Read it

A privately-owned tokamak in the United Kingdom has reportedly achieved ignition temperature for nuclear fusion, meaning the reactor has reached the threshold for commercial energy production.

Tokamak Energy, an amusingly hard-to-Google company based in Oxford in the south of England, has been working on tokamak reactors since 2009. Even before that, the group was founded as part of England’s national Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, with decades of history as part of the world’s nuclear fusion research efforts. (Private companies like Tokamak Energy, which spin off of research facilities housed at universities or as part of government programs, are surprisingly common. One battery researcher tells Popular Mechanics that the reason is simple: students and public funds should be doing new research, not slogging through the long road of research and development on an emerging commercial product.)

Read it.

Early success with a procedure called a mitochondrial transplant offers a glimmer of hope for people fighting for survival after cardiac arrest, stroke, and more.

Read it.

Apparently our long national nightmare is over.

Read it.

Genetically modified purple tomatoes are potentially days away from FDA approval, according to the team that created the colorful fruit. The fruits are modified to be packed with antioxidants.

Read it.

Ukrainian forces have captured a lot of modern Russian weapons and military equipment and made these discoveries available to Western countries that are supplying Ukraine with modern weapons and economic and diplomatic pressure on Russia.

This loot includes largely intact Iskander short range ballistic missiles, new EW (Electronic Warfare) equipment that had proven effective in Syria and Ukraine and new Azart combat radios and associated equipment. Some defective Islander missiles were recovered largely intact, which allowed close inspection of the missile design and the countermeasures Russia often spoke of but never provided details of. The countermeasures were, as expected, small decoys deployed as the Iskander came within range of the targets, as well as Western ABM (anti-ballistic missile) systems like Patriot, Thaad or the naval Standard missile defense system. Now that there were undamaged examples of these decoys available, Western ABM systems can be modified to defeat them.

Read it.

The concept of a smart contact lens has been around for many years, but one company working on the tech says that its device is now feature-complete, but will require FDA clearance.

Read it.

Companies are scrambling to turn the greenhouse gas into useful products — but will that slow climate change?

…

Industrial CO2 emissions are warming the climate, and many countries are working on capturing the gas and storing it underground. But why not recycle it into products that are both virtuous and profitable? As long as the recycling process avoids creating more carbon emissions — by using renewable energy, or excess resources that would otherwise be wasted — it can reduce the CO2 that industry pumps into the atmosphere and lower the demand for fossil fuels used in manufacturing. That’s a double climate win, proponents say.

Read it.

White Castle – the world’s first fast-food hamburger chain – announced plans to further expand its work with Miso Robotics and install Flippy 2 in 100 standalone locations. The announcement is the latest milestone for the partnership, which began in September 2020 with the deployment of the original Flippy to a White Castle in the Chicagoland area. Following an upgrade to Flippy 2 in November 2021, White Castle’s commitment to Miso’s technology was cemented after seeing an immediate positive impact on daily operations and the productivity of its team members.

Couldn’t hurt.

Read it.

A new study from researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has found that cells carrying oncogenic KRAS mutations harbor elevated levels of a specific kind of iron. This iron could be used to activate drugs that target cancer cells, avoiding harm to normal, healthy cells.

Read it.

FROM THE BIZARRE creatures in the depths of the oceans to the bacteria inside our bodies, all life on Earth consists of cells. But we have only a very rough idea of how even the simplest of those cells function.

Now, as described recently in Cell, a team at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and their colleagues have created the most complete computer simulation ever of a living cell. With this digital model, biologists can burst through nature’s constraints and accelerate their exploration of how the most basic unit of life ticks—and what would happen if it ticked differently.

Read it.

A new process introduced by the Rice University lab of chemist James Tour can turn bulk quantities of just about any carbon source into valuable graphene flakes. The process is quick and cheap; Tour said the “flash graphene” technique can convert a ton of coal, food waste or plastic into graphene for a fraction of the cost used by other bulk graphene-producing methods.

“This is a big deal,” Tour said. “The world throws out 30% to 40% of all food, because it goes bad, and plastic waste is of worldwide concern. We’ve already proven that any solid carbon-based matter, including mixed plastic waste and rubber tires, can be turned into graphene.”

Read it.

fter receiving a medical treatment that included a round of antibiotics and an X-ray scan, Californian Will Osman thought he got stuck with a $69,000 hospital bill. Luckily, Osman’s insurance covered most of the bill, but that still left him on the hook for $2,500.

“I avoided surgery, but they still billed nearly $70,000,” Osman tells Popular Mechanics, adding that the bill included an abdominal CT scan, medication, and two nights in a hospital room. Annoyed with the exorbitant cost of hospital treatments and procedures, Osman, a YouTuber and engineer, decided to build his own fully-functional homemade X-ray machine.

We have the technology.

