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Jun 7, 2023

Colorectal cancer screening: At what age should I get a colonoscopy?

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Colorectal cancer screening can detect cancer early, giving you the greatest chance for successful treatment. While colonoscopy is the gold standard for colorectal cancer screening, you may be wondering when you should get your first test.

We spoke with gastroenterologist Mazen Alasadi, M.D., about the recommended age for colonoscopies.

Jun 7, 2023

X-ray Emissions from Black Hole Jets Vary Unexpectedly, Challenging Leading Model of Particle Acceleration

Posted by in categories: cosmology, particle physics

Researchers discovered only relatively recently that black hole jets emit X-rays, and how the jets accelerate particles to this high-energy state is still a mystery. Surprising new findings in Nature Astronomy appear to rule out one leading theory, opening the door to reimagining how particle acceleration works in the jets—and possibly also elsewhere in the universe.

One leading model of how jets generate X-rays expects the jets’ X-ray emissions to remain stable over long time scales (millions of years). However, the new paper found that the X-ray emissions of a statistically significant number of jets varied over just a few years.

“One of the reasons we’re excited about the variability is that there are two main models for how X-rays are produced in these jets, and they’re completely different,” explains lead author Eileen Meyer, an astronomer at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “One model invokes very low-energy electrons and one has very high-energy electrons. And one of those models is completely incompatible with any kind of variability.”

Jun 7, 2023

Thinking about death: High neural activity is linked to shorter lifespans

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Aint necessarily so.


After a comprehensive study, researchers came to a startling conclusion.

Jun 7, 2023

Oceans warmer last month than any May on record

Posted by in categories: climatology, sustainability

Global oceans were warmer last month than any other May in records stretching back to the 19th century, the European Union’s climate monitoring unit reported Wednesday.

Sea temperatures at a depth of about 10 meters were a quarter of a degree Celsius higher than ice-free oceans in May averaged across 1991 to 2020, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

Year-round, long-term trends have added 0.6C to the ’s surface waters in 40 years, said C3S deputy director Samantha Burgess, noting that April had also seen a new record for heat.

Jun 7, 2023

ChatGPT designs its first robot

Posted by in categories: food, robotics/AI

Poems, essays and even books—is there anything the open AI platform ChatGPT can’t handle? These new AI developments have inspired researchers at TU Delft and the Swiss technical university EPFL to dig a little deeper: For instance, can ChatGPT also design a robot? And is this a good thing for the design process, or are there risks? The researchers published their findings in Nature Machine Intelligence.

What are the greatest future challenges for humanity? This was the first question that Cosimo Della Santina, assistant professor, and Ph.D. student Francesco Stella, both from TU Delft, and Josie Hughes from EPFL, asked ChatGPT.

“We wanted ChatGPT to design not just a , but one that is actually useful,” says Della Santina. In the end, they chose as their challenge, and as they chatted with ChatGPT, they came up with the idea of creating a tomato-harvesting robot.

Jun 7, 2023

Google DeepMind’s game-playing AI just found another way to make code faster

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI

“It’s an interesting new approach,” says Peter Sanders, who studies the design and implementation of efficient algorithms at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and who was not involved in the work. “Sorting is still one of the most widely used subroutines in computing,” he says.

DeepMind published its results in Nature today. But the techniques that AlphaDev discovered are already being used by millions of software developers. In January 2022, DeepMind submitted its new sorting algorithms to the organization that manages C++, one of the most popular programming languages in the world, and after two months of rigorous independent vetting, AlphaDev’s algorithms were added to the language. This was the first change to C++’s sorting algorithms in more than a decade and the first update ever to involve an algorithm discovered using AI.

Jun 7, 2023

HsCRP: What’s Optimal, Which Factors May Reduce It?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

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Jun 7, 2023

Humans to achieve immortality in 8 YEARS, says former Google engineer

Posted by in categories: life extension, Ray Kurzweil, robotics/AI

Ray Kurzweil is known for making predictions in technology that have come true — and now he is sure humans will reach immortality in our lifetime. He also explains how robots will make it happen.

Jun 7, 2023

Interstellar Cyclers

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, space travel

A new kind of starship.

The huge distances between Earth and the nearest star make it necessary for us to conceive of extremely high-velocity starships if interstellar travel is to be possible with durations less than a human lifetime. In practise this means accelerating the starship to some percent of lightspeed. The problem with doing this, of course, is that truly phenomenal amounts of power are required to boost a ship to such velocities.[1]

Various propulsion schemes have been proposed, from nuclear fusion to antimatter to laser sails. Until recently, laser sailing seemed like the most economical and easiest way, even though it still requires that we build lasers that draw more power than all of human civilization is now capable of producing. [Author’s note: since I first wrote this a method has been proposed that could amplify a laser launcher’s power by factors of tens of thousands. So I guess laser launch is back on the table.].

Jun 7, 2023

NASA awoke Voyager 1 from 14.6 billion miles away, and the spacecraft responded

Posted by in category: space

Launched in 1977, NASA’s Voyager probes continue their exploration, pushing the boundaries of human understanding. Earlier this year, NASA faced an unsettling situation when Voyager 1, second of the pair to be launched, began sending back distorted communications. This sparked worries about a significant system failure in the spacecraft, now 45 years into its journey. However, NASA recently reported that it had successfully rectified the problem, which in turn has uncovered another mystery to investigate.

Voyager 1’s journey began with a “Grand Tour” of the outer planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — enabled by a unique planetary alignment. After its journey past Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 outran its twin, Voyager 2, eventually becoming the first man-made object to leave the solar system in 2012.

The trouble began when NASA detected issues with the craft’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS), responsible for ensuring the probe’s antenna stays pointed towards Earth. Failure of this system could result in a permanent loss of communication with the aging explorer. While this system returned scrambled updates, the probe was still transmitting valuable data, signaling that something was amiss.