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POPSQuiet Explosion: Object Intermediate Between Normal Supernovae And Gamma-ray Bursts Found Stars that were at birth more massive than about 8 times the mass of our Sun end their relatively short life in a cosmic, cataclysmic firework lighting up the Universe. The outcome is the formation of the densest objects that exist, neutron stars and black holes. When exploding, some of the most massive stars emit a short cry of agony, in the form of a burst of very energetic light, X- or gamma-rays.
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POPSDo Not Read This ! At the current state of our planet, and mounting evidence to human induced climate change, these rich resources of fossil fuels are nothing short of a Faustian proposition.
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POPSDrug for Longer Life The other drug is a small synthetic chemical that is a thousand times as potent as resveratrol in activating sirtuin and can be given at a much smaller dose. Safety tests in people have just started, with no adverse effects so far. The hope is that activating sirtuins in people would, like a calorically restricted diet in mice, avert degenerative diseases of aging like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. There is no Food and Drug Administration category for longevity drugs, so if the company is to submit a drug for approval, it needs to be for a specific disease. Nonetheless, longevity is what has motivated the researchers and what makes the drugs potentially so appealing.
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POPSRevolutionary materials reflect ancient forms Because crystals and quasicrystals comprise different material classes with differing physical and chemical properties, the observed intermediate structure is striking. "The combination of crystalline and quasicrystalline structural elements will likely lead to novel material properties"
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POPSArctic Scientists Explore a "Lost" 26-Million-Year-Old Ecosystem “The origin of life discussion comes up because the rocks that are exposed on this very slow spreading ridge are not volcanic, but instead come directly from Earth’s mantle,” says geochemist Susan Humphris. “The chemistry is very much like the volcanism that occurred on the primordial Earth. If you are thinking about origins of life, you’d like to have an area that is the closest analog to what was happening on the early Earth.”
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POPSEnvironmental Threats of the Future Every technological breakthrough will bring with it new problems and dangers, but also the means to deal with them. We just have to tread carefully and responsibly.
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POPSHow dumb are we? Though I tend to agree to the general proposition here, it might be that we witness the arising of a different kind of intelligence, that adapts to the information explosion. Perhaps knowledge is not equated with understanding, and books are not the nexus of intelligence anymore? Perhaps nowadays we need to learn more about the future than we learn about the past?
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POPSIs a 'Dark Force' Pushing the Universe Apart? Astronomers now recognize that the eventual fate of the universe is inextricably tied to the presence of dark energy and dark matter.The current standard model for cosmology describes a universe that is 70 percent dark energy, 25 percent dark matter, and only 5 percent normal matter.
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POPSConverting genetic activity into music may be a way to monitor health. Together, the notes would form a harmonic chord in normal, healthy states and become increasingly out of tune as key physiological signs go awry, signaling disease. Alterovitz employed mathematical modeling to determine relationships between physiological signals. Much like the various systems in an automobile, many physiological signs work in synchrony to keep a body healthy.
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POPSEmotional robots in the spotlight The work is still well shy of an I Robot scenario with emotionally complex machines taking matters into their own hands, but the empathy empowering software being developed by Feelix Growing is a big step forward for robotics. See a short video on the website
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POPSHow a simple mathematic formula is starting to explain the bizarre prevalence of altruism in society This new mathematic model for society’s evolution is particularly interesting because not only it reveals a logic behind the large numbers of cooperators that we know exist in all human societies, but also it gives us a glimpse of the principles that can help “pushing” them into a better, fairer, path. Evolutionary game theory is a mathematical approach used to study (and predict) the evolution of social interactions, in which the study of conflict and decision-making is treated – like its name indicates – as a game.
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POPSResearchers Discover Remnant of an Ancient 'RNA World'
Breaker's lab solved a decades-old mystery by describing how tiny circular RNA molecules called cyclic di-GMP are able to turn genes on and off. This process determines whether the bacterium swims or stays stationary, and whether it remains solitary or joins with other bacteria to form organic masses called biofilms. Bacterial use of RNA to trigger major changes without the involvement of proteins resolves one of the questions about the origin of life: If proteins are needed to carry out life's functions and DNA is needed to make proteins, how did DNA arise? The answer is what Breaker and other researchers call the RNA World. They believe that billions of years ago, single strands of nucleotides that comprise RNA were the first forms of life and carried out some of the complicated cellular functions now done by proteins. The riboswitches are highly conserved in bacteria, illustrating their importance and ancient ancestry, Breaker said.
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POPSBio Lego -MIT & Harvard Scientists Create Living Building Blocks The self-assembly is based on "the thermodynamic tendency of multiphase liquid–liquid systems to minimize their contact surfaces", the most awesomely complicated way of saying "oil and water don't mix" possible. By preparing polyethylene microgel components and adding them to an oil/water mixture, the specially shaped bits align themselves along the spherical liquid interfaces. Applying a few seconds of UV light fixes the microgel in position and you have a ready made, biocompatible (and degradable) matrix ready for the addition of cells. Replicating the different tissue organizations of different organs becomes nothing more than a recipe book, choosing your initial microcomponents, mixture and baking time.
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