That‘s Cool News | A weekly breakdown of positive Science & Tech news.

Show Notes: Elon Musk's 'AI-Powered Tesla Bots' Will Replace 'Boring' Household Activities by 2022! | Tech Times (01:14) Information was recently reported on the AI robots being developed by Tesla giving us a clearer picture of what life will be like on Earth in the following decades. The Tesla Bot, about 172 cm tall (5’ 7”), seeks to gradually free up regular people brave enough to adopt a robot from "boring" duties. .  This comes from what Musk stated in an essay published in China Cyberspace magazine :  "Tesla Bots are initially positioned to replace people in repetitive, boring, and dangerous tasks. But the vision is for them to serve millions of households, such as cooking, mowing lawns, and caring for the elderly."  Musk stated that the robot, code-named "Optimus," will utilize the same chips and sensors as Tesla's so-called Autopilot software in 2021.  The robot will be able to lift 150 pounds (68 kg) and carry 45 pounds (20.4 kg), and it will be able to run 5 miles (8 km) per hour. Additionally, he claimed that if his company can manage mass manufacturing, the Tesla Bot prototype should be available by the year's end.  But you should take this with a grain of salt since he has not always been the best with time predictions. Life Wire previously reported the EV manufacturer plans to introduce the new Tesla Optimus machine in September.  According to “certain sources”, the prototype will arrive specifically on September 30. Musk is optimistic about the power of robots: “It is foreseeable that with the power of robots, we will create an era of extreme abundance of goods and services, where everyone can live a life of abundance. Perhaps the only scarcity that will exist in the future is for us to create ourselves as humans.”   World's first liquid-nitrogen outdoor cooling system set for trials | New Atlas (07:43) Israeli company Green Kinoko is preparing for the first public tests of a remarkable clean outdoor cooling system. The inverse of an outdoor cafe heater, cooling several tables per unit without using any electricity. The secret: liquid nitrogen.  Standard tanks hold liquid nitrogen at -196 °C (-321 °F), which are loaded into the coolers, and when they're switched on, the liquid is slowly released. Expands rapidly to nearly 700 times its liquid volume as it becomes a gas The coolers then harness the energy of the expansion through a mechanical engine, using it to blow nitrogen gas out at a much more palatable -10 °C (14 °F). The device is more environmentally friendly than an air conditioner since it uses no mains power and doesn't blow hot air out somewhere else.  Nitrogen makes up about 78% of the ambient air, it's completely safe to breathe. The tanks will need replacing every 7-10 days, depending on how hot it is outside and how hard you're running them. Green Kinoko's Moran Goldberg told New Atlas: “Usually, the cost of the nitrogen is about €50-60 (US$50-60) per tank … Today, it's mostly produced as a byproduct when hospitals and medical services make pure oxygen. Of course, there's a logistics part of the equation we have to take into account in each country as well, but it's not going to cost more than the existing solutions. As far as a restaurant or venue is concerned, the cost of owning and running an outdoor heater is what we're benchmarking." The company plans on running a pilot trial in the first weeks of September With enquiries already pouring in from at least 40 different countries, Green Kinoko is preparing to gear up for serious volume production. One thing of concern: The safety and materials handling portion Liquid nitrogen can cause extreme cold burns, explosions and even asphyxiation if improperly handled, so these units will need to be treated with care.   Rocket Lab will self-fund a mission to search for life in the clouds of Venus | Ars Technica (13:24) Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck has made no secret of his love for huma

Show Notes: Startup's new stunning kite can pull energy from the sky | Interesting Engineering (01:07) Several kite power companies are attempting to pull energy out of the sky, and they are succeeding. Kitekraft, a Munich-based company developing a kite power system is one of those companies working on this technology Their co-CEO and chief technology officer, Florian Bauer, commented on the tech: “It’s cheaper to manufacture, cheaper to transport, and also has higher efficiency … If you have all those advantages, why would anyone build a conventional wind turbine?” How does the technology called airborne wind actually work? Three-step approach: Rigid enough to withstand high winds Has the form of a sailplane, and 4 propellers are only needed for taking off and landing. Designed to move quickly and effortlessly Connects the kite to the ground Transforms the pull force from the kite to the ground-station generator. A kite flies across the wind it pulls against the tether and unwinds the winch, driving a generator that produces electricity.  Durable and can be exposed to varying environmental conditions such as moisture and UV light. Converts the tractive force from the tether to electricity. A control system is found in the ground station and makes sure all flights are conducted safely and efficiently. 1. The kite is a specially designed aircraft composed of composite materials.  2. The Tether 3. The ground station So far, Kitemill, another kite power company, claims that their system can produce an average power of >1 hour of operation with continuous cycles at 5.5 kW. The airborne wind is currently in its infancy. The industry will have to overcome many hurdles, such as proving that it is safe and reliable and does not cause any noise pollution. Right now, none of the kite companies have produced energy in the megawatt scales required to compete with other renewable energy sources.    How balloons could one day detect quakes on Venus | Science News (07:32) Back on December 14, 2021, a tiny device dangling beneath the large, transparent balloon recorded sudden, jerky fluctuations in air pressure: echoes of an earthquake more than 2,800 kilometers away.  Became the first network of devices to monitor an earthquake from the air. The finding could help scientists track earthquakes in remote areas on Earth. Opens the door to one day sending specially equipped balloons to study the geology of other worlds, including our closest planetary neighbor, Venus. When the ground shakes, it releases low-frequency sound waves that can travel long distances in the atmosphere. The military, who first tried this back in the 1940s, planned on using the microphones to pick up on the sound of the ground shaking from a nuclear explosion.  Project was eventually deemed too expensive and dropped  Now back to Venus, the reason the idea of balloons to take measurements on the planet is due to the extreme heat and pressure on the surface.  The dense atmosphere means that the planet’s surface has about the same pressure as Earth’s deep ocean. No current lander/rover could withstand For the project to even go forward, scientists have to show that they could design devices small enough to be carried by balloons but sensitive enough to pick up earthquakes far below. In 2021, that is what they did They attached micro-barometers to 16 balloons launched from the Seychelles Islands, off the coast of East Africa The researchers were able to use the changes in air pressure to pinpoint the epicenter of the earthquake and calculate its 7.3 magnitude. Although the surface of Venus is an extremely hostile environment, at about 50 kilometers above the surface the atmosphere of Venus is the most earth-like environment (other than Earth itself) in the solar system. Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis believes, even if they can’t detect Venus quakes, t