Read it.

Methanotrophic bacteria consume 30 million metric tons of methane per year and have captivated researchers for their natural ability to convert the potent greenhouse gas into usable fuel. Yet we know very little about how the complex reaction occurs, limiting our ability to use the double benefit to our advantage.

By studying the enzyme the bacteria use to catalyze the reaction, a team at Northwestern University now has discovered key structures that may drive the process.

Read it.

Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton today announced the formal creation of the country’s Defense Space Command, the formal launch of a new Space Strategy, and millions of dollars of investment in an aging military base — the next wave in a flurry of announcements from the incumbent Liberal party as it gets closer to election day.

Dutton made the announcement at the Royal Australian Air Force’s Air Force and Space Power Conference in Canberra. “It works in close collaboration with the [civilian] Australian Space Agency, industry partners, and our research and scientific institutions,“ Dutton said.

Read it.

Traditionally, we think of chemistry being done in a lab with test tubes, flasks, and gas burners. But it has also benefited from developments in computing and quantum mechanics, both of which rose to prominence in the early-mid 20th century. Early applications included using computers to help solve physics-based calculations; by blending theoretical chemistry with computer programming, we were able to simulate (albeit far from perfect) chemical systems. Eventually, this vein of work grew into a subfield now called computational chemistry. The subfield started to gain momentum in the 1970s and was featured in the Nobel Prizes of 1998 and 2013. Even so, while computational chemistry has gained more and more recognition over the past few decades, its importance has been largely overshadowed by that of lab experiments – the cornerstone of chemical discovery.

However, with current advancements in AI, data-centric techniques, and ever-growing amounts of data, we might be witnessing a change where computational approaches are used not just to assist lab experiments but to guide them.

The number of possible chemical compounds is as vast as the number of possible English sentences.

Read it.

Instead of injecting themselves with a medication to prevent bone loss, astronauts on Mars may be able to eat their way to a stronger skeleton, thanks to lettuce that’s been genetically engineered to make a bone-stimulating hormone.

Read it.

Now, an MIT team has engineered a composite made mostly from cellulose nanocrystals mixed with a bit of synthetic polymer. The organic crystals take up about 60 to 90 percent of the material — the highest fraction of CNCs achieved in a composite to date.

The researchers found the cellulose-based composite is stronger and tougher than some types of bone, and harder than typical aluminum alloys. The material has a brick-and-mortar microstructure that resembles nacre, the hard inner shell lining of some molluscs.

Read it.

Senolytics are an emerging class of drugs designed to target zombie-like cells that have stopped dividing and build up in the body as we age, and the past few years have seen some exciting discoveries that demonstrate their potential. Adding another to the list are Mayo Clinic researchers, who have shown that these drugs can protect against aging and its related diseases, by acting on a protein long associated with longevity.

The zombie-like cells involved in this research are known as senescent cells, and their accumulation during aging is associated with a range of diseases. Recent studies have shown that using senolytics to clear them out could serve as new and effective treatments for dementia and diabetes, and also improve health and lifespan more broadly.

A chemical recently dsicovered in grape seeds, Procyanidin C1, has this effect. Grapeseed extract can be purchased commercially as a nutritional supplement.

Read it.

Your DNA holds the blueprint to build your body, but it’s a living document: Adjustments to the design can be made by epigenetic marks. Cataloguing these marks and how they work is important for understanding biology and genetics—and coming up with therapies to address diseases and disorders.

In humans and our fellow eukaryotes, two principal epigenetic marks are known. But a team from the University of Chicago-affiliated Marine Biological Laboratory has discovered a third, novel epigenetic mark—one formerly known only in bacteria—in small freshwater animals called bdelloid rotifers.

Read it.

Take whatever action you deem appropriate.

Read it.

Americans became richer and more multicultural in the years between 2016 and 2020, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

In the span of these years, ??which were marked by Donald Trump’s presidency, the American Community Survey (ACS) reports that the median household income across the U.S. increased to $64,994, compared to about $58,844 reported between 2011 and 2015.

Such an increase was reported by 48 states and the District of Columbia, while the median household income didn’t change in Wyoming and Puerto Rico.

Read it.

Don’t ever say we don’t have useful stuff here.

Take whatever action you deem appropriate.

An expert on Stalin discusses Putin, Russia, and the West.

Putin’s prewar moves against U.S. tech giants laid groundwork for crackdown on free expression

Russian agents threaten Google, Apple representatives with prison time: report

Ukraine war: UK households offered £350 a month for hosting refugees (BBC)

Putin’s reported arrest of Russian intel official shows frustration with progress of Ukraine invasion: expert

In Putin’s Russia, ‘fake news’ now means real news

India Is Mulling Rupee-Ruble Payments System For Trade With Russia

Why Sanctions Don’t Work, And Why They Mostly Hurt Ordinary People

Stoltenberg Says Ukraine’s NATO Membership Was Never “Imminent” Or “On The Agenda”

Was China Betting on Russian Defeat All Along?

