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Certain types of bacteria can mutate to reproduce more quickly when exposed to microgravity, and that’s not great news for our space tourist dreams, seeing as we humans are teeming with bacteria.

It’s not clear why these bacteria have responded so positively to microgravity, but researchers are now figuring out ways to protect astronauts out in space, as well as mitigating the damage should a space-modified colony ever find its way back to Earth.

Researchers from the University of Houston monitored Escherichia coli cells through 1,000 generations of growth in simulated microgravity conditions, finding that it spread significantly faster than a control sample of unaltered bacteria.

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High-energy X-ray beams and a clever experimental setup allowed researchers to watch a high-pressure, high-temperature chemical reaction to determine for the first time what controls formation of two different nanoscale crystalline structures in the metal cobalt. The technique allowed continuous study of cobalt nanoparticles as they grew from clusters including tens of atoms to crystals as large as five nanometers.

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But the periodic table didn’t actually start with Mendeleev. Many had tinkered with arranging the elements. Decades before, chemist John Dalton tried to create a table as well as some rather interesting symbols for the elements (they didn’t catch on). And just a few years before Mendeleev sat down with his deck of homemade cards, John Newlands also created a table sorting the elements by their properties.

Mendeleev’s genius was in what he left out of his table. He recognised that certain elements were missing, yet to be discovered. So where Dalton, Newlands and others had laid out what was known, Mendeleev left space for the unknown. Even more amazingly, he accurately predicted the properties of the missing elements.

Dimitry Mendeleev’s table


  • A group of hospitals have built a nonprofit generic drugmaker called Civica Rx.
  • On Monday, another 12 health systems joined the organization.
  • The hope is to make generic drugs that are in shortage or have artificially high prices based on what hospitals need.

Hospitals have a creative plan to tackle the high price and frequent shortages of generic drugs.

The nonprofit company, dubbed Civica Rx, was first announced in early 2018, and has gained a lot of attention from other hospitals around the US who are interested in being a part of the venture.

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Scientists have been researching dark matter for years in an attempt to better understand the universe. Researchers have now found evidence that dark matter can be heated up and moved around as a result of star formation in galaxies. These findings are the first observational evidence for the effect called “dark matter heating.”

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Citizen Science DayWith support from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University and SciStarter invite libraries to be part of Citizen Science Day on April 13. Now in its third year, Citizen Science Day is expanding to include meetups and events with a special focus on supporting libraries to involve their communities in authentic science projects in need of their help. The signature event this year will be the “Stall Catchers Megathon” by the Human Computation Institute. Complete the registration form to sign up.

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It was a good year for DOST-Philippines after it successfully launched two satellites under the Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite (PHL-Microsat) program: Maya-1 the country’s first cube satellite measuring only 10 cubic centimeters in August, and Diwata-2, the improved version of both its predecessors in October.

Manila, August 10, 2018 — Cheers full of Filipino pride were heard in the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute building as officials from UP, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the Embassy of Japan in the Philippines, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) witnessed the live deployment of Maya-1, the Philippines’ first ever cube satellite (CubeSat).

After its turnover to JAXA last May 15, the Maya-1 CubeSat was brought to the International Space Station (ISS) through the SpaceX Falcon 9 CRS-15 on June 29. “This is actually our second major achievement in space science and technology,” said UP Diliman chancellor Michael Tan, looking back on the Diwata-1 microsatellite launch on March 23, 2016 from Cape Canaveral and its deployment from the ISS on April 27, 2016.

The development of Maya-1 falls under the BIRDS-2 (Birds Satellite Project), a cross-border interdisciplinary satellite project that accommodates non-space faring countries. The project consists of 11 participating team members from four different countries — Bhutan, Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines. The Philippines was represented throughout the project by two DOST scholars enrolled in graduate studies at the Kyushu Institute of Technology (Kyutech) — Joven Javier from the Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) of the DOST and Adrian Salces of UP Diliman. Javier, in particular, was designated as Project Manager and led the multinational BIRDS-2 team in the development of the CubeSats.

Continue reading “PH CUBESAT MAYA-1 successfully deployed to space” | >

ARMONK, N.Y., Jan. 4, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — IBM (NYSE: IBM) Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty will deliver the opening keynote at CES 2019 on Tuesday, Jan. 8. CES is the largest and one of the most influential technology events in the world.

Rometty will show how technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain and cloud are reshaping the world of business, and, in turn, our daily lives. She also will talk about what’s coming next in these pioneering technologies – and how new data will revolutionize how we live, work and play. Rometty shares perspective on the future of technology in the Consumer Technology Association magazine It Is Innovation (i3) CES edition: https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/manifest/i3_20190102

Rometty will be joined onstage by Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines; Charles Redfield, executive vice president of Food for Walmart; and Vijay Swarup, vice president of R&D for ExxonMobil.

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In recent years, antibiotic-resistant bacteria has become such a concern that the World Health Organization has cautioned of a “post-antibiotic era,” which may be here soon. According to the CDC, in America alone around 2 million people are infected with antibiotic-resistant infections annually and in less developed countries it is quickly becoming one of the greatest concerns in public health.

In an urgent search for new natural antibiotics, scientists are examining ancient remedies in order to determine what made them effective. One such remedy comes from the Boho Highlands of Northern Ireland, where ancient Irish Druids utilized natural antibiotics from the soil. Inverse reports the findings of these scientists, published in Frontiers in Microbiology:

[The] alkaline soil sampled from the Sacred Heart Church in the town of Toneel North contains a new strain of bacteria they named Streptomyches sp. myrophorea. Testing revealed that this strain inhibited the growth of four of the six multi-resistant pathogens identified by the WHO as “high priority pathogens.”

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