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Comment Study published in 2018 (Score 5, Informative) 78

by Joe_NoOne (#65358649) Attached to: Scientists Identify New Mutation That Enables Three-Hour Sleepers

In 2009, UC San Francisco neurology professor Ying-Hui Fu, PhD, discovered a mutation in the gene DEC2 in a family of natural short sleepers – people who go to bed at a normal time (11 p.m. to midnight) but wake up naturally at 5 in the morning. “These are not people who’ve trained themselves to wake up early. They’re born this way,” says Fu.

A new study in mice by Fu’s lab – published in PNAS on March 12, 2018 – reveals how the DEC2 mutation seen in human short-sleepers may allow them to survive and thrive on just a few hours of sleep.

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2018...
Businesses

Big Tech's Summer Internships Go Digital (axios.com) 4

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
The major tech companies are scrambling to craft digital options for this year's summer intern class, as businesses remain shuttered due to the coronavirus pandemic. These companies said they're moving their programs online: Google said it will pay its interns the full rate.
Twitter said its intern class may shrink this year.
Microsoft said it will have its biggest ever intern class -- more than 4,000.
Lyft, which will have the same number of interns as originally planned, limit them to just two start dates to provide students with more of a common experience.
Salesforce, which also plans a similar size intern class as intended. These companies are still hoping have at least some interns on-site for at least part of the summer: Apple said it plans to hire more than 1,000 people for a mix of online and in-person internships and pledged in a statement to "extend to our interns the same precautions and care that we're extending to all our other personnel as a part of the ongoing COVID-19 response."
Amazon said it expects its biggest-ever class of interns globally, though it said the vast majority of internships will be virtual.
Intel, which does plan to have its interns work remotely but hopes to move them on-site should the situation and health authority guidelines make that possible.
Uber, which has made plans for online on-boarding and will keep the program online if their offices remain closed, but will aim to have its interns work in the office if