Archive for the 'News You Can Use.' Category
10th October 2021
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The researchers also have shown that transplanting dysbiotic gut microbiota from a hypertensive animal into a normotensive (having a healthy blood pressure) one results in the recipient developing high blood pressure.
“This result told us that gut dysbiosis is not just a consequence of hypertension, but is actually involved in causing it,” Durgan said. “This ground work led to the current study in which we proposed to answer two questions. First, can we manipulate the dysbiotic microbiota to either prevent or relieve hypertension? Second, how are the gut microbes influencing the animal’s blood pressure?”
The sad fact is that most people would rather be fat than hungry.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Fasting Lowers Blood Pressure by Reshaping the Gut Microbiota
9th October 2021
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Harnessing the ability of natural killer cells within our own immune system, researchers at Canada’s McMaster University have developed a new form of cancer immunotherapy.
The team engineered natural killer cells to not only attack cancerous cells — including in solid tumors, a problem for some other kinds of immunotherapy — that also to distinguish between those malignant cells and healthy cells that only look like them.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Natural Killer Cells Fight Cancer Without Collateral Damage
9th October 2021
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Without lithium, the all-electric vehicles of today wouldn’t be feasible, and with an increasing demand for EVs expected to exhaust reserves on land by 2080, this might become inevitable. But there is another way to extract the vital element, or rather another place.
The oceans contain roughly 5,000 times more lithium than land, but at unconscionably small concentrations of roughly 0.2 parts per million (ppm). And a team of researchers has developed a new system capable of extracting concentrated lithium from seawater, according to a recent study published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on It’s Official. We Can Now Harvest Usable Lithium From Seawater
9th October 2021
Washington Free Beacon.
According to a Washington Free Beacon analysis, 2022 is shaping up to be the year of the bald weirdo. Of the 14 Senate Democrats seeking reelection, two are completely hairless on top. Sens. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.) and Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) are both running in swing states, where they must win if Democrats are to have any shot at holding their slim majority in the Senate.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Analysis: Bald Weirdos to Play Outsized Role in 2022 Election
8th October 2021
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Solar Water Solutions (SWS), a Finnish water technology company, has come as close as anyone to being able to offer the world essentially unlimited fresh water through its unique, zero-emissions, zero-running cost, and non-polluting desalination technology.
Now it’s being deployed, thanks to backing from the Dutch group Climate Fund Managers, in Kitui County, Kenya as part of a long-term goal to provide water for 400,000 rural Kenyans by 2023.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Solar-Powered Desalination Device Will Turn Sea Water Into Fresh Water for 400,000 People
6th October 2021
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Of course Taiwan knows the beaches likely to be used for an invasion. You’d want to install beach obstacles to make a landing difficult. But you wouldn’t call them that. How about an artificial reef program? Taiwan has been building artificial reefs for decades. Guess where? (Google it.)
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on A Navy Captain’s Observations on Taiwan
5th October 2021
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In case you care. (I don’t.)
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4th October 2021
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Reporting their findings today in the journal Nature Catalysis, the team say the results could revolutionise water disinfection technologies and present an unprecedented opportunity to provide clean water to communities that need it most.
Their new method works by using a catalyst made from gold and palladium that takes in hydrogen and oxygen to form hydrogen peroxide – a commonly used disinfectant that is currently produced on an industrial scale.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Instant Water Cleaning Method ‘Millions of Times’ Better Than Commercial Approach
4th October 2021
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Any chance they will leave him there?
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Star Trek’s Captain Kirk Rocketing Into Space Next Week
4th October 2021
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Singapore will thus have air filtration and UV sanitization in the airport before we have it in the hospitals.
Is the future slipping away from the United States? It seems that way sometimes. Only the high-tech sector is keeping us afloat and, of course, that is under attack by the elites.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on UV-C and the Future
4th October 2021
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Researchers at Université de Montréal and McGill University have discovered a new multi-enzyme complex that reprograms metabolism and overcomes “cellular senescence,” when aging cells stop dividing.
