By using a compound derived from a Himalayan fungus and used for centuries in Chinese medicine as a jumping off point, scientists have developed a new chemotherapy drug with powerful anti-cancer effects. Doing so involved chemically altering the compound to better infiltrate cancerous cells, which proved to boost its potency by up to 40 times.
A simple cooling system driven by the capture of passive solar energy could provide low-cost food refrigeration and living space cooling for impoverished communities with no access to the electricity grid. The system, which has no electrical components, exploits the powerful cooling effect that occurs when certain salts are dissolved in water. After each cooling cycle, the system uses solar energy to evaporate the water and regenerate the salt, ready for reuse.
“Hot regions have high levels of solar energy, so it would be very attractive to use that solar energy for cooling,” says Wenbin Wang, a postdoc in Peng Wang’s lab. In many parts of the world, there is a greater need for cooling because of climate change, but not every community can access electricity for air conditioning and refrigeration. “We conceptualized an off-grid solar-energy conversion and storage design for green and inexpensive cooling,” Professor Wang says.
While most automakers are laser-focused on improving their batteries, the CEO of EV startup Lucid Motors says the battery pack is “totally overrated.”
Tesla has unveiled its latest structural battery pack with 4,680 cells during a Gigafactory Berlin tour ahead of Model Y production at the new factory. The start of production at Gigafactory Berlin is not just significant for Tesla’s growth in Europe, but it will also mark the launch of an important new version of the […].
Tesla has unveiled its latest structural battery pack with 4,680 cells during a Gigafactory Berlin tour ahead of Model Y production at the new factory.
The start of production at Gigafactory Berlin is not just significant for Tesla’s growth in Europe, but it will also mark the launch of an important new version of the Model Y. Tesla plans to build the new Model Y at Gigafactory Berlin on a whole new platform with its structural battery pack.
Earlier this year, Electrek obtained the first image of a Tesla structural battery pack prototype.
Forget science fiction — Silicon Valley start-up Light Field Lab has created a hologram so real that I could put my hand right through it.
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“Move fast and break things” doesn’t exactly translate into Mandarin.
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Silicon Valley: History’s Greatest ‘Ponzi Scheme’ (Mini-Documentary) by Jake Tran.
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The historic mission is still going strong.
A Chinese lander and rover are still up and running more than 1,000 Earth days after they made a historic first-ever landing on the far side of the moon.
The Chang’e 4 lander carrying the Yutu 2 rover touched down in Von Kármán Crater on Jan. 2 2019, and the robotic mission has been exploring the unique area of our celestial neighbor ever since.
The mind is a powerful thing – it can generate both symptoms of illness and symptoms of healing. Here’s what this could tell us about consciousness.
Neural circuits underlying brain functions are vulnerable to damage, including ischemic injury, leading to neuronal loss and gliosis. Recent technology of direct conversion of endogenous astrocytes into neurons in situ can simultaneously replenish the neuronal population and reverse the glial scar. However, whether these newly reprogrammed neurons undergo normal development, integrate into the existing neuronal circuit, and acquire functional properties specific for this circuit is not known. We investigated the effect of NeuroD1-mediated in vivo direct reprogramming on visual cortical circuit integration and functional recovery in a mouse model of ischemic injury. After performing electrophysiological extracellular recordings and two-photon calcium imaging of reprogrammed cells in vivo and mapping the synaptic connections formed onto these cells ex vivo, we discovered that NeuroD1 reprogrammed neurons were integrated into the cortical microcircuit and acquired direct visual responses. Furthermore, following visual experience, the reprogrammed neurons demonstrated maturation of orientation selectivity and functional connectivity. Our results show that NeuroD1-reprogrammed neurons can successfully develop and integrate into the visual cortical circuit leading to vision recovery after ischemic injury.
Functional circuit impairment associated with neuronal loss is commonly seen in patients with brain injuries, such as ischemia. Though neural stem cells (NSCs) exist in the subventricular zone (SVZ) in the adult brain, they are found to differentiate mainly into astrocytes when they migrate to injured cortex (Benner et al., 2013; Faiz et al., 2015), and their neurogenesis capacity is too limited to compensate for the neuronal loss. Currently, it still remains a challenge to generate neurons in adults and functionally incorporate them into the local circuits. Several strategies have shown the capability to induce neurogenesis and lead to some behavioral recovery. One promising approach is to transplant stem cell-derived neurons or neural progenitor cells (Tornero et al., 2013; Michelsen et al., 2015; Falkner et al., 2016; Somaa et al., 2017). Yet, there are concerns about graft rejection and tumorigenicity of the transplanted cells (Erdo et al., 2003; Marei et al., 2018).
