Science & TechnologyS


Info

Secrets of sepsis may lie in rare white blood cells

Michaela Fleming
Contagion Live
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 19:39 UTC
Sepsis Prevention
© News-Medical Net
Sepsis is a deadly health threat that affects more than 75,000 children in the United States each year. Approximately 7000 of these pediatric patients die from infection and many of the children who do survive are left with debilitating health challenges. The rates of morbidity and mortality are estimated to be even higher in developing countries. Yet despite the deadly implications of this infection, very little is known about what exactly breaks down in the immune system of a child is fighting off an infection that leads to sepsis.

Now, a team of international investigators have discovered that a rare group of white blood cells called basophils play a critical role in inducing immune responses against infections and preventing the development of sepsis. Investigators from Seattle Children's Research Institute, along with Stanford University School of Medicine and other international labs, are hopeful that the discovery can inspire future research on ways to prevent sepsis.

"Sepsis is the number one killer of children globally, yet little is known about what goes wrong in an individual's immune system to cause sepsis as it fights off an infection," Adrian Piliponsky, PhD, a principal investigator in the research institute's Center for Immunity and Immunotherapies, said in a statement. "Without this information, it's hard to predict who will develop sepsis or explain why sepsis causes a range of immune responses in different individuals."

For the study, the investigators traced immune responses back to the early stages of infections and focused on the basophils, which are thought to play a role in enhancing immune defenses against bacterial infections. According to the investigators, basophils make up less than 1% of a person's white blood cells.
Read More...
Light Sabers

Apple blocks Facebook from running its internal iOS apps

Tom Warren and Jacob Kastrenakes
The Verge
Wed, 30 Jan 2019 17:54 UTC
facebook
© Illustration by Alex Castro / Th
Apple has shut down Facebook's ability to distribute internal iOS apps, from early releases of the Facebook app to basic tools like a lunch menu. A person familiar with the situation tells The Verge that early versions of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and other pre-release "dogfood" (beta) apps have stopped working, as have other employee apps, like one for transportation. Facebook is treating this as a critical problem internally, we're told, as the affected apps simply don't launch on employees' phones anymore.

The shutdown comes in response to news that Facebook has been using Apple's program for internal app distribution to track teenage customers with a "research" app.

That app, revealed yesterday by TechCrunch, was distributed outside of the App Store using Apple's enterprise program, which allows developers to use special certificates to install more powerful apps onto iPhones. Those apps are only supposed to be used by a company's employees, however, and Facebook had been distributing its tracking app to customers. Facebook later said it would shut down the app.
Read More...
Satellite

Declassified US report on potential for 'super EMP blackout warfare'

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 22:35 UTC
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Weapons
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Weapons
Russia, China and several other nations are developing powerful high-altitude nuclear bombs that can produce super-electromagnetic pulse (EMP) waves capable of knocking out critical electronic infrastructure, according to several declassified 2017 reports from the now-defunct Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack (see below).

"Foreign adversaries may aptly consider nuclear EMP attack a weapon that can gravely damage the U.S. by striking at its technological Achilles Heel, without having to confront the U.S. military," reads the report, which notes how foreign actors could use EMP attacks virtually anywhere in the world.
"Super-EMP" weapons, as they are termed by Russia, are nuclear weapons specially designed to generate an extraordinarily powerful E1 EMP field. Super-EMP warheads are designed to produce gamma rays, which generate the E1 EMP effect, not a big explosion, and typically have very low explosive yields, only 1-10 kilotons ... Even EMP hardened U.S. strategic forces and command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) systems are potentially vulnerable to such a threat. -Firstempcommission.org

Comment: Since the only country that has dared use weapons of mass death offensively on such as scale is the US, one can assume the real threat in the above scenarios is the US, however there are natural events which produce EMPs and the US would be wise to look into protecting itself against those:

Read More...
Brain

Neuroengineers create technology that translates thought into speech


Neuroscience News
Tue, 29 Jan 2019 16:13 UTC
brain signals
© NeuroscienceNews.com
Summary: Researchers have developed a new system which utilizes artificial intelligence technology to turn brain signals to recognizable speech. The breakthrough could help restore a voice to those with limited, or no ability, to speak.