Show Notes:  Groundbreaking heart disease treatment uses ultrasound-assisted lasers | Brighter Side News (01:21) Atherosclerosis, a buildup of plaque, can lead to heart disease, artery disease, and chronic kidney disease and is traditionally treated by inserting and inflating a balloon to expand the artery.  Rohit Singh, of the University of Kansas, and other researchers developed a method that combines a low-power laser with ultrasound to remove arterial plaque safely and efficiently.  High-power laser treatments direct thermal energy to vaporize water in the artery and create a vapor bubble, which expands and collapses to break the plaque.  The addition of irradiation from ultrasound causes the microbubbles to expand, collapse, and disrupt the plaque.   Singh talks about the combo of laser treatment with ultrasounds: “In conventional laser angioplasty, a high laser power is required for the entire cavitation process, whereas in our technology, a lower laser power is only required for initiating the cavitation process … Overall, the combination of ultrasound and laser reduces the need for laser power and improves the efficiency of atherosclerotic plaque removal."   Because it destroys rather than compresses the plaque, the combination technique will have a lower restenosis rate, or re-narrowing of the artery, compared to balloon angioplasty or stenting. Restenosis occurs when an artery that was opened with a stent or angioplasty becomes narrowed again.   Singh and collaborators are also using the methodology for photo-mediated ultrasound therapy and ultrasound-assisted endovascular laser thrombolysis.  Former can be used to remove abnormal microvessels in the eye to prevent blindness The latter can dissolve blood clots in veins.   Locusts can 'smell' human cancer cells | Futurity (05:54) Researchers, at Michigan State University, have shown that locusts can not only “smell” the difference between cancer cells and healthy cells, but they can also distinguish between different cancer cell lines. This work could provide the basis for devices that use insect sensory neurons to enable the early detection of cancer using only a patient’s breath. The success of engineered devices can make it easy to overlook the performance of our natural tools, especially the sense organ right in front of our eyes. Why we trust dogs and their super-sniffers to detect telltale smells of drugs, and explosives Scientists are working on technology that can mimic the sense of smell, but nothing they’ve engineered can yet compete with the speed, sensitivity and specificity of old-fashioned biological olfaction. Olfaction: The sense of smell. Why not start with the solutions biology has already built after eons of evolution, and engineer from there?  The research team is essentially “hacking” the insect brain to use it for disease diagnosis. Easily attach electrodes to locust brains The scientists then recorded the insects’ responses to gas samples produced by healthy cells and cancer cells, and then used those signals to create chemical profiles of the different cells. How well could the locusts differentiate healthy cells from cancer cells using three different oral cancer cell lines? According to Christopher Contag, the director of IQ, “We expected that the cancer cells would appear different than the normal cells … But when the bugs could distinguish three different cancers from each other, that was amazing.” Although the team’s results focused on cancers of the mouth, the researchers believe their system would work with any cancer that introduces volatile metabolites into breath, which is likely most cancer types.  In biochemistry, a metabolite is an intermediate or end product of metabolism. The term metabolite is usually used for small molecules.  Let’s end it off with a quote from Contag about early detection: “Early detection is so important, and we should use every possible tool to get there, whether i

News: Bedside AI warning system for sepsis reduces mortality by nearly 20% | New Atlas (01:23) Infections can trigger all kinds of reactions in the human body, and one of the most extreme is sepsis.Occurs as a result of an infection that triggers a severe immune response in the body. Begins with widespread inflammation and can end in blood clots, leaky blood vessels, organ failure or death. Diagnosing the condition is difficult in its early stages. This life-threatening complication causes more than 250,000 deaths in the US each year, but a new artificial intelligence system developed at Johns Hopkins University promises to make a real difference in this area, by catching key symptoms early on.Early diagnosis is critical because a patient experiencing sepsis can deteriorate quickly, with the condition killing around 30% of those who develop it. The Johns Hopkins team is looking to leverage advanced artificial intelligence to identify patients at risk.Does this by analyzing a patient's medical history and combining that with current symptoms, clinical notes and lab results. The AI tracks patients from the moment they are admitted to hospital until the moment they are discharged. Called the Targeted Real-Time Early Warning System By monitoring them throughout the time at the hospital, the system is designed to ensure no important, or potentially dangerous, medical details fall through the cracks. Developed and deployed in collaboration with Johns Hopkins spinoff Bayesian Health, the tool was put to use across five hospitals as part of a two-year trial, involving more than 700,000 patients. According to the researchers, the system proved very effective, leading to the detection of sepsis on average almost six hours earlier than traditional methods, with a sensitivity rate of 82%. It also fostered a high rate of adoption among healthcare providers of 89%. The result was significant reductions in morbidity, the length of hospital stay and, most importantly, a reduction in mortality of 18.2%. Neri Cohen, MD, PhD, who collaborated on the study explains the significance of this:“There aren't many things left in medicine that have a 30% mortality rate like sepsis … What makes it so vexing, is that it is relatively common and we still have made very little progress in recognizing it early enough to materially reduce the morbidity and mortality. To reduce mortality by nearly 20% is remarkable and translates to many lives saved."   