In their study published on September 16, 2021, in Molecular Cell, the researchers show that an enzyme complex named HTC (hydride transfer complex) can inhibit cells from aging.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Scientists Discover New Enzymatic Complex That Can Stop Cells From Aging
3rd October 2021
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A scientist has invented a material that reflects the sun’s rays off rooftops, and even absorbs heat from homes and buildings and radiates it away. And — get this — it is made from recyclable paper.
…
Yi Zheng, an associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University, calls his material “cooling paper.”
He hopes that people everywhere will wrap their houses in the cooling paper one day, reports Good News Network. In addition to the cooling benefits, the paper doesn’t require any electricity, and it is 100% recyclable.
The paper can reduce a room’s temperature by up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit, making it a radical but effective alternative to today’s air conditioners, which consume a lot of power.
Ten degrees doesn’t help much with a Texas summer. Perhaps this will be useful in Florida or California.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Goodbye AC: This New Roofing Material Keeps Houses Cool
3rd October 2021
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Plywood frames use thin sheets of plywood [0] as the material for the entire structural system. Sheets of plywood are run through a CNC router, which cuts the plywood into specially designed shapes. The shapes are then attached together using slots and tabs (helped into place with large mallets) to form a variety of structural elements – walls, box beams, portal frames, columns – which then get assembled (using more slots, tabs, clips, and wedges) to form the superstructure of the building. The tight tolerances of the machined plywood mean that everything fits snugly together, which allows simple friction connections to do a great deal of the work (though in practice most of the folks using the system are throwing in some mechanical fasteners as well).
The problem is that most building codes are written by people in the building trades and are written to provide people in the building trades with guaranteed employment.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Facit Homes, Wikihouse, and the Plywood Frame
3rd October 2021
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Combining elements of the space and arms races of the Cold War, the drone race will be a flurry of innovation and acquisition efforts. Different, however, is the wide array of competitors. Arms transfers from rogue regimes make drone technology accessible to jihadists such as ISIS and Boko Haram, while the shrinking cost of production will catapult China into the lead. While the technology comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes—from the aptly named high-flying “Global Hawk” to compact suicide drones—winning the drone wars will likely come down to finding a common platform versatile enough to carry an array of weapons and surveillance capabilities.
As Frantzman reveals, the use of drones has gone beyond its deployment in the war on terror. A September 2019 attack on a Saudi oil field by Iranian drones revealed the lethal effectiveness of a “drone swarm,” in which hundreds of devices bomb a facility in unison and are difficult to strike down all t once. Future swarm attacks could be even more devastating with the inclusion of artificial intelligence technology, which better allows drones to communicate with each other. In their book 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, former NATO supreme allied commander James Stavridis and veteran Elliot Ackerman envision Chinese drones swarming U.S. ships in the South China Sea. That future may be closer than you think.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Death From Above
2nd October 2021
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But you will still need to use mosquito repellent because if you don’t you’re a danger to everyone else.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Drug Researchers Discover Potent Class of Molecules That Kills Malaria Parasite
2nd October 2021
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A key “Stop the Steal” attorney who tried, on Donald Trump’s behalf, to convince former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to help execute a coup and overturn the 2020 election is helping a group of Michigan poll challengers sue voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems.
And according to newly filed court documents, that Trumpist attorney, Kurt Olsen, is teaming up with celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz, a longtime Democrat who served on former President Trump’s legal defense for the 2020 impeachment trial. Dershowitz said in a brief interview on Friday afternoon that though he is not the lead attorney on this new class-action lawsuit, he described himself as an “adviser and consultant on the First Amendment issues of this case.”
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Dershowitz, ‘Stop the Steal’ Lawyer Team Up for New Dominion Lawsuit
27th September 2021
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The world top academic journal Science on Friday published a major breakthrough in the artificial starch synthesis made by a research institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The research is the first time in the world to achieve synthesis of starch from carbon dioxide. Scientists believe it will have a revolutionary impact on future agricultural production and bio-manufacturing.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Chinese Scientists Complete Starch Synthesis From CO2
27th September 2021
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As I wrote earlier it’s puzzling that there isn’t more attention given to air filtration and UV light disinfection in hospitals, since these techniques have been shown to kill superbugs.
