Astral Codex Ten.

Lantern Bioworks says they have a cure for tooth decay. Their product is a genetically modified bacterium which infects your mouth, outcompetes all the tooth-decay-causing bacteria, and doesn’t cause tooth decay itself. If it works, it could make cavities a thing of the past (you should still brush for backup and cosmetic reasons).

I talked to Lantern founder Aaron Silverbook to get an idea of how this works, both in a biological and an economic sense. Aaron was very knowledgeable and forthcoming, although he uses the phrase “YOLO” somewhat more often than most biotech founders. This post isn’t a verbatim interview transcript, just a writeup of what I learned based on his answers.

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In a territorial dispute spanning nearly two centuries, tensions between Guyana and Venezuela have once again reached a boiling point.

As Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti and Nick Routley detail below, the focal point of this dispute is the vast Essequibo region which encompasses around 70% of Guyana’s territory, and is roughly equivalent to the size of Florida.

Venezuela claims historical rights dating back to the Spanish colonial period when Essequibo fell within its boundaries.

In 1840, the British government drew the Schomburgk Line expanding the territory of British Guiana (now Guyana) far beyond the occupied area and to the strategically-located mouth of the Orinoco River.

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I’d characterize this as a tragedy, except that all of the great popular science magazines I knew as a boy (Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Popular Electronics, Scientific American, National Geographical) have long since gone Woke and turned to crap. It is, however, a pity.

Check it out.

Allegedly….

Judging by the URL this is hosted in Switzerland, so, there it is.

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If you were looking for a new large SUV with a hybrid option, Ford just pulled a couple of them from the market. The 2024 Ford Explorer Hybrid and Lincoln Aviator Hybrid just got the ax, because it wants to focus its hybrid production capabilities on the Explorer Police Interceptor Utility Hybrid model. It seems that police forces across the nation just can’t get enough of the 318-horsepower 322 pound-feet of torque hybrid monster.

FreeThink.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) use of its new robot police dog to resolve a situation with an armed man illustrates how the machines can keep both officers and suspects out of harm’s way — but the potential for the tech to be used in more troubling ways in the future remains.

Ars Technica.

While it’s not ready for production, it’s a step in the right direction.

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Now, researchers at MIT and Harvard University have developed an efficient process that can convert carbon dioxide into formate, a liquid or solid material that can be used like hydrogen or methanol to power a fuel cell and generate electricity. Potassium or sodium formate, already produced at industrial scales and commonly used as a de-icer for roads and sidewalks, is nontoxic, nonflammable, easy to store and transport, and can remain stable in ordinary steel tanks to be used months, or even years, after its production.

Bloomberg.

It seemed ambitious, verging on grandiose, when journalist Bari Weiss used her Substack newsletter in 2021 to reveal plans for a new university in Austin, Texas.

The project — to address the “gaping chasm between the promise and the reality of higher education” — was backed by prominent people in academia and finance, including the historian Niall Ferguson, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale.

But it was hard to envisage how exactly the University of Austin would get off the ground. There was no leafy campus, a glaring lack of accreditation and, of course, no network of notable alumni to entice new students. The idea of the little upstart being able to compete with Ivy League institutions to enroll the nation’s best and brightest seemed far fetched.

Two years on, UATX, as it’s known, is having a moment.

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A heat pump you can install in a window. Could be huge….

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Researchers at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center have located a “kill switch” that can trigger the death of cancer cells. They identified a protein on the CD95 receptor, which is part of a cell’s communication system, that can “program” cancer cells to die. This significant discovery was detailed in a study published in the journal “Cell Death & Differentiation.”

Receptors like CD95 are proteins that cells use to receive signals from outside. CD95 has earned the nickname “death receptor” because it can send a signal to a cancer cell, causing it to die. This process was hard to control in the past, but the new discovery of a specific part of the receptor to target may change that.

Dr. Jogender Tushir-Singh, an associate professor at UC Davis and the senior author of the study, said, “Previous efforts to target this receptor have been unsuccessful. But now that we’ve identified this epitope, there could be a therapeutic path forward to target Fas in tumors.”

Ars Technica.