Artificial Muscles Woven Into Smart Textiles Could Make Clothing Hyperfunctional | IEEE Spectrum (07:44) Engineers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia, have developed a new class of fluid-driven smart textiles that can “shape-shift” into 3D structures.  According to Thanh Nho Do, senior lecturer at the UNSW’s Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, who led the study, development of active textiles is “either limited with slow response times due to the requirement of heating and cooling, or difficult to knit, braid, or weave in the case of fluid-driven textiles.” The researchers used a simple, low-cost fabrication technique, in which a long, thin silicone tube is directly inserted into a hollow micro coil to produce the artificial muscles, with a diameter ranging from a few hundred micrometers to several millimeters. Allowing them to mass-produce these soft artificial muscles at any scale and size The combination of hydraulic pressure, fast response times, light weight, small size, and high flexibility makes the UNSW’s smart textiles versatile and programmable.  This versatility opens up potential applications in soft robotics, including shape-shifting structures, biomimicking soft robots, locomotion robots, and smart garments. Possibilities for use as medical/therapeutic wearables, as assistive devices for those needing help with movement, and as soft robots to aid the rescue and recovery of people trapped in confined spaces. These artificial muscles are still a

News: Serum from hibernating black bears boosts muscle mass in human cells | New Atlas (01:16) The incredible ability of bears to hibernate for months at a time has inspired some interesting lines of research around how their secrets might benefit human health, and among them is a focus on muscle wasting. First let’s talk about bear hibernation: The main difference between hibernation and torpor is during torpor, the animal is able to wake up quickly to avoid danger, or if the opportunity exists, exit the den to feed.  Hibernation is a voluntary state an animal enters to conserve energy, when food is scarce, and minimize exposure to the winter elements. During hibernation an animal lowers its body temperature, slows its breathing rate, heart rate, and metabolic rate-the rate its body uses energy. Bears technically do not hibernate, they enter a state similar to it called topor. Fun fact: Bears can sleep more than 100 days without eating, drinking, or passing waste! Bears can actually turn their pee into protein. Scientists in Japan have made a fascinating discovery in this space:Demonstrating how human muscle cells can be infused with serum from hibernating black bears to prevent atrophy and increase muscle mass. This new study focused on skeletal muscle, which is susceptible to wasting caused by immobility.Led by scientists at Hiroshima University and Hokkaido University The research team took cultured human skeletal muscle cells and infused them with serum drawn from the blood of hibernating black bears, which led to significant protein growth after 24 hours.Interestingly, serum collected during the bears' active summer season did not induce these same effects. Believe this is due to a factor in the hibernating bear serum that suppresses a "destruction mechanism" behind muscle degradation Study first-author Mitsunori Miyazaki, stated:“We have indicated that ‘some factor’ present in hibernating bear serum may regulate protein metabolism in cultured human skeletal muscle cells and contribute to the maintenance of muscle mass … However, the identification of this 'factor' has not yet been achieved." Doing so could open up some exciting possibilities around protecting humans during deep space travel, or preventing muscle wastage in people who are immobile due to aging or disease.   Alzheimer’s Breakthrough: Genetic Link to Gut Disorders Confirmed | Neuroscience News (08:18) A world-first Edith Cowan University (ECU) study has confirmed the link between the two, which could lead to earlier detection and new potential treatments.The findings add to the evidence the gut-brain axis may play a role in the development of neurodegenerative disorders. Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), has no known curative treatments and is expected to affect more than 82 million people and is estimated to cost US$2 trillion by 2030. The study analyzed large sets of genetic data from AD and several gut-disorder studies – each of about 400,000 people.The first comprehensive assessment of the genetic relationship between AD and multiple gut disorders. They discovered people with AD and gut disorders have genes in common – which is important for many reasons. Research lead Dr Emmanuel Adewuyi explains:“The study provides a novel insight into the genetics behind the observed co-occurrence of AD and gut disorders … This improves our understanding of the causes of these conditions and identifies new targets to investigate to potentially detect the disease earlier and develop new treatments for both types of conditions.” When researchers conducted further analysis into the shared genetics, they found other important links between AD and gut disorders – such as the role cholesterol may play. Dr Adewuyi provides context:“Whilst further study is needed into the shared mechanisms between the conditions, there is evidence high cholesterol can transfer into the central nervous system, resulting in abnormal cholesterol metabolism in the brain… For example

News: New prehistoric human unknown to science discovered in Israel | The Jerusalem Post (01:20) A new type of early human previously not known to scientists has been discovered in Israel, Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University researchers announced Thursday, July 14th. They believe this new “Homo” species intermarried with Homo sapiens and was an ancestor of the Neanderthals. The dig site, Nesher Ramla, a few kilometers from the modern-day city, was probably close to a water reservoir where early humans could hunt animals.Filled with many animal bones, stone tools for making fire and butchering Prof. Israel Hershkovitz talked on the dig site:“We know that modern humans – or Homo sapiens – arrived in this area some 200,000 years ago … When we started excavating and examining the different archaeological layers, we found that they dated back between 140,000 and 120,000 years ago, so we expected to find remains of Homo sapiens. We did not realize that another form of human was living alongside them.” The researchers believe that the newly discovered human type, which they named after the site, lived in the region hundreds of thousands of years ago and at least until 130,000 years ago. The findings may radically change what researchers have so far believed about how ancient populations evolved and interacted.Especially how sapiens and Neanderthal, other ancient human types, related to each other. Researchers believe the Nesher Ramla was an ancestor of the Neanderthals and other archaic Asian populations.Thought Neanderthals arrived in what is now Israel 70,000 to 50,000 years ago from Europe, but here they found a human species 130,000 years old. Some features of the remains, like the teeth and the jaws, were more similar to Neanderthal species, while the skulls resembled the Homo type. According to Hershkovitz, Nesher Ramla Homo and Homo sapiens not only coexisted peacefully and exchanged technology, but also produced offspring.