In Moscow, McDonald’s packs up, radio falls silent and the brain drain begins

The Art of Monetary War

“Logistical Challenges, Mounting Casualties, and Sustained Ukrainian Counterattacks”, But Don’t Get Cocky

Finnish govt agency warns of unusual aircraft GPS interference

U.N. Warns Russia’s War In Ukraine Could Spike Global Food Prices By 22%  And the U.N. has always been right in the past.

Kotkin on Russia and the West

Early Lessons from the War in Ukraine.

Italian Police Seize World’s Largest Sailing Yacht From Russian Oligarch

Telegram Cooperates with FSB (Rus)

Russians Kill American Journalist in Ukraine  I understand the impulse.

Ukraine, Russian Negotiators Say “Significant Progress” Made In Ceasefire Talks, Expect Signed Deal In “Next Few Days”

What the Russian Invasion Has Done to Ukraine

Putin Warns Attempts To Prevent Russian Exports Of Fertilizers, Oil, Gas Will Have ‘Serious Consequences’

Yuan Deposits Soar At Russian Banks After SWIFT Cut-Off

Russia Seeking China’s Military Help In Ukraine, US “Sources” Say In Afternoon Of Media Leaks

Read it.

Walgreens and other retailers have swapped out the clear fridge and freezer doors at thousands of stores, instead adding opaque doors with iPad-like screens showing what’s inside. Some customers really, really aren’t into it.

The screens, which were developed by the startup Cooler Screens, use a system of motion sensors and cameras to display what’s inside the doors — as well as product information, prices, deals and, most appealing to brands, paid advertisements. The tech provides stores with an additional revenue stream and a way to modernize the shopping experience.

But for customers who just want to peek into the freezer and grab their ice cream, Walgreens risks angering them by solving a problem that shoppers didn’t know existed.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is not a progressive value.

Read it.

Whatever one thinks of nuclear energy, the process results in tons of radioactive, toxic waste no one quite knows what to do with. As a result, it’s tucked away as safely as possible in underground storage areas where it’s meant to remain a long, long time: The worst of it, uranium 235 and plutonium 239, have a half life of 24,000 years. That’s the reason eyebrows were raised in Europe — where more countries depend on nuclear energy than anywhere else — when physicist Gérard Mourou mentioned in his wide-ranging Nobel acceptance speech that lasers could cut the lifespan of nuclear waste from “a million years to 30 minutes,” as he put it in a followup interview with The Conversation.

Read it.

Two of the first people treated with CAR-T-cell cancer therapies are still in remission 12 years on.

Read it.

Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the first animal chromosomes came to be.

Read it.

A team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they had engineered a new rubber-like solid substance that has surprising qualities. It can absorb and release very large quantities of energy. And it is programmable. Taken together, this new material holds great promise for a very wide array of applications, from enabling robots to have more power without using additional energy, to new helmets and protective materials that can dissipate energy much more quickly.

Read it.

Using a novel polymerization process, MIT chemical engineers have created a new material that is stronger than steel and as light as plastic, and can be easily manufactured in large quantities.

The new material is a two-dimensional polymer that self-assembles into sheets, unlike all other polymers, which form one-dimensional, spaghetti-like chains. Until now, scientists had believed it was impossible to induce polymers to form 2D sheets.

Read it.

It was a mere two weeks ago that optimism for world powers reaching a restored nuclear deal in Vienna was at its highest, with especially European officials declaring a deal was imminent and within sight. But it now appears the at this point two week long war in Ukraine has upended that prior optimism as talks fall apart at the very moment it was thought they were at their conclusion.

“World powers and Iran suspended their efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear accord, reigniting a crisis that’s set to roil already surging oil markets and potentially plunge the energy-exporting Persian Gulf into a new cycle of violence,” Bloomberg begins of its latest reporting on Friday. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell confirmed what he dubbed a “pause” in negotiations with a tweet, due to “external factors”.

Read it.

The U.S. aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 as part of its commitment to tackling climate change, but might be lacking the critical minerals needed to achieve its goals.

The American green economy will rely on renewable sources of energy like wind and solar, along with the electrification of transportation. However, local production of the raw materials necessary to produce these technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, is lacking. Understandably, this has raised concerns in Washington.

Read it.

The University of Georgia announced a new invasive bright yellow, blue-black, and red spider is preparing to spread from Georgia “through most of the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S.” this spring. The spider is the size of a child’s hand and will parachute through the air and travel by wind.

Large and scary-looking Joro spiders, potentially millions of them, are expected to use their silk to carry them up and down the East Coast as early as May in a technique called “ballooning,” according to UGA Today, a publication by the University of Georgia.