A recent paper also shows that air filtration and UV disinfection can greatly reduces SARS-COV-II in hospital wards. The authors installed portable air filters with UV disinfection on two COVID hospital wards in the UK. The air was tested for viruses, bacteria and fungi before the filters were turned on, during the time the filters were on and then again after the filters were turned off.
I find this appalling.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Air Filtration and UV Disinfection Greatly Reduce Viruses in Hospital Wards
26th September 2021
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I’ve always thought so.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Food Myths Busted: Dairy, Salt and Steak May Be Good for You After All
25th September 2021
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A new housing development with a working farm at its center has broken ground in Santa Clara, California — the latest example of the “agrihood” trend taking root across the U.S.
Very locally grown: As the name implies, an agrihood is a neighborhood built around some sort of agriculture, such as a garden, farm, or orchard. Residents might live in single-family homes or apartments, and the agrihood itself can be in an urban, suburban, or rural area.
Most agrihoods have farm managers, but residents can volunteer to participate in the growing of crops, and in some cases, they get dedicated plots for personal gardens.
The harvested produce from the main farm is sometimes given to residents, but more often they buy it at on-site markets or through monthly subscription packages. Some of the crops may be sold to local restaurants or donated to the larger community.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on “Agrihood” puts a farm in the center of Silicon Valley housing
25th September 2021
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Bennett and his colleagues were able to accurately date 61 footprints by radiocarbon dating layers of aquatic plant seeds that had been preserved above and below them. The prints, which were discovered in the Tularosa Basin in White Sands National Park, were made 21,000 to 23,000 years ago, the researchers found.
This is CNN, so I’d look for a second source.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Fossilized Footprints Show Humans Made It to North America Much Earlier Than First Thought
25th September 2021
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Methinks the writer doth protest too much.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on True Velocity Ammo: The Future Is Now, Old Man
24th September 2021
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James Bond star Daniel Craig was made an honorary officer of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy on Thursday — matching his onscreen 007 persona, who holds the rank of commander.
“I am delighted to welcome honorary Commander Daniel Craig to the Royal Navy,” First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the Royal Navy, said in a news statement.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on James Bond Is a Naval Officer. Now Daniel Craig Is Too.
21st September 2021
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DroidDrive is a German company currently working on such a trailer. It’s called Trailerduck and, for the time being, it still needs a tow vehicle, even though it’s not technically towed by it. Trailerduck is self-propelled, but it still takes cues from the vehicle in front, which can be anything from an e-bike to an actual car.
I am not making this up.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Trailerduck Is a Smart e-Bike Trailer That’s Bound to Make City Life Easier
20th September 2021
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Republicans appear ready to claim more registered voters than Democrats in Florida for the first time in modern political history, Politico reported.
Democrats had 23,055 more registered voters than Republicans in the Sunshine State at the end of August — that was down from the 700,000 voters advantage President Barack Obama won the state with in 2008.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Republicans on Verge of Outnumbering Democrats in Florida for First Time
19th September 2021
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Since its inception screen printing has been transforming the world by producing art, posters, and colorful patterns on textiles. New developments in the realm of material sciences will propel this technology to the center of next-generation electronics.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Manufacturing Next-Generation Electronics Like [sic] They Are T-Shirts
18th September 2021
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Mr. Baker calls his plan, “RiverArch,” and describes it as, “a way to transform the skyline and the City with a structure like no other in the world, while also housing thousands of people and generating hundreds of millions of dollars per year in new tax revenue.”
And, of course, the tax revenue is the important part (at least in New York).
Actually, it strikes me as an attractive idea.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Plan Floated to Span East River with Arch Containing Thousands of Apartments and New Transit Portal
17th September 2021
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Polls rarely ask these people what a “fair share” looks like. Is a quarter of someone’s earnings enough? A third? Because the rich have been shouldering an increasingly larger share of the cost of government. The United States already has one of the most progressive tax systems in the free world. Those who make over $207,350 now pay 35% in income tax. Those who make $518,400 or more pay a 37% income-tax rate. At some point, taxation should be considered theft.