“In Europe, the story was very different because when modern humans arrived there around 45,000 years ago, they completely eliminated the local Neanderthals. This did not happen here” In the past, geneticists had already suggested that an unknown population represented the missing link between sapiens and Neanderthal.The Nesher Ramla population could represent the answer.   Prunes can restore bone loss, research finds | Brighter Side News (06:58) New research provides evidence that prunes are a prebiotic food that reverses bone loss in mice.Findings show the ​​carbohydrates and polyphenols in prunes act as prebiotics and help restore bone health. Principal Investigator, Brenda Smith, PhD explains:“Both the carbohydrate component and the polyphenols within the prunes altered the gut microbiota and were associated with positive effects on bone, namely restoring bone. By definition, prebiotics are substrates that alter the composition or activity of the microbiota and confer benefits to the health of the individual” Researchers isolated the polyphenol (PP) compounds as well as the carbohydrates (CHO) from prunes and fed them to two separate groups of estrogen-deficient, female mice with substantial bone loss for 5- and 10-week durations. In the study they had 4 groups of mice with different diets:Receiving the polyphenol (PP) compounds and carbohydrates directly Whole prunes Prune crude extract with both PP and CHO prune components Control (i.e. no prunes or extract) Compared to the mice who did not consume any prune or prune component, those who consumed isolated CHO, isolated PP, prune crude extract, or whole prunes experienced restored bone previously lost. Showed a significant increase in short chain fatty acid (SCFA) production in their guts Favorable changes to their gut microbiota.  Researchers saw increases in SCFAs n-butyrate and propionate, which are thought to be most effective at preventing bone loss by suppressing biomarkers associated with bone breakdown. Smith suggest

News: This new neural sleeve helps people overcome mobility challenges | ZDNet (01:08) A new mobility sleeve under development and out of stealth promises a compelling solution for those suffering a variety of mobility issues.Monitor and stimulate the neuromuscular system Lightweight next-gen mobility devices The technology was invented by Jeremiah Robison, a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, following his daughter's cerebral palsy diagnosis.Inspired by two of his daughter's clinical experiences. The first inspiration was a complex data capture session at a gait lab using optical and EMG sensors, which recorded precise information about her walk.Electromyography sensors, also known as EMG sensors, measure small electromyographic signals generated by your muscles as you move them.  The second inspiration was functional electrical stimulation as part of her physical therapy.Electrode pads were placed on individual muscle groups, which a therapist stimulated during walking sessions to stimulate and strengthen the muscles. The device & company that was created is called CIONICThe device is a wearable for people with mobility issues that doesn't just monitor leg movements but actually helps activate the person's muscles. CIONIC partnered with the Laboratory for Engineering of the Neuromuscular System (LISiN) at The Polytechnic University of Turin. Robison talked on the device:“We set out to create a product that combined the diagnostic power of a multi-million dollar gait lab with the therapeutic power of Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) … We were confident we could leverage the recent technological advances enabling innovative products like self-driving cars and apply it to the human body to solve an enormous problem: 14% of adults in the US experience mobility impairment, a number expected to balloon to 20% by 2050."  The resulting sensor array successfully combines electromyography (EMG) and functional electrical stimulation (FES).LISiN Lab helped develop a comprehensive risk assessment strategy to ensure that the product was effective and safe Meta open sources early-stage AI translation tool that works across 200 languages | The Verge (08:37)  Social media conglomerate Meta has created a single AI model capable of translating across 200 different languagesThe company is open-sourcing the project in the hopes that others will build on its work. The AI model is part of an ambitious R&D project by Meta to create a so-called “universal speech translator,” which the company sees as important for growth across its many platforms Machine translation allows Meta to better understand its users (and so improve the advertising systems that generate 97 percent of its revenue)Could also be the foundation of a killer app for future projects like its augmented reality glasses. While most machine translation models handle only a handful of languages, Meta’s model is all-encapsulating: it’s a single system able to translate in more than 40,000 different directions between 200 different languages. Meta AI research scientist Angela Fan, who worked on the project, says the model, described in a research paper here, is already being tested to support a project that helps Wikipedia editors translate articles into other languages. Additionally, Fan stated that an important decision was to open-source as many elements of the project as possible — from the model to the evaluation dataset and training code. Meta also offers grants to researchers who want to contribute to such translation projects but are unable to finance their own projects We are going to end off with a quote from Fan:“I think that’s really, really important, because it’s not like one company will be able to holistically solve the problem of machine translation … It’s everyone — globally — and so we’re really interested in supporting these types of community efforts.”   Tiny shapeshifting robots brush and floss your teeth, kill bacteria | New Atlas (14

