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Sep 24, 2018

SpaceX ramps South Texas activity to prepare for 2019 BFR spaceship testing

Posted by in categories: futurism, space travel

At the same time as the hardware for SpaceX’s first BFR spaceship is entering the early stages of manufacturing, the company’s South Texas test facility is slowly taking shape after more than 18 months of what can be fairly described as hibernation.

The likeliest location for a near-future spaceship test stand or pad has also experienced a comparatively vast influx of construction workers and general activity that began earlier this month September, nearly two and half years after SpaceX began preparing the unstable coastal wetland with the addition of several hundred tons of soil.

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Sep 24, 2018

Call for new approaches to fill significant gaps in understanding Parkinson’s disease

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

New paper calls for the use of advances human-relevant methods to enable understanding of the initiation and progression of Parkinson’s disease.

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Sep 24, 2018

Key companies to attend White House quantum computing meeting

Posted by in categories: computing, government, quantum physics

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The White House will hold a meeting on Monday on U.S. government efforts to boost quantum information science, with administration officials, leading companies including Alphabet Inc ( GOOGL.O ), IBM Corp ( IBM.N ), JPMorgan Chase & Co ( JPM.N ) and academic experts taking part.

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Sep 24, 2018

How nature, nurture shape the sleeping brain

Posted by in categories: biological, neuroscience

Some patterns of electrical activity generated by the brain during sleep are inherited, according to a study of teenage twins published in JNeurosci. Pinpointing the relative contributions of biology and experience to sleep neurophysiology could inform therapies for numerous psychiatric disorders in which alterations in brain activity during sleep can be detected.

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Sep 24, 2018

Google used AI to sort millions of historical Life photos you can explore online

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Google has used its AI prowess to catalog historical images taken by photographers for Life magazine. You can explore them online for free.

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Sep 24, 2018

Gene editing wipes out mosquitoes in lab

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

Researchers have used gene editing to completely eliminate populations of mosquitoes in the lab.

The team tested their technique on the mosquito Anopheles gambiae, which transmits malaria.

They altered part of a gene called doublesex, which determines whether an individual mosquito develops as a male or as a female.

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Sep 24, 2018

A new way to count qubits

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Researchers at Syracuse University, working with collaborators at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison, have developed a new technique for measuring the state of quantum bits, or qubits, in a quantum computer.

Their findings are the subject of an article in Science magazine, which elaborates on the experimental efforts involved with creating such a technique.

The Plourde Group—led by Britton Plourde, professor of physics in Syracuse’s College of Arts and Sciences (A&S)—specializes in the fabrication of superconducting devices and their measurement at low temperatures.

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Sep 24, 2018

The role of brain vasculature in neurodegenerative disorders

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Adequate supply of blood and structural and functional integrity of blood vessels are key to normal brain functioning. On the other hand, cerebral blood flow shortfalls and blood–brain barrier dysfunction are early findings in neurodegenerative disorders in humans and animal models. Here we first examine molecular definition of cerebral blood vessels, as well as pathways regulating cerebral blood flow and blood–brain barrier integrity. Then we examine the role of cerebral blood flow and blood–brain barrier in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and multiple sclerosis. We focus on Alzheimer’s disease as a platform of our analysis because more is known about neurovascular dysfunction in this disease than in other neurodegenerative disorders. Finally, we propose a hypothetical model of Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers to include brain vasculature as a factor contributing to the disease onset and progression, and we suggest a common pathway linking brain vascular contributions to neurodegeneration in multiple neurodegenerative disorders.

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Sep 24, 2018

Canadian Researchers Used 3D Printing to Save a Dachshund Named Patches

Posted by in category: 3D printing

Using a mix of techniques in 3D printing and rapid prototyping, a team of researchers in Canada have successfully replaced about 70 percent of a dachshund name Patches’ skull that had to be removed while excising a tumor. It’s a technique that could some day save human lives as well.

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Sep 24, 2018

From Lifespan to Healthspan

Posted by in category: futurism

This viewpoint discusses increased life expectancy and the initiatives to address the risks and unintended consequences of living longer.

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