Traffic navigation app Waze is adding a new feature to its toolbox today. It’s called crash history alerts, and it’s meant to warn drivers about dangerous hotspots, based on a combination of historical data plus road and traffic data.

If you have the capability to use Waze when you’re driving, and you don’t use it, well, the angels will weep for you….

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In a fascinating episode from Jubilee Media’s “Ranking” series, a diverse mix of Gen-Z and millennial participants were tasked with assessing each other’s intelligence to establish a ranking within the group. Despite the varied backgrounds, the collective judgment of the group placed a young Marine at the lower end of the spectrum, whereas individuals with college degrees, including some from prestigious Ivy League institutions, were deemed the most intelligent. However, when it came time for the actual IQ test, the Marine outsmarted three college grads.

Interesting Engineering.

Conventional desalination plants work in either of these approaches – thermal or membrane. In the thermal process, seawater is heated till the water evaporates, leaving the salt behind. The evaporated water is cooled, collected, and made available for use.

In the membrane approach, seawater is passed through a semi-permeable membrane that takes in the salt. This approach is also energy-intensive but comparatively better than the thermal treatment.

Oneka’s approach to desalination is an improvement over the membrane approach. This is achieved by using buoyant machines that are anchored to the seabed and using a membrane system that is powered by the waves.

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Every year, around 400 million tons of plastics are produced worldwide, a number that increases by around 4% annually. The emissions resulting from their manufacture are one of the elements contributing to climate change, and their ubiquitous presence in ecosystems leads to serious ecological problems.

One of the most used is PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which is found in many packaging and beverage bottles. Over time, this material wears down into smaller and smaller particles—so-called microplastics—which aggravates environmental problems. PET already accounts for more than 10% of global plastic production and recycling is scarce and inefficient.

Now, scientists from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center—Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), together with research groups from the Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry of the CSIC (ICP-CSIC) and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), have developed artificial proteins capable of degrading PET microplastics and nanoplastics and reducing them to their essential components, which would allow them to be broken down or recycled.

We have the technology.

ScienceAlert.

In an unexpected twist, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) think they have discovered a whole new source of evaporation, and its transformative effect on liquid water could eclipse even that of heat.

Light itself.

Nature.

Tumour-targeting antibodies coupled with toxic chemicals are an unprecedented success in treating bladder cancer.

ALSO: New drug shows promise in killing cancer cells with genetic vulnerability

ALSO: Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Approach That Targets Translation Looks Promising

ALSO: New cancer therapy using antibody could offer a less toxic treatment option, study shows

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If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

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Lifehacker.

When confronted with the need to tie something off, most people resort to simply tying as many half-assed knots as they can in the vague hope that the sheer frictional complexity will stymie the natural forces of entropy.

This approach can work, as long as you’re okay with sacrificing your dignity and the effectiveness of said knots—but it’s much better to learn how to tie some of the most useful of the roughly 4,000 knots known to humankind.

Here are 11 knots every adult should know how to tie.

Marriage is apparently not one of the essentials.

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Ammonia (NH3) serves as the foundation for the creation of chemical fertilizers used for agricultural crops. For over 100 years, the global production of ammonia in large quantities has relied on the Haber-Bosch process. This industrial breakthrough has had a major impact on agriculture, enabling the feeding of a rapidly growing human population. However, the Haber-Bosch process is extremely energy-intensive, requiring high pressure levels of 80-300 atmospheres and temperatures ranging from 572-1000 F (300-500 C) to break nitrogen’s strong bonds. Additionally, the steam-treatment of natural gas involved in the process contributes significantly to the release of carbon dioxide, a key contributor to climate change.

“We were shocked to see that we could generate ammonia in benign, everyday temperature-and-pressure environments with just air and water and using something as basic as a sprayer,” said study senior author Richard Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science and a professor of chemistry in the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. “If this process can be scaled up, it would represent an eco-friendly new way of making ammonia, which is one of the most important chemical processes that takes place in the world.”

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Researchers recently discovered that they could give young, healthy animals Alzheimer’s disease by transferring the gut microbiome of human subjects with Alzheimer’s into germ-free rats.