News: Cabless autonomous electric truck approved for US public roads | New Atlas (01:35) Freight technology company Einride first introduced its cabless autonomous electric T-pod truck back in 2017.Couple years later in 2020, it started rolling along Swedish Roads Now the company has been given the green light for operation on public roads in the US. In what Einride claims is a first, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has approved its purpose-built autonomous electric vehicle to operate on public roads in the US, and there'll be no driver in the cab as the Einride Pod doesn't have a cab. The T-pod Truck makes use of an onboard sensor suite:cameras, radars and LiDARs  will be monitored remotely by a human operator If you are curious about the sizing:Each vehicle should measure about 7 meters (23 ft) in length, and be capable of carrying 15 standard pallets worth of cargo.  It will weigh 20 tons with a full load, covering a distance of approximately 200 km (124 miles) on one charge of its 200-kWh battery pack. The public road pilot is due to start in Q3 of this year, where the vehicle will merge with existing fleet operations at a GE Appliances manufacturing facility.Expected to move goods between warehouses and operate on public roads in mixed traffic.   Enzyme reverses muscle loss due to aging and cancer | The Bright Side News (05:25) An international team led by uOttawa Faculty of Medicine researchers have published findings that could contribute to future therapeutics for muscle degeneration due to old age, and diseases such as cancer and muscular dystrophy. Their work demonstrates the importance of the enzyme GCN5 in maintaining the expression of key structural proteins in skeletal muscle.Those are the muscles attached to bone that breathing, posture and locomotion all rely on. GCN5: a well-studied enzyme which regulates multiple cellular processes such as metabolism and inflammation.  Over the span of roughly five years, the uOttawa-led international collaboration painstakingly experimented with a muscle-specific mouse “knockout” of GCN5. In this case, multiple experiments were done to examine the role the GCN5 enzyme plays in muscle fiber.  What they found:A notable decline in muscle health during physical stress, such as downhill treadmill running, a type of exercise known by athletes to cause micro-tears in muscle fibers to stimulate muscle growth.  The affected mice became dramatically weaker as they scurried downhill, like those of old mice, while wild-type mice were not similarly impacted. Dr. Menzies, the senior author of the study, says the findings are akin to what is observed in advanced aging, or myopathies and muscular dystrophy, a group of genetic diseases that result in progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass. Ultimately, the team’s research found that GCN5 boosts the expression of key structural muscle proteins, notably dystrophin, and a lack of it will reduce them.This is significant because dystrophin is the body’s most important protein for maintaining the membrane of muscle cells, serving as a kind of anchor and cushioning shock absorber in cells of muscles.  Dr. Menzies suggests the research could help to create a foundation for developing therapeutics down the line: “These findings may therefore be useful for the discovery of new therapeutics that regulate GCN5 activity, or its downstream targets, for maintaining healthy muscle during cancer, myopathies, muscular dystrophy or aging,” Scientists develop first-of-its-kind implant that relieves pain without drugs | Interesting Engineering (11:13) Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a device that sounds straight out of science fiction: a small, soft, flexible first-of-its-kind implant that relieves pain on demand, without the use of drugs and dissolves.Could provide a much-needed alternative to opioids and other highly addictive medications. As per the researchers, the device could be hi

NEWS: Sugar-studded protein is key to an Alzheimer's cure | The Brighter Side (01:38) In a bit of “reverse engineering” research using brain tissues from five people who died with Alzheimer’s disease, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they discovered that a special sugar molecule could play a key role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. This could indicate the molecule, known as a glycan, to be used as an early diagnostic test. And opens a way to perhaps prevention of the disease Cleaning up the disease-causing forms of amyloid and tau is the job of the brain’s immune cells, called microglia. Earlier studies found that when cleanup is impaired, Alzheimer’s disease is more likely to occur.  Thought to be caused by an overabundance of a receptor on the microglia cells, called CD33. Past studies by the researchers showed that for CD33, these “connector” molecules are special sugars.These molecules are ferried around the cell by specialized proteins that help them find their appropriate receptors.  The protein-glycan combination is called a glycoprotein.  The researchers, to find out more about the glycoproteins, obtained brain tissue from five people who died of Alzheimer’s disease and from five people.Among the many thousands of glycoproteins they gathered from the brain tissues, only one connected to CD33. What was this mysterious glycoprotein?The researchers determined the protein component’s identity by taking its “fingerprint” using mass spectroscopy, which identifies protein building blocks. Then they compared the molecular makeup of the protein with a database of known protein structures. The research team was able to conclude the protein portion of the glycoprotein was receptor tyrosine phosphatase (RPTP) zeta. Further experiments showed that the brain tissue of the five people who died with Alzheimer’s disease had more than twice as much RPTP zeta S3L as the donors who did not have the disease. Implying that this glycoprotein may be connecting with more CD33 receptors than a healthy brain, limiting the brain’s ability to clean up harmful proteins. Gonzalez-Gil Alvarenga, Ph.D., first author on the study stated:“Identifying this unique glycoprotein provides a step toward finding new drug targets and potentially early diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease.”   A Surprising Link Between Immune System and Hair Growth | Neuroscience News (07:36) Salk scientists have uncovered an unexpected molecular target of a common treatment for alopecia, a condition in which a person’s immune system attacks their own hair follicles, causing hair loss. Corresponding author of the study, Ye Zheng, associate professor in Salk’s NOMIS Center for Immunobiology and Microbial Pathogenesis, stated:“For the longest time, regulatory T cells have been studied for how they decrease excessive immune reactions in autoimmune diseases … Now we’ve identified the upstream hormonal signal and downstream growth factor that actually promote hair growth and regeneration completely separate from suppressing immune response.” Initially the researchers were interested in researching the roles of regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid hormones in autoimmune diseases.They did not function together to play a significant role in any of these conditions.  Thought they’d have more luck looking at environments where regulatory T cells expressed particularly high levels of glucocorticoid receptors The glucocorticoid receptor (GR, or GCR) also known as NR3C1 (nuclear receptor subfamily 3, group C, member 1) is the receptor to which cortisol and other glucocorticoids bind. The scientists induced hair loss in normal mice and mice lacking glucocorticoid receptors in their regulatory T cells.After two weeks, the researchers saw the normal mice grew their hair back, while the ones lacking the receptors struggled to grow it back The findings suggested that some sort of communication must be occurring between regulatory T cells and hair follicle ste