Source: Zuckerman Institute.

In a scientific first, Columbia neuroengineers have created a system that translates thought into intelligible, recognizable speech. By monitoring someone's brain activity, the technology can reconstruct the words a person hears with unprecedented clarity. This breakthrough, which harnesses the power of speech synthesizers and artificial intelligence, could lead to new ways for computers to communicate directly with the brain. It also lays the groundwork for helping people who cannot speak, such as those living with as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or recovering from stroke, regain their ability to communicate with the outside world.
Read More...
Camera

Almost ready: First-ever photo of a black hole upcoming and what it might look like

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Sun, 27 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
Black Hole drawing
© Jean-Pierre Luminet
The year 2019 is here. With it, we've been promised a splendid moment in astronomy. For years, the Event Horizon Telescope has been working to bring us the first ever telescopic photograph of the event horizon of a black hole.

Indeed, for all their popularity in public imagination, we have never actually seen a black hole. And the reason for that is laughably simple.

Black holes, you see, are literally invisible. The pull of their gravity is so immense that, past a certain point, nothing escapes. This includes the electromagnetic radiation - such as X-rays, infrared, light and radio waves - that would allow us to detect the object directly.

That point of no return is called the event horizon, and apart from being a terrifying location you never want to find yourself in, it's also our key to actually visualising a black hole.

While we may not be able to see the black hole itself, there's a chance that its event horizon can be photographed; and we are tantalisingly close to seeing the results thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), due for a public announcement any day now.
Read More...
Info

Our genes makes us early risers or stay up late says new study

Ben Lewis
Cosmos Magazine
Tue, 29 Jan 2019 18:14 UTC
Late Nighter
© ISTOCK/VIKTORCAPMy genes made me do it. Staying up late isn't always a matter of choice, research suggests.
If you've ever wondered why some people are up at the crack of dawn while others prefer to sleep late, the answer can be found in your genes.

And it also influences your risk of schizophrenia and depression, say the authors of a new study published in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers led by Mike Weedon from the University of Exeter in the UK studied the genomes of almost 700,000 people in the UK and US, finding a link between being an early riser and certain genes.

The results also highlighted a central role for the retina in the eye in helping the body to keep time.

Using the databases of US genetic testing company 23andMe and the UK BioBank study, the researchers compared differences in genes with the results of self-reported sleeping habits, which were double checked by having 85,000 people in the UK wear activity trackers.

In total, the results increase the number of areas of the genome known to influence whether someone is an early riser from 24 to 351.
Read More...
Fireball 4

Lunar craters reveal rate of asteroid impacts tripled 290 million years ago

Javier Barbuzano
Sky & Telescope
Wed, 23 Jan 2019 14:17 UTC
lunar craters moon
© NASA / LRO / USGS / University of TorontoA team of scientists used NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data to study the Moon's craters, scaled by size and color-coded by age (blue indicates those younger than 290 million years), to understand the impact history of the Earth. Young craters dominate the lunar surface .
Researchers have estimated the ages of craters on the lunar surface, finding that the rate of large impacts nearly tripled 290 million years ago - an increase that might be ongoing.

We know that the solar system can be a chaotic place, where things crash into each other every now and then. The proof stares at us every night: The pockmarked surface of the Moon has been littered by hundreds of thousands of craters, created in asteroid impacts of all sizes.

Earth must also have been bombarded; however, our planet's active geology, including weather and plate tectonics, is extremely efficient in removing the marks left behind by ancient impacts. Only 190 impact craters are known in Earth's surface, and only one of them is more than 2 billion years old. But the Moon is expected to receive the same amount of impacts as Earth, and since the mechanisms that erode craters on Earth are not present there, the craters are preserved indefinitely. A group of researchers has now found a new way to estimate the ages of lunar craters, offering insights on the impact history of the Moon and Earth.

