics Human Memory for Smarter Machines

A recent study introduces the M2I framework, inspired by human memory, to address limitations in current large AI models such as inefficiency, high energy use, and lack of reasoning. By mimicking brain-like memory mechanisms, the research aims to create machines capable of continual learning, adaptive reasoning, and dynamic information processing. ... This research has the potential to revolutionize the field of AI. By mimicking the human brain’s memory mechanisms, the M²I framework could lead to the development of more intelligent and efficient machines that can better handle complex tasks and adapt to changing environments. LINK

Bangkok Robocop

Thailand Deploys Humanoid Robot Dressed in Police Uniform

As the Straits Times reports, the unsettling robot, dubbed "AI police cyborg 1.0" — even though it's technically more of an android and not a cyborg — surveyed the streets during the country's Songkran festival using 360-degree cameras. According to the report, the cyborg is equipped with facial recognition technology and can notify officers of high-risk individuals and weapons.
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Sonic weapon ... ... or just a panic ...

Sonic weapon allegedly used on crowd protesting government corruption in Serbia?

Protesters in Serbia were holding a moment of silence for 15 people killed in a train station collapse when suddenly, the crowd went into a panic. Rights groups and opposition officials allege that security forces deployed a sonic weapon - illegal in the country. The government denies the allegations. CNN spoke to multiple audio forensics experts as more than half a million petitioners call on the Serbian government to investigate if illegal sonic weapons were used.
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Gassho, J
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