SHOW NOTES 01:50 The first perovskite solar cell with a commercially viable lifetime is here | Interesting Engineering  A team of researchers from Princeton University has built the first perovskite solar cells that last long enough to be commercially viable.Silicon-based cells, which many regard as an expensive and suboptimal component, have dominated the renewable energy market since their introduction in 1954. This new technology, which is not only incredibly durable but also meets common efficiency standards, has the potential to change that. Expected to outperform industry norms for roughly 30 years, well beyond the 20-year criterion for solar cell viability Perovskite solar cells are regarded as high-efficiency, low-cost modular technology for implementation in the renewable power industry. Less Energy = Less $$$ Would become more fragile in that case The name “perovskite” comes from the nickname for their crystal structure. Can be manufactured at room temperature, which means they need less energy than manufacturing silicon.  Can be modified to be flexible and transparent The new device created by these researchers estimated lifetime is a five-fold increase over the previous record, which was established by a lower efficiency perovskite solar cell in 2017. Additionally they created a new testing method allowing them to test the longevity of these particular types of solar cells. Ranging from a regular summer day's baseline temperature to an extreme of 230 degrees Fahrenheit (110 degrees Celsius). “accelerated aging technique” Chose four aging temperatures and measured outcomes over four independent data streams. Overall, they found that the device will run at or above 80 percent of its peak efficiency under continuous illumination for at least five years.According to the researchers, that is the equivalent of 30 years of outdoor operation in a city like Princeton, New Jersey.  Joseph Berry, a senior fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory who was not involved in the study, said:“This paper is likely going to be a prototype for anyone looking to analyze performance at the intersection of efficiency and stability … By producing a prototype to study stability, and showing what can be extrapolated [through accelerated testing], it’s doing the work everyone wants to see before we start field testing at scale. It allows you to project in a way that’s really impressive."   07:36 Immunotherapy booster produces 10,000 times more cancer-fighting cells | New Atlas Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found that adding a booster protein can significantly improve the outcome of cancer immunotherapy.The research showed the protein produced 10,000 times more immune cells in mice, and all mice survived the entire experiment. We are talking about  CAR T cell immunotherapy, which is a promising new treatment where doctors extract T cells from a patient, genetically engineer them to target specific cancer cells, and return them to the body to hunt those cells down.  The effectiveness can start to drop over time. In the new study, the scientists investigated ways to combat this problem by boosting the number of T cells. Doesn’t naturally stick around very long, so the researchers modified it to circulate in the body for weeks. They turned to a protein called interleukin-7 (IL-7), which the body naturally expresses to ramp up T cell production in the event of illness. The team tested this longer-lasting IL-7 in mouse models of lymphoma, administering the protein on various days after the initial CAR T cell injection.3 groups: 1.) Control (no immunotherapy), 2.) Received CAR T cell therapy without IL-7, and 3.) with IL-7 John DiPersio, senior author of the study, talks on the findings:“When we give a long-acting type of IL-7 to tumor-bearing immunodeficient mice soon after CAR T cell treatment, we see a dramatic expansion of these CAR-T cells greater than ten-thousandfold compared to mice not

News: Researchers run a gas turbine on pure hydrogen in world first | New Atlas (01:51) Gas turbines are found in aircraft, trains, ships, generators, pumps, compressors and all sorts of other places. 90% currently run on natural gas, which  produces carbon dioxide when you burn it In the race to zero emissions by 2050, several organizations, including General Electric, have been looking into transitioning gas turbines to burn green hydrogen as a clean fuel source.As of now, GE has more than 100 turbines running on at least 5 percent hydrogen fuel by volume, and they say they are on the path to 100 percent. Researchers at the University of Stavinger in Norway say they've beaten everyone to the punch, claiming that they've had a 100 percent hydrogen-burning gas turbine running since mid-May this year.Runs its own micro gas power plant, and its gas turbine produces heat, electricity and hot water for hydronic heating. Professor Mohsen Assadi, leader of the research team, states:“We have set a world record in hydrogen combustion in micro gas turbines. No one has been able to produce at this level before … The efficiency of running the gas turbine with hydrogen will be somewhat less. The big gain though, is to be able to utilize the infrastructure that already exists.” Eventually, these kinds of projects will lead to conversion kits that can keep old turbine equipment alive while moving it to zero-emissions fuel sources.But this process needs to become economically viable, which means the price of green hydrogen needs to come down substantially.   First successful treatment of severe pulmonary hypertension with umbilical cord stem cells | MedicalXPress (05:27) Clinical researchers at Hannover Medical School (MHH) have succeeded for the first time in stopping the usually fatal course of pulmonary hypertension thanks to a novel therapeutic approach. Pulmonary hypertension is a type of high blood pressure that affects the arteries in the lungs and the right side of the heart. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), blood vessels in the lungs are narrowed, blocked or destroyed. In some people, pulmonary hypertension slowly gets worse and can be life-threatening. A three-year-old girl suffering from so-called pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) was treated a total of five times with mesenchymal stem cell products obtained from a human umbilical cord. The researchers' analysis showed that the products of the stem cells from the umbilical cord were able to improve regeneration in the damaged blood vessels, inhibit inflammation of the blood vessels and curb damage to certain parts of the cells. Professor Dr. Georg Hansmann, head of the Translational Cardiopulmonary Biomedicine research group, talked on the treatment’s success:“The treatment led to a significant improvement in growth, exercise tolerance and clinical cardiovascular variables and reduced the number of plasma markers in the blood that can be detected in vascular constriction and inflammation." After six months, not only was there a clear improvement in health, but there were also no undesirable side effects.First time there is a therapy for people suffering from pronounced forms of pulmonary hypertension The team assumes that such a therapy must be repeated at regular intervals in order to be successful long term, in the case of chronically progressive, often therapy-resistant pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Japan Is Dropping a Gargantuan Turbine Into The Ocean to Harness 'Limitless' Energy | ScienceAlert (08:53) Japanese engineers have constructed a true leviathan, a beast capable of withstanding the strongest of ocean currents to transform its flow into a virtually limitless supply of electricity.IHI Corporation – has been tinkering with the technology for over a decade now, partnering with New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) in 2017 to put their designs to the test. In February, the project passed a major miles

Scientists just broke the record for the highest efficiency solar cell | Interesting Engineering (01:46) A team of researchers at the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has created a solar cell with a record efficiency of 39.5 percent.This is the highest efficiency solar cell of any type, measured using standard 1-sun conditions. Under lighting conditions equivalent to that of the sun The solar cell was also tested for its potential in space, especially for powering communications satellites, which are powered by solar cells and require high cell efficiency. Under such conditions, it has a 34.2 percent efficiency. Principal investigator Myles Steiner, talks on the new solar cell:“The new cell is more efficient and has a simpler design that may be useful for a variety of new applications, such as highly area-constrained applications or low-radiation space applications." The novel solar cell is built on an architecture known as inverted metamorphic multijunction (IMM) cells. gallium indium phosphide on top,  gallium arsenide in the center,  gallium indium arsenide on the bottom. Has three components that generate electric current in response to light. Each component is built with a different material:  These materials specialize in various light wavelengths, this allows the cell to capture more energy from the whole light spectrum. The researchers created these “quantum wells” with the middle layer. Represents the minimum energy that is required to excite an electron up to a state in the conduction band where it can participate in conduction By sandwiching a conductive layer between two other materials with a wider band gap, they were able to get the electrons confined to two dimensions, which allowed the material to capture more light in return. A band gap is the distance between the valence band of electrons and the conduction band.  This solar cell's middle layer comprised up to 300 quantum wells, which greatly increased the total efficiency Before the novel cell can become widespread, the researchers will need to reduce the expenses and find potential new uses.   First Patient Injected With Experimental Cancer-Killing Virus in New Clinical Trial | Science Alert (07:18) An experimental cancer-killing virus has been administered to a human patient for the first time, with hopes the testing will ultimately reveal evidence of a new means of successfully fighting cancer tumors in people's bodies.The drug candidate, called CF33-hNIS (aka Vaxinia) The drug is an oncolytic virus, which is a genetically modified virus designed to selectively infect and kill cancer cells while sparing healthy ones.A modified smallpox virus Works by entering cells and duplicating itself. Eventually, the infected cell bursts, releasing thousands of new virus particles that act as antigens, stimulating the immune system to attack nearby cancer cells. Previous research in animal models has shown the drug can harness the immune system in this way to hunt and destroy cancer cells, but up until now no testing has been done in humans.The first phase of the trial focuses on the safety and tolerability of the drug. The intervention is expected to enroll 100 participants in total, each being an adult patient with metastatic or advanced solid tumors who has previously tried at least two prior lines of standard treatment.These individuals will receive low doses of the experimental treatment via direct injection or intravenously. If early results are successful and CF33-hNIS is deemed safe and well tolerated, additional tests will investigate how the drug pairs with pembrolizumab, an existing antibody treatment already used in cancer immunotherapy. If the drug does turn out to be safe and well-tolerated, we could be looking at a powerful new tool for fighting tumors, and a game-changer. According to surgical oncologist Susanne Warner, said back in 2020 “Our oncolytic virus trains the immune system to target a

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Brilliant Planet plans cheap, gigaton-scale carbon capture using algae | New Atlas (01:08) Direct air carbon capture is currently far too costly – but this London company, Brilliant Planet, says it can do it at enormous scale for a tenth the price, using engineered algal blooms in ponds located near desert coastlinesGoals to de-acidify the ocean as well. Direct air capture will need to be part of the decarbonizing equation, and it'll need to be massively scalable, energy efficient and much, much cheaper than today's technology. The idea is to corral and harness the carbon-gobbling power of algae, replicating and maintaining the conditions that cause algal blooms in large, low-density outdoor ponds full of seawater.Algae is an inherently more efficient biological machine for carbon capture than trees or plants Its entire surface area is dedicated to photosynthesis and it doesn't waste resources creating trunks, roots or branches Another bonus is that it grows and proliferates extremely fast under the right conditions. Simplified process: Account for most of the energy this system requires A location is chosen, on flat desert land near a coast,  A team of bio-prospectors starts filtering through samples of thousands of local strains of algae, selecting the ones that best fits the location.  