Comment: Sobering research.

Read More...
Butterfly

How to tell when neo-Darwinian scientists are exaggerating

Michael Behe
The Stream
Wed, 23 Jan 2019 19:02 UTC
Red admiral butterfly
Red admiral butterfly
How much can the public trust confident claims by scientists? Especially about morally or politically or philosophically charged topics? Alas, not so much, as the New York Times Magazine reminds us once again in a recent article, "How Beauty Is Making Scientists Rethink Evolution." The subtitle asks, "The extravagant splendor of the animal kingdom can't be explained by natural selection alone - so how did it come to be?"

Butterfly Wings

Great question. But wait a second - haven't we all been told that Darwin's natural selection has already been shown to explain pretty much everything? Forget about pretty flowers or cute puppies. Whole scholarly books have been written claiming that Darwin's theory explains mind, law, literature, music, and more. Yet if the theory can explain much more complicated topics that involve even abstract thinking, why does it have trouble with simpler topics that don't? If it accounts for, say, the Magna Carta, why does it struggle with the colors of butterfly wings?

Still a Mystery

The author writes that some scientists think it's not natural selection that accounts for beauty. Rather it's sexual selection that does the trick. But there's a big ugly fly in that ointment. The existence of sex itself has stumped Darwinists for 150 years! It's still a mystery.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Biohazard

Chickens in Scotland modified to produce human proteins in eggs

Nick Carne
Cosmos Magazine
Mon, 28 Jan 2019 17:51 UTC
Chickens
© ISTOCK/LEONSBOAre these drug providers of the future?
Scottish researchers have genetically modified chickens to produce human proteins in their eggs, which, they say, could offer a cost-effective way to produce certain types of drugs.

During their study, which is reported in the journal BMC Biotechnology, they found that the drugs workd at least as well as the same proteins produced using existing methods.

"We are not yet producing medicines for people, but this study shows that chickens are commercially viable for producing proteins suitable for drug discovery studies and other applications in biotechnology," says Helen Sang, from the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute.

Eggs are already used for growing viruses that are used as vaccines, such as the flu jab. Sang and colleagues say their approach is different because the therapeutic proteins are encoded in the chicken's DNA and produced as part of the egg white.

Large quantities of the proteins can be recovered from each egg using a simple purification system, they say, and there are no adverse effects on the chickens themselves, which lay eggs as normal.
Read More...
Beaker

Genes linked to antibiotic-resistant superbugs found in Arctic soil samples

Fiona Harvey
The Guardian
Mon, 28 Jan 2019 17:09 UTC
Arctic circle
© Gwladys Fouche/ReutersThe genes were found in the soil of Svalbard, in the Arctic circle. They may have been carried there by birds or humans.
Genes associated with antibiotic-resistant superbugs have been discovered in the high Arctic, one of the most remote places on earth, showing the rapid spread and global nature of the resistance problem.

The genes were first identified in a hospital patient in India in 2007-8, then in surface waters in Delhi in 2010, probably carried there by sewage, and are now confirmed in soil samples from Svalbard in the Arctic circle, in a paper in the journal Environment International. They may have been carried by migrating birds or human visitors, but human impact on the area is minimal.

While the genes, called blaNDM-1, have been identified in soil on the Norwegian archipelago, the presence of superbugs has not. The genes can confer on bacteria resistance to carbapenems, which are antibiotics of last resort for the treatment of human diseases.

Antibiotic resistance threatens a global "apocalypse", England's chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, has warned, and last week the health secretary, Matt Hancock, called it a bigger threat than climate change or warfare. Common operations could become life-threatening and rapidly spreading and evolving diseases could overcome our last medical defences, reversing nearly a century of remarkable progress in human health.

Comment: See also: Antibiotic Resistance Existed Before Man Created the First Drug?

Read More...