Despite perceptions, the highest-income strata of taxpayers are the only ones who pay a larger share of taxes than their share of income. In 2018, the top 1% of income earners made nearly 21% of all income but paid 40% of all federal income taxes. The top 10% earned 48% of the income and paid 71% of all federal income taxes.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Sorry, AOC, Rich Already Pay Their Fair Share
16th September 2021
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The United Kingdom is launching a world’s first trial to test whether adding graphene to recycled asphalt can increase the lifespan of a major highway — and decrease costly, annoying road maintenance.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on UK Building Road With “Wonder Material” Graphene
16th September 2021
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I guess they got tired of having their property trashed, their buildings vandalized, and their employees and families threatened.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on 123 Texas Landowners Allow State to Put Border Fencing on Their Property
14th September 2021
Washington Free Beacon.
After more than two and a half years of watching and listening to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) cosplay as a professional celeb and fashion icon moonlighting as a serious politician, we have decided we won’t report on her antics as part of the Washington Free Beacon‘s political coverage.
Instead, we will continue to cover AOC’s parking habits and other aspects of her social life as part of our Entertainment, Fashion, Fantasy, and Young Adult sections. Our reason is simple: AOC’s seat in Congress is a sideshow. We won’t take the bait by pretending otherwise in an effort to appear “objective.”
Like many of her Democratic colleagues elected during the Trump era, AOC is less interested in representing her constituents as a legislator than she is in relishing the trappings of power and celebrity. She just wants to be photographed wearing a “Tax the Rich” dress at the Met Gala, whereas Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) just wants to sleep with consultants and break up other people’s marriages, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) just wants to abuse her subordinates.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on A Note About Our Coverage of AOC’s ‘Political Career’
14th September 2021
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As a professor of Classics at the University of Oxford, I had quite forgotten the thrill of understanding spoken Latin when, in 2016, a group of students from the Accademia Vivarium, an institution based in the beautiful Villa Falconieri just outside Rome, paid a visit to the UK with their professor Luigi Miraglia. Among them were students of Dutch, Hungarian, Finnish and South American origin; but one could hardly tell their nationalities apart because, in addition to using Latin names (Julianus, Edmundus), they spoke in fluent and elegant Latin and in one case, Attic Greek.
When I signed up for Greek my sophomore year at Yale, the professor went around the room (all eight of us) and asked us why we were in the class. Smart-ass that I was, I said ‘To be civilized.’ He looked at me for a second and responded, ‘No, you learn Latin to be civilized. You learn Greek to be educated.’
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Speaking Latin Brings an Unmediated Thrill to the Classics
13th September 2021
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NOT the Babylon Bee.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Barnyard Breakthrough: Researchers Successfully Potty Train Cows
13th September 2021
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Gee, I wonder why?
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Record Number of Environmental Activists Murdered
13th September 2021
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Good luck getting your insurance to pay for it.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Reverses Hallmarks of Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia
12th September 2021
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New work shows that histones, long treated as boring spools for DNA, sit at the center of the origin story of eukaryotes and continue to play important roles in evolution and disease.
I have always been fascinated by the mechanics of biochemistry.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on DNA’s Histone Spools Hint at How Complex Cells Evolved
12th September 2021
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Whenever a virus infects you, there’s a chance it will leave behind a piece of itself within your DNA, and if this happens in an egg or sperm cell, it will then be passed on through the generations. These are known as endogenous viral elements (EVEs).
In humans, fragments of viral DNA make up around 8 percent of our genome. They can provide a record of viral infections through our evolutionary history, like genetic memory.
“These viral fragments have been retained for a reason,” said paleovirologist Emma Harding. “Over millions of years of evolution, we would expect all DNA to change, however, these fossils are preserved and kept intact.”
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Mammals Carry a Graveyard of Viruses in Our DNA, And It Could Have a Crucial Purpose
12th September 2021
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Genetic “dark matter” may drive the emergence of new species, new research finds.
These long, repeating stretches of the genome, called satellite DNA, may ultimately prevent incompatible animals from mating by scrambling the chromosomes in their hybrid babies, according to the study. And if animals from different populations can’t mate, they will diverge over time, leading to speciation.