Anonymous hacks Russian TV, plays Ukraine war footage

Australia to invest $38B to surge troop strength by 30 percent

Two Russian Generals Reported Killed as Ukraine Invasion Becomes ‘Clusterf**k’

UK Says It’s A Criminal Offense For Any Russian Plane To Enter Airspace As Private Jets Get Seized

Watch: US Intel Officials Warn Putin Could Nuke A Ukrainian City

Burkina Faso: Another Coup Led by U.S.-Trained Soldier

CBS Recounts Cruel U.S. Policy Stranding Ukrainian American (Skimps on Biden)

Jaromir Jagr Uses Hockey Game To Raise Funds For Ukrainian Refugees

Ukraine Bans Wheat & Grain Exports Vital To Global Food Supply, Citing Citizens Under Siege

Trudeau Hints Canada Ready to Replace Russian Fossil Fuel Imports  For a price, of course.

Patriot Missile Batteries Dispatched To Poland Amid Fears Of “Stray” Russian Missiles

Next US defense budget will get a boost due to Ukraine invasion: Pentagon comptroller

Victoria Nuland: Ukraine Has “Biological Research Facilities,” Worried Russia May Seize Them

China’s Xi Objects To Russian Sanctions In Summit With France And Germany

Russian invasion raises new danger of Chinese attack on Taiwan

Read it.

Poland says it will accept planes with “corresponding operational capabilities” in return for giving the US it’s MiG-29s to transfer to Ukraine. The problem is, no one seemed to have told the Americans about this plan.

Hey, we’ll trade you our junky old MiGs for some shiny new F-35s….

Read it.

In response to my post from last night, our Hungarian correspondent László sends his observations on the war in Ukraine.

Read it.

“The authorities of the Republic of Poland, after consultations between the President and the Government, are ready to deploy – immediately and free of charge – all their MIG-29 jets to the Rammstein Air Base and place them at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America,” it said.

Why don’t they just do it directly? Poland shares a border with Ukraine; all they have to do is fly the jets there.

Read it.

One of the especially promising therapies to appear in the realm of anti-aging research involves a set of molecules known as Yamanaka factors, which scientists have deployed to rejuvenate aging cells, trigger muscle regeneration and tackle glaucoma. New research at the Salk Institute has sought to build on these short-term and specific use cases by demonstrating how these molecules can reverse signs of aging in middle-aged and elderly mice, with no evidence of health problems following the extended treatment.

 

Read it.

And well it might.

Read it.

Can’t say that I blame them.

Read it.

With newsflow out of Ukraine having become a firehose, with market moving headlines firing every minute, traders can be forgiven if they have just given up following the narrative. To help out, here is a snapshot of all the latest market-moving news out of Ukraine over the weekend and overnight, courtesy of Newsquawk.

UPDATE: Evacuation route out of Mariupol was mined, Red Cross says

UPDATE: UK Dock Workers Refuse To Unload Russian Ships Over Invasion Of Ukraine

Read it.

I’d say that our deadliest enemy is stupid people, not mosquitoes, but I’ll concede that mosquitoes are probably in the top ten.

Read it.

Industrial scale carbon-negative production of two commodity chemicals has been achieved for the first time using a genetically modified bacterium that can turn waste carbon dioxide into acetone and isopropanol. The work, which offers a blueprint for making other chemicals, holds promise for a more sustainable, renewable and environmentally-friendly chemical industry as the world strives to shift from fossil fuels to a circular carbon economy.

Read it.

Swedish hypercar maker Koenigsegg has long been a home for novel engineering, and that’s evident in its new electric motor. Developed for the Gemera four-seater, this electric motor, dubbed the Quark, is a tiny powerhouse. In a package that weighs just 63 pounds, the Quark develops 335 hp and 443 lb-ft of torque. For scale, that’s a 330-mL energy drink in the pictures seen throughout.

Read it.

Astron Aerospace has introduced the Omega 1, a revolutionary engine with a wild design.

The Omega 1, which is designed to work with a variety of fuels, is compact and powerful with the goal to produce very low or no emissions. It lacks an offset crankshaft, reciprocating pistons, and eccentric shaft, just like a Wankel rotary engine. However, the Omega 1’s design circumvents at least one issue with Wankel engines – exhausts gas overlap.

Read it.

If it works.

Check it out.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

Read it.

If biological ageing can be slowed, halted or rewound, are the machine-learning algorithms the best way to measure it? Some experts are unconvinced.

Read it.

Nerves in a healthy spine transmit signals from the brain to the legs. But after an injury to the spine, those signals are weak or nonexistent. The muscles in the legs may be healthy enough to walk, but without the brain signaling them to move, they remain immobile.

The new implant can help patients walk again by acting as a signal booster. A computer carried by the patient triggers the electrical impulses.