A new study finds that one-third of proposed grammatical “universals” hold up under rigorous testing.
Category: futurism – Page 65
Microsoft says bug in classic Outlook hides the mouse pointer
Microsoft is investigating a known issue that causes the mouse pointer to disappear in the classic Outlook desktop email client for some users.
This bug has been acknowledged almost two months after the first reports started surfacing online, with users saying that Outlook became unusable after the mouse pointer vanished while using the app.
“My mouse just stopped being visible while I am using Outlook, and this is very, very, frustrating because my permission wasn’t given to make these changes, and now I can’t find anything, can’t open emails, can’t copy and paste, and the list goes on and on,” one customer noted.
MGem: AAV, from almost a virus to an awesome vector—or is it?
An interesting paper evaluating the challenges faced by the existing generation of AAV vectors and proposing best practices for the future of AAVs in gene therapy. Useful tables of serotype, dose, and outcome are included. [ https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.02957-25](https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.02957-25)
Adeno-associated virus (AAV), discovered in 1965 (1), was considered a “biological oddity” and was dubbed as “almost a virus” (2), because it fails to undergo a productive replication in the absence of co-infection with a helper virus, such as adenovirus (3), herpesvirus (4), vaccinia virus (5), or human papillomavirus (6). Infection with the wild-type (WT) AAV infection is also not associated with any known disease in humans. However, following the availability of the complete nucleotide sequence of the WT AAV2 genome (7), molecular cloning (8, 9), and the demonstration of its remarkable ability to integrate site-specifically into human chromosome 19q13.3 (10, 11), sparked a significant interest in AAV, subsequently leading to the development of the first generation of recombinant AAV2 vectors (12, 13), followed by further refinements (14, 15).
Ever since then, interest in AAV vectors has continued to grow exponentially (16–19). The first generation of AAV vectors has been used in at least 700 programs, and there are over 200 currently active Phase I/II/III clinical trials for gene therapy of a wide variety of human diseases. Thus far, seven AAV “drugs”—Luxturna for Leber congenital amaurosis (20–22); Zolgensma for spinal muscular atrophy (23); Hemgenix for hemophilia B (24–27); Elevidys for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (28); Roctavian for hemophilia A (29–32); Beqvez for hemophilia B (33) (Beqvez has now been discontinued); and Kebilidi for aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase deficiency (34, 35)—have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Guest Week: Bill Amend (FoxTrot)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
This means you’re free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). More details.
HRD1 negatively regulates autolysosome formation by inhibiting liquid-liquid phase separation of SNAP29
Qu et al. identify HRD1 as a key negative regulator of autophagosome-lysosome fusion. They demonstrate that HRD1 interacts with the SNARE protein SNAP29 to suppress its liquid-liquid phase separation. This work establishes the regulation of SNARE complex assembly via phase separation as a critical control mechanism for autophagy progression.
Future Day 2026
🛰️Future Day is coming soon ⚡️
Participants include: Anders Sandberg, Ben Goertzel, Hugo de Garis, Roman Yampolskiy, Lev Lafayette, Adam Ford, Christine Peterson, Robin Hanson, Aubrey de Grey, Joscha Bach, James Hughes and Danica Dillion.
Live from Australia! This time we have Future Day spanning 3 days – from March 2nd to March 4nd AEDT – from March 1st to March 5th PST.
Why not celebrate the amazing future we are collectively creating?
Future Day 2026 -> where the future isn’t just discussed, but actively shaped.
Remote volcano is waking up after being dormant for 700,000 years
It sits more than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) down, so the current push likely comes from gases above it rather than fresh magma reaching the surface.
The pattern looks like a slow squeeze. First the ground rose, then it steadied as new cracks opened and some gas found exit paths.
Taftan volcano is a 12,927 foot (3,940 meter) stratovolcano, a steep volcano that is built of layers of lava and ash. It vents through summit fumaroles – volcanic vents that emit gas – which shows the system still moves.