Circa 2015
Most animals eventually get old and die. But a few lucky species don’t seem to feel the weight of time, and just keep going and going.
Circa 2017
Injecting DNA into injured horse tendons and ligaments can cure lameness, new research involving scientists at Kazan Federal University, Moscow State Academy and The University of Nottingham has found.
The gene therapy technology was used in horses that had gone lame due to injury and within two to three weeks the horses were able to walk and trot. Within just two months they were back to full health, galloping and competing.
Continue reading “Gene therapy can cure lameness in horses, research finds” »
Quantum technology is currently one of the most active fields of research worldwide. It takes advantage of the special properties of quantum mechanical states of atoms, light, or nanostructures to develop, for example, novel sensors for medicine and navigation, networks for information processing and powerful simulators for materials sciences. Generating these quantum states normally requires a strong interaction between the systems involved, such as between several atoms or nanostructures.
Until now, however, sufficiently strong interactions were limited to short distances. Typically, two systems had to be placed close to each other on the same chip at low temperatures or in the same vacuum chamber, where they interact via electrostatic or magnetostatic forces. Coupling them across larger distances, however, is required for many applications such as quantum networks or certain types of sensors.
A team of physicists, led by Professor Philipp Treutlein from the Department of Physics at the University of Basel and the Swiss Nanoscience Institute (SNI), has now succeeded for the first time in creating strong coupling between two systems over a greater distance across a room temperature environment. In their experiment, the researchers used laser light to couple the vibrations of a 100 nanometer thin membrane to the motion of the spin of atoms over a distance of one meter. As a result, each vibration of the membrane sets the spin of the atoms in motion and vice versa.
No one has ever seen any airplane like this, except on computer animation. Now, some of the world’s top aeronautical engineers are going to build it for real.
The plan calls for constructing a six-ton unmanned, remote controlled plane the size of a business jet with 24 spinning propellers embedded in its huge moveable wings that allow it to magically hover in midair.
It’s an experimental airplane they call LightningStrike.
WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to launch the first experimental satellites of the Blackjack program in late 2020 and early 2021, the agency said May 11.
DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office started the Blackjack program in 2018 to show the military utility of low Earth orbit constellations and mesh networks of low-cost satellites.
As many as 20 satellites will be launched by 2022.
A growing cadre of startups is pursuing iterative cycles of machine learning, wet-lab experimentation and human feedback to accelerate target drug discovery.
A new AI diagnostic tool trained on crowdsourced symptom data can predict whether someone likely has COVID-19 without testing.
The model was trained on data from more than 2.5 million users of the COVID Symptom Study app developed at King’s College London, which anyone can download to report their daily health status.
Starlink’s transceiver gets pictured and Starship passes a key test. Tom Cruise in space? How can readers volunteer with the space community? It’s Musk Reads: SpaceX Edition #167.
A version of this article appeared in the “Musk Reads” newsletter. Sign up for free here.
Are you taking any pills to enhance performance?
When it comes to the mind, there are a host of drugs that have become popular in various settings as nootropics, from college campuses to high power startups in Silicon Valley. Of these, a few families of drugs have accumulated a collection of research studies suggesting that they could be utilized safety, and also produce a desired effect.
The first such category of such drugs that performance enhancement seekers often try are stimulants. Two common such drugs are methylphenidate and dexamphetamine, which are used routinely and safely to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy. Despite their popularity for off-label use to boost concentration, however, these drugs are not really nootropics. They are actually quite dangerous if you don’t have ADHD or narcolepsy, or some other deficit, because tolerance builds up quickly, leading to dependence. Thus, while methylphenidate can keep you awake overnight or give you a boost in the morning, and possibly move you faster through a pile of non-creative work, they don’t really make you think better, and if you keep taking them you will be back to square one on performance, and with a drug dependence problem. You’d be better off with a strong cup of coffee.
Continue reading “Supercharged brains and the quest to think better and faster” »