‘Dark Regions of the Genome’ would be a great title for a move.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Dark Regions of the Genome May Drive the Evolution of New Species
10th September 2021
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the patent-pending ‘SE200? concept features a lightweight tri-wing layout to enhance lift over drag, a ’tilting’ seat, and a new ‘once-through’ air feed ventilation system. the innovative aircraft is imagined as a monocoque, made up from a single solid-molded component that can float on water. fuel is stored on top of the fuselage in self-sealing bladders, and not in the wings. ‘the construction is all-composite, molded in one tough, safer piece. we also incorporated super-thin, long wings and complete streamlining from the nose to the tail. we did it all.’ SE aeronautics chief engineer lloyd weaver mentions.
I’ll believe it when I see it walking down the aisle.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on SE Aeronautics Claims Its Tri-Wing Aircraft Concept Could Revolutionize Commercial Aviation
10th September 2021
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There is no single reason Austin tech talent is packing their bags, but a handful of factors have collided to create a tenuous situation.
I guess California-on-the-Colorado is losing its shine.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Why Tech Talent Is in the Process of Abandoning Austin
8th September 2021
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Can’t say that I blame them.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Canada Aims to Block Chelsea Manning From Entering Country
7th September 2021
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A group of Silicon Valley billionaires, including shipping magnate Jeff Bezos and Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, are funding research that aims to reverse aging.
Funding for the research is set to be used by the biotechnology company Altos Labs. Researchers at Altos aim to rejuvenate cells that could “revitalize entire animal bodies,” according to Technology Review.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Silicon Valley Funds Research to Reverse Aging
7th September 2021
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An estimated 1.5 billion toothpaste tubes are discarded into landfills every year worldwide, and a lot of that plastic ends up in the ocean. But rather than reinvent the tubes themselves, a unique solution to the plastic pandemic is rising in popularity — zero-waste toothpaste tablets.
Often packaged in reusable aluminum or glass jars, toothpaste tablets are essentially toothpaste in a powdered form that’s pressed into a pill-sized tablet. Using them requires chewing a single tablet and letting it dissolve into a paste with a little help from saliva, or a swig of water before brushing.
Do they come with fluoride?
They sound a bit too Woke for me. Plus I think that websites using white text on black ought to be nuked from orbit.
Posted in News You Can Use. | 1 Comment »
6th September 2021
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Well, that trick didn’t work.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Mosquitos Genetically Modified to Not Reproduce Do in Fact Reproduce and Mix DNA
5th September 2021
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Guess his ethnicity.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Art Student’s 407-Piece Hand-Carved Wooden Clock Literally Writes the Time
31st August 2021
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Researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a synthetic chemistry approach to polymerize proteins inside of engineered microbes. This enabled the microbes to produce the high molecular weight muscle protein, titin, which was then spun into fibers. In the future, such material could be used for clothing, or even for protective gear.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Synthetic Biology Enables Microbes to Build Muscle Fibers That Are Tougher Than Kevlar
30th August 2021
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Not sure I believe this, but Kuo has been right more often than not before.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Kuo: iPhone 13 to Support LEO Satellite Communication, Allowing Users to Make Phone Calls and Send Texts Without Cell Signal
29th August 2021
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The protein fuels tumours when oxygen levels are low, say scientists.
It enables them to adapt and survive – and become more aggressive.
The enzyme called CAIX (Carbonic Anhydrase IX) helps diseased cells spread to other organs.
UPDATE: New study examines ‘Achilles heel’ of cancer tumours
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Cancer Treatment Breakthrough: Scientists Discover Disease’s ‘Achilles’ Heel’
27th August 2021
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WaterPod is a sustainable floating pod that turns seawater into drinking water through a natural desalination process.
I’m curious as to what exactly ‘sustainable’ means in this context. Won’t ever sink? Will hold you up if you’re drowning? Provides emergency cash when you need it?
UPDATE: Can Desalination Save Us from Water Scarcity?
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on WaterPod
26th August 2021
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“The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion,” Albert Einstein wrote. Perhaps this is nowhere more evident than in protein evolution, where past and present versions of the same enzyme exist in different species today, with implications for future enzyme design. Now, researchers have used evolutionary “time travel” to learn how an enzyme evolved over time, from one of Earth’s most ancient organisms to modern-day humans.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Evolutionary “Time Travel” Reveals Enzyme’s Origins, From One of Earth’s Most Ancient Organisms