Thus, there are no introduced species, and the algae is already well adapted to the local climate and conditions. They set up a series of pumps, with which to bring seawater into a series of containers and ponds.  In these right conditions they would monitor, they can grow a lot of algae. It also can deacidify the seawater. CEO Adam Taylorm said: “For every unit of water that passes through the system we de-acidify the equivalent of 5.1 units back to pre-industrial pH levels." Taylor says the company's already identified a "short list" of about half a million square kilometers of suitably flat coastal desert land. Potential for about two gigatons – two billion tons – of carbon capture In other words, it could cancel out more than 5.5 percent of humanity's annual global CO2 emissions, offsetting about half the total emissions of today's road transport sector.  The company has tested its approach successfully in Oman, South Africa. Now they plan on moving to a large area, roughly 74 acres, in 2023. Musk's Starlink Internet Is Now Available in 32 Countries | CNET (07:14) SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service has now rolled out to 32 countries, the company said Thursday. The hardware can ship "immediately" to areas where the service is available. Starlink is available in much of the US, Europe and New Zealand, in addition to chunks of Canada, Australia and South America. Many of the remaining countries and areas show availability coming in 2023. After a few years of launches, the company has amassed a constellation of more than 2,000 low Earth orbit satellites to provide satellite internet around the globe.   Plants Have Been Grown in Lunar Soil For The First Time Ever | Good News Network (09:29) Food has been grown in soil collected from the moon for the first time, paving the way for human migration across the solar system.It is a first step towards producing food and oxygen on the moon, or during space missions. This all relates to NASA’s Artemis program which will lay the foundation for a sustained colony on the lunar surface.Using the moon to validate deep space systems and operations—before embarking on a manned voyage to Mars. Co-author Professor Rob Ferl, talked about the future missions and growing food in the lunar soil:“For future, longer space missions, we may use the moon as a hub or launching pad. It makes sense that we would want to use the soil that’s already there to grow plants … So, what happens when you grow plants in lunar soil, something that is totally outside of a plant’s evolutionary experience? What would plants do in a lunar greenhouse? Could we have lunar farmers?” This University of Flori

Starlink's new Portability feature brings internet to vanlifers - The Verge (01:02) Starlink’s internet-from-SpaceX service has gone mobile with a new Portability feature.It costs an additional $25 each month, on top of monthly subscriptions that already start at $110 after a one-time hit of $599 to purchase the Starlink kit. Starlink subscribers can now take their “dishy” anywhere on their home continent that provides active internet coverage. That opens up connectivity to remote places that will likely never be covered by 5G  Starlink doesn’t support use while driving yet, but the company says it’s actively working on a solution for moving vehicles. Musk has previously tweeted about working on a power-efficient solution that can plug into a car’s 12V cigarette lighter and still maintain connectivity. Starlink reportedly draws between 60-70W, an improvement on the 80-100W draw from just a year ago. Starlink is offering Portability on a “best effort basis,” the company says, with users at their registered service addresses receiving priority for network resources.   Rocket Lab launched and recovered a rocket mid-air in a world first | Interesting Engineering (05:31) Rocket Lab, a private aerospace firm, launched a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1A on Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, at roughly 6:48 PM EDTPayload of 34 picosatellites and cubesats into orbit Less than 30 minutes after launch, the rocket's first stage was actually caught mid-air by a flying helicopter.They captured the rocket's drogue chute line. A few seconds after recovering the rocket, the helicopter pilot opted to release the rocket — which plummeted into the deep blue ocean, where it was picked up by a ship  From a tweet from Reuters' Joey Roulette: “Rocket Lab's Murielle Baker says the helicopter pilots [decided] to drop the rocket booster in the ocean after noticing "different load characteristics" than what they experienced during previous testing” Murielle Baker is Rocket Labs' Senior Communications Adviser This is real, it's happening. A flying helicopter successfully caught a first-stage booster rocket, in mid-air. This may not have been a full recovery and reuse of the rocket, but Rocket Lab has just taken us a major step closer to comparatively cheap ways of recycling used booster engines.   Lithium-ion recycler Li-Cycle lands $200 million to power future EVs | TechCrunch (09:54) Metals and fossil fuels behemoth Glencore is pumping $200 million into battery recycler Li-Cycle as part of a larger, symbiotic supply deal inked by the two firms. The Swiss materials giant, Glencore, will ship burnt-out batteries and scraps to Li-Cycle, which will recover the high-demand metals so they can be reused in electric vehicle batteries and other applications. Li-Cycle’s Process:Shred spent batteries and use a water-based system, known as hydrometallurgical processing, to begin to break down the batteries. Hydrometallurgy involve the use of aqueous solutions for the recovery of metals from ores, concentrates, and recycled or residual materials In Li-Cycle’s own hubs, they separate black mass into a variety of materials, including those that can be used to make new lithium-ion batteries. In this partnership, Glencore will be providing Li-Cycle with black mass for processing as well as manufacturing scrap. Securing a supply of scrap could be advantageous for the startup since it is easier to recycle than whole batteries. Why is Glencore doing this?Glencore has been advancing efforts to boost recycling of the batteries that power electric vehicles, including its  plans to build a U.K. plant as part of a deal to help Britishvolt Ltd. develop Britain’s first large-scale EV battery plant. Electric automakers, mining companies and chemical suppliers are racing to control more supplies of materials that are key to transitioning the world to cleaner energy sources.Car manufacturers and industry analysts expect recycled batteries to play a vit