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This week we’re going to take a detour into understanding the structure of academia, in particular the different kinds of ‘professors’ and their academic ranks in the American system, with a particular focus on ‘non-tenure track’ faculty (which is to say, as we’ll see, ‘most teaching faculty.’) This is intended as the first in a series of posts mixed into the normal diet over the next few months looking at the structure of the modern American university from the inside. The fact is that while quite a lot of people go to college, few students acquire much of any sense of how their college or university is structured, and so there is a tendency for a lot of folks to believe they know how academia works who don’t, in the same way that most people who eat at fast food restaurants cannot, in fact, operate their kitchens.

More than you probably ever really wanted to know about university faculty and the way they screw damned near everybody.

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DNA accumulates mutations. The protective ends of chromosomes erode away. Mitochondria, the cell’s energy factory, falter and break down. The immune system goes haywire. The reserve pool of stem cells dwindles, while some mature cells enter a zombie-like state, spewing toxic chemicals into their environment.

The picture sounds dire, but it’s not all bad news. Aging is a complicated puzzle. By finding individual pieces, scientists can assemble a full picture of how and why we age—and engineer new ways to stave off age-related symptoms.

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If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

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Swedish startup Luvly is developing an ultra-efficient electric microcar — and like the furniture made by its compatriot Ikea, Luvly’s tiny EV will ship flat.

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“For the first time, we can show that mitochondria, the vital energy producers within brain cells, particularly neurons, undergo damage, leading to disruptions in mitochondrial DNA[LP1] . This initiates and spreads the disease like a wildfire through the brain,” says Shohreh Issazadeh-Navikas and adds:

“Our findings establish that the spread of the damaged genetic material, the mitochondrial DNA, causes the symptoms reminiscent of Parkinson’s disease and its progression to dementia.”

Computer World.

Forced back into the office, many employees have admitted to showing up for just a few hours — enough time to swipe in with their employee badge, have a cup of coffee, and be seen in the workplace — then heading back home to do their work, according to a new study.

Coined as “coffee badging,” the trend showed up on a new survey of 2,000 full-time US workers conducted by videoconferencing tech vendor Owl Labs.

Owl Labs said its seventh annual State of Hybrid Work report revealed that more than half (58%) of hybrid workers said they are coffee badging to meet the minimum in-office requirement each week. Another 8% of respondents said they haven’t been coffee badging but would like to try it.

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A Chinese nuclear submarine crew is believed to be dead after its vessel was ensnared in a trap in the Yellow Sea that was reportedly intended for British sub-surface vessels.

Citing a highly-classified United Kingdom report, the Daily Mail reported that the death of the 55 Chinese sailors was the result of a catastrophic failure of the submarine’s oxygen systems.

“Intelligence reports that on 21st of August there was an onboard accident whilst carrying out a mission in the Yellow Sea,” the U.K. report reads, according to the Mail. “Incident happened at 08.12 local resulting in the death of 55 crew members: 22 officers, 7 officer cadets, 9 petty officers, 17 sailors. Dead include the captain Colonel Xue Yong-Peng.”

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Junpeng Mi and his colleagues working at Donghua University, China, used CRISPR gene-editing technology to recode the silk-creating properties of a silkworm. First, they took genes from Araneus ventricosus, an East Asian orb-weaving spider known for its strong silk. Then they placed these complex genes – genes that involve more than 100 amino acids – into silkworm egg cells. (This description fails to capture how time-consuming, technical, and laborious this was; it’s a procedure that requires hundreds of thousands of microinjections.)

This had all been done before, and this had failed before. Where Mi and his team succeeded was using a concept called “localization.” Localization involves narrowing in on a very specific location in a genome. For this experiment, the team from Donghua University developed a “minimal basic structure model” of silkworm silk, which guided the genetic modifications. They wanted to make sure they had the exactly right transgenic spider silk proteins. Mi said that combining localization with this basic structure model “represents a significant departure from previous research.” And, judging only from the results, he might be right. They successfully synthesized “fibers exhibited impressive tensile strength (1,299 MPa) and toughness (319 MJ/m3), surpassing Kevlar’s toughness 6-fold.”

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A team of scientists, led by a Japanese pharmaceutical startup, are getting set to start human trials on a new drug that has successfully grown new teeth in animal test subjects.

Toregem Biopharma is slated to begin clinical trials in July of next year after it succeeded growing new teeth in mice five years ago, the Japan Times reports.

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Samsung claims its new product is able provide domestic hot water of up to 75 C when the outdoor temperature is between -10 C and 35 C. It relies on an enlarged heat exchanger that the company claims is capable of transferring more heat compared to a conventional outdoor unit.

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Scientists have transformed cancer cells into healthy muscle tissue in the lab using CRISPR gene-editing technology — and they hope new cancer treatments can be built on the back of this experiment.

In a study published Aug. 28 in the journal PNAS, researchers found that disabling a particular protein complex in cells of rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) — a rare cancer in skeletal muscle tissue that mainly affects children under age 10 — in the laboratory causes the tumor cells to turn into healthy muscle cells.

Although the research is still in its early days, this process of “resetting” cancer cells into healthy cells, broadly known as differentiation therapy, has already been tested in other types of cancer, such as bone and blood cancer. Four drugs have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat the latter disease and generally work by inhibiting a specific protein in the cancer cells.

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When a fragrance wafted through the bedrooms of older adults for two hours every night for six months, memories skyrocketed. In fact, participants in this study by neuroscientists from the University of California, Irvine (UCI), reaped a 226% increase in cognitive capacity compared to the control group. The researchers say the finding transforms the long-known tie between smell and memory into an easy, non-invasive technique for strengthening memory and potentially deterring dementia.

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If, of course, drinking from creeks and streams is what you want to do.

Gates of Vienna.

The Koran, Islam’s book, is “dripping with murderous levels of hatred”, as a critic put it. “Kill them,” it commands, of non-Muslims, kafirs, “Kill them wherever you find them.” (2:191, 9:5) “Between us [Muslims] and you enmity and hatred forever.” (60:4) “When you meet the kafirs strike the necks.” (47:4) Kafirs are “filthy” (9:28), “the vilest of beasts” (8:55), “a clear enemy to you” (4:101): “Do not take them as allies.” (4:89) “Let them find harshness in you” (9:123); “Fight the unbelievers until they pay the jizya [extortion tax] … in a state of subjection.” (9:29) Muslims are “the best of peoples raised up for mankind” (3:110), “merciful to each other, ruthless to the kafir.” (48:29)

These are not quaint Old-Testament-type exhortations from their historical time, like “Slaughter the Amalekites and Hittites.” The Koran, all of it, forms part of Islamic law. These are current instructions of Islamic law. “Muslims must kill kafirs wherever they are unless they convert.” said Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt. “Islam says: kill all of the kafirs. Jihad stands for killing all kafirs. Prophet had sword to kill people,” thundered Ayatollah Khomeini. “Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us,” wrote Osama bin Laden. “Jews and Christians are filthy. Their lives and property can be taken by the Muslims in jihad,” preached Yasir Qadhi in Tennessee. “Allah, strike the Jews and… the Christians, Allah, count them and kill them to the last one” — Al-Aqsa TV (palwatch.org 2010-12-03).

Wherever you go,
Whatever you do,
A Muslim waits there
To try to kill you.

Fox Business.

The U.S. manufacturing sector is in the midst of revitalization as global supply chains reshuffle in response to changing economic conditions and geopolitical shocks, reversing a decades-long trend of American industrial capacity moving overseas.

Manufacturing firms began to offshore their operations from the U.S. to countries with lower labor costs several decades ago. But the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and concerns over China potentially looking to compel Taiwan’s unification with the mainland by force have driven efforts to reshore manufacturing – in addition to government incentives and rising labor costs overseas.

SciTechDaily.

A joint research team from the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and collaborators recently developed a stable artificial photocatalytic system that is more efficient than natural photosynthesis. The newly developed system, which replicates a natural chloroplast, is capable of transforming carbon dioxide in water into methane, a useful fuel, very efficiently using light. This represents a significant breakthrough with potential contributions toward achieving carbon neutrality.

 

NewAtlas.

LiquidPiston says its new XTS-210 solves the efficiency, lubrication and fuel type issues of Wankel rotary engines. This supercharged, liquid-cooled two-stroke claims 5X the power of an equivalent size or weight diesel engine, and 3X the torque.

Targeted at military, commercial and aerospace applications, the XTS-210 is about the size of a basketball, weighs in at 19 kg (42 lb), and displaces 210 cc. It’ll run on multiple fuels, including diesel and kerosene/jet fuel. The company is shooting for about 20 kW (26.8 hp) and 29.4 Nm (21.7 lb-ft) of torque, both at 6,500 rpm.

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A group of U.S. researchers has developed a new “cancer-killing pill” that could target and kill solid tumors while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

That’s according to their preclinical research findings, published Aug. 1 in the Cell Chemical Biology journal.

Titled “Small Molecule Targeting of Transcription-Replication Conflict for Selective Chemotherapy,” the study found that a drug the researchers developed was able to selectively disrupt DNA replication and repair in cancer cells.

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The UK’s Royal Mail today shared images of the eight Special Stamps they are issuing to celebrate Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, marking the 40th anniversary of The Colour of Magic, first book in the series. The stamps can be pre-ordered now, and will be available for general purchase on August 10.

FreeThink.

In addition to blocking every virus the team has challenged it with thus far, their E. coli has also been designed so that its modified genes cannot escape into the wild, which does indeed sound like the plot of a lost Michael Crichton novel. (In fact, the parallels to Jurassic Park are there, but we’ll get to that.)

“We believe we have developed the first technology to design an organism that can’t be infected by any known virus,” genetics research fellow and study author Akos Nyerges said.

“We can’t say it’s fully virus-resistant, but so far, based on extensive laboratory experiments and computational analysis, we haven’t found a virus that can break it.”

Read it.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that there even is a ‘National Chicken Wing Day’.

Is this a great country or what?

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Boston startup Galy has inked a deal with Japanese manufacturer Suzuran Medical Inc. to use the startup’s lab-grown cotton in its products.
Suzuran says it plans to use thousands of tons a year of Galy’s “Literally Cotton” fibers as part of a 10-year, $50 million partnership.
“It’s huge,” says Luciano Bueno, Galy’s founder and CEO. “It’s the first-time lab-grown cotton will enter any market worldwide.”

The Independent.

A huge phosphate rock deposit discovered in Norway contains enough minerals to meet the global demand for batteries and solar panels for the next 100 years, according to the mining company that controls it.

Norge Mining said up to 70 billion tonnes of the non-renewable resource may have been uncovered in south-western Norway, alongside deposits of other strategic minerals like titanium and vanadium.

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A Japanese research team is making progress on the development of a groundbreaking medication that may allow people to grow new teeth, with clinical trials set to begin in July 2024.

The tooth regrowth medicine is intended for people who lack a full set of adult teeth due to congenital factors. The team is aiming to have it ready for general use in 2030.

Freethink.

A research team at the USDA has developed new lines of cotton that are naturally flame-resistant — even putting themselves out when lit.

The ability could help cut back on the use of flame retardants, chemicals applied to a vast array of commercial products, like clothing, carpets, upholstery, and mattresses, to prevent cotton’s flammable fibers from burning people if there’s a fire — but which come with a variety of negative health and environmental impacts.

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

The Supreme Court’s long expected ruling on the Harvard and University of North Carolina race-based admissions practices was just released. A 6-3 vote, along predictable lines, backs up Chief Justice John Roberts’s very strong opinion, which relies on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. I’m still making my way through the concurrences (Thomas decided to write a long concurrence giving the originalist ground for the ruling, as well as a history of the 14th Amendment, sensibly thinking that a lot of people today—and perhaps the Democratic appointees to the Court, don’t really know it very well) and dissents. Stay tuned.

Freethink.

Scientists are still figuring out why tirzepatide causes weight loss. One theory is that they “accidentally” created a new hormone.

Good news for black women.

FreeThink.

3D-printing robots are being A major housing development, built using 3D-printer robots on-site, is taking shape in the US state of Texas. The 100-house project on the outskirts of Austin is the product of a partnership between US house-building giant Lennar, and 3D printing company ICON. to build a 100-home housing development in the US state of Texas.

Bad news for Latinos, who make up 90% of the workforce of construction companies, especially in Texas.  Every silver lining comes with a cloud.