Lifeboat Foundation

Here’s a new chapter in the story of the miniaturisation of machines: researchers in a laboratory in Singapore have shown that a single atom can function as either an engine or a fridge. Such a device could be engineered into future computers and fuel cells to control energy flows.

“Think about how your computer or laptop has a lot of things inside it that heat up. Today you cool that with a fan that blows air. In nanomachines or quantum computers, small devices that do cooling could be something useful,” says Dario Poletti from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

This work gives new insight into the mechanics of such devices. The work is a collaboration involving researchers at the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) and Department of Physics at the National University of Singapore (NUS), SUTD and at the University of Augsburg in Germany. The results were published in the peer-reviewed journal npj Quantum Information on 1 May.

Antibody found to block infection by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in cells.

The ‘47D11’ antibody targets the ‘spike protein’ of the destructive coronavirus.

Continue reading “Antibody prevents the COVID-19 virus from infecting human cells” »

Severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is characterized by pneumonia, lymphopenia, exhausted lymphocytes and a cytokine storm. Significant antibody production is observed; however, whether this is protective or pathogenic remains to be determined. Defining the immunopathological changes in patients with COVID-19 provides potential targets for drug discovery and is important for clinical management. In the short time since SARS-CoV2 emerged, much has been learned about the immunopathology of the infection. Here, Xuetao Cao discusses what these early insights imply for drug discovery and clinical management.

A microbe found in mosquitoes that appears to block malaria could be used to control spread of the disease in humans, according to researchers in Kenya and Britain.

In findings published Monday by the journal Nature Communications, the authors describes finding the microbe, Microsporidia MB, in mosquitoes around Lake Victoria in Africa — and that they could not find a single mosquito with the microbe that also had the malaria parasite.

A possible malaria control approach involves the dissemination in mosquitoes of inherited symbiotic microbes to block Plasmodium transmission. However, in the Anopheles gambiae complex, the primary African vectors of malaria, there are limited reports of inherited symbionts that impair transmission. We show that a vertically transmitted microsporidian symbiont (Microsporidia MB) in the An. gambiae complex can impair Plasmodium transmission. Microsporidia MB is present at moderate prevalence in geographically dispersed populations of An. arabiensis in Kenya, localized to the mosquito midgut and ovaries, and is not associated with significant reductions in adult host fecundity or survival. Field-collected Microsporidia MB infected An. arabiensis tested negative for P. falciparum gametocytes and, on experimental infection with P. falciparum, sporozoites aren’t detected in Microsporidia MB infected mosquitoes. As a microbe that impairs Plasmodium transmission that is non-virulent and vertically transmitted, Microsporidia MB could be investigated as a strategy to limit malaria transmission.

Nevertheless, its approach is often criticized as too labour-intensive, complex and hard to scale. Several of these issues could be solved with technology, enabling a more widespread use of permaculture as a viable option for future agriculture.

But a new invention could allow us to continue generating renewable energy even in the dark, the New York Times reports. Electrical engineer Aaswath Raman, at the University of California in LA, has come up with a device that can harness energy from a dark night sky to power an LED — hinting at a new frontier in renewable energy.

Power of the Dark Side

Raman’s findings were published in the journal Joule today. His device — made from easy-to-find materials including Styrofoam and off-the-shelf aluminum parts — takes advantage of radiative cooling, the process that allows objects to release heat after the Sun sets.

Mr. Schmidt is pressing forward with a Silicon Valley worldview where advances in software and A.I. are the keys to figuring out almost any issue. While that philosophy has led to social networks that spread disinformation and other unintended consequences, Mr. Schmidt said he was convinced that applying new and relatively untested technology to complex situations — including deadly ones — would make service members more efficient and bolster the United States in its competition with China.

The former Google C.E.O. has reinvented himself as the prime liaison between Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex.

The U.S. military has been “stuck in software in the 1980s,” said Eric Schmidt, Google’s former chief executive. Credit… Winni Wintermeyer/Redux.

Douglas Hurley, along with Bob Behnken, is about to fly to the International Space Station using a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

How much is a contract to deliver supplies to an imaginary space station worth?