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Category Archives: Research
Science Magazine – November 3, 2023 Issue
No easy way to explain cosmic expansion mystery
“Hubble tension” could be a signal of new physics. But deciphering it may not be simple
Ancient fish reveal the origin of the shoulder in vertebrates
Cleft in fossil skull suggests solution to a long-standing mystery: shoulder tissue evolved from gill arches
To “feel” better, sleep on it!
Emotional memories are consolidated during REM sleep
Research: New Scientist Magazine – Nov 4, 2023
Features
Are you truly healthy? These new tests provide the ultimate check-up
How we will discover the mysterious origins of life once and for all
With privacy concerns rising, can we teach AI chatbots to forget?
Record-breaking quantum computer has more than 1000 qubits
The Great Sphinx of Giza may have been blown into shape by the wind
Strange supernova blasts hint we have glimpsed a black hole’s birth
Some insects disguise themselves as spiders to avoid getting eaten
Starfish don’t have a body – they’re just a big squished head
Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Nov 2, 2023
Ancient DNA reveals traces of elusive first humans in Europe
Europe’s earliest Homo sapiens seemed to have vanished without a genetic legacy — but genomic studies now show otherwise.
‘Mind-blowing’ IBM chip speeds up AI
IBM’s NorthPole processor sidesteps need to access external memory, boosting computing power and saving energy.
Science Magazine – October 27, 2023 Issue
Small and mighty: The hypothalamus
If you pause for a second and think about the activities that occupy most of your day, presumably sleeping, eating, and engaging in social interactions are among the first that come to your mind. Perhaps surprisingly, a small area buried deep inside the brain, called the hypothalamus, is responsible for coordinating neuronal signals related to these activities. By controlling the homeostasis of the neuroendocrine, limbic, and autonomic nervous systems, the hypothalamus is a key brain region for many physiological and pathological processes. Despite its small size, the hypothalamus has a complex cellular organization and circuitry that determine its structural and functional organization. It is composed of 11 nuclei grouped by their location and has vast, mostly bidirectional connections with many neuronal and endocrine systems.
HIGH HOPES FOR SHORT CORN
Plants bred or engineered to be short can stand up better to windstorms. They could also boost yields and benefit the environment
To an interstate traveler—or anyone lost in a corn maze—the most impressive feature of corn is its stature. Modern corn can grow twice as tall as a person, but height has drawbacks, making the plants vulnerable to wind and more difficult for farmers to tend. Plant scientists think corn can be improved by making it shorter, and leading seed companies are doing that through both conventional breeding and genetic engineering. Bayer has launched a short variety in Mexico, another company is selling its versions in the United States, and more are getting involved.
Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Oct 26, 2023
How the current bird flu strain evolved to be so deadly
Genetic changes to avian influenza viruses have led to spread among many wild species, creating an uncontrollable global outbreak.
This is the largest map of the human brain ever made
Researchers catalogue more than 3,000 different types of cell in our most complex organ.
Anti-obesity drugs’ side effects: what we know so far
Recent studies evaluate risks associated with drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro.
Preview: MIT Technology Review – November 2023
Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again.
Plastic is cheap to make and shockingly profitable. It’s everywhere. And we’re all paying the price.
Plastic, and the profusion of waste it creates, can hide in plain sight, a ubiquitous part of our lives we rarely question. But a closer examination of the situation can be shocking.
Indeed, the scale of the problem is hard to internalize. To date, humans have created around 11 billion metric tons of plastic. This amount surpasses the biomass of all animals, both terrestrial and marine, according to a 2020 study published in Nature.
Currently, about 430 million tons of plastic is produced yearly, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)—significantly more than the weight of all human beings combined. One-third of this total takes the form of single-use plastics, which humans interact with for seconds or minutes before discarding.
Minds of machines: The great AI consciousness conundrum
Philosophers, cognitive scientists, and engineers are grappling with what it would take for AI to become conscious.
David Chalmers was not expecting the invitation he received in September of last year. As a leading authority on consciousness, Chalmers regularly circles the world delivering talks at universities and academic meetings to rapt audiences of philosophers—the sort of people who might spend hours debating whether the world outside their own heads is real and then go blithely about the rest of their day. This latest request, though, came from a surprising source: the organizers of the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), a yearly gathering of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence.
Research Preview: Science Magazine – Oct 20, 2023
A giant European telescope rises as U.S. rivals await rescue
Past the halfway point, Extremely Large Telescope prepares to receive first mirrors
A web of steel girders is rising from the flattened summit of Cerro Armazones, 3000 meters above sea level in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The dome it will support will be vast—with a footprint as big as a soccer field and almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty— and unexpectedly nimble: It will smoothly rotate on rails as a giant telescope inside tracks stars through the night.
Probe of Alzheimer’s studies finds ‘egregious misconduct’
Co-developer of biotech’s drug couldn’t supply original data
U.S. hands out $7 billion for hydrogen hubs
Gas could replace fossil fuels and fight climate change—if it is made cleanly
Reviews: How Butterflies And Moths Inspire Science
Through the lenses of powerful microscopes, scientists discover unexpected secrets about these fragile creatures that can be adapted and applied to make our world better and more sustainable. This film is a journey into the nano-dimensions of butterflies, taking viewers from high-tech labs to dense forests and lavender fields around the world. We take a close look at the iconic morpho butterfly and find out how its iridescent blue wings reveal a way to produce structural color, a discovery which allows researchers to control light.
Physicist Chunlei Guo, whose work involves reproducing butterfly structures, has created a material capable of absorbing all the colors of the spectrum, a discovery that might revolutionize the field of renewable energies. He is also investigating how the amazing hydrophobic properties of butterfly wings could be used to create an unsinkable metal, which could be useful for constructing floating cities if ocean levels continue to rise.
The blue morpho, the industrious silk moth, the transparent glasswing butterfly, the resistant Heliconius, the enigmatic monarch and the delicate white cabbage butterfly – all have inspired discoveries. These have taken place in many different scientific fields, including energy efficiency and medicine — and even in the detection of toxins, thereby helping save lives in the event of chemical or gas attacks. We take a look at the work of researchers, biologists and geneticists.
We also talk to experts, such as physicist and biomimicry expert Serge Berthier, as well as to Jessica Ware, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History, about butterflies’ incredible behaviors and capacities. Tiny as they are, butterflies and moths can inspire groundbreaking scientific progress. And they also serve as a warning about what’s at stake if we fail to protect our extraordinary natural environment.
Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Oct 19, 2023
Carl Sagan’s audacious search for life on Earth has lessons for science today
The test 30 years ago of what remote sensing could tell us about our own planet shows the value of looking with unbiased eyes at what we think we already know.
Runes on Viking stones speak to an ancient queen’s power
Analysis of carved inscriptions more than 1,000 years old suggests the prominence of the Viking queen Thyra.
‘Incredible’ asteroid sample ferried to Earth is rich in the building blocks of life
Samples of asteroid Bennu delivered by the OSIRIS-REx mission contain carbon, water and other ingredients from the primordial Solar System.
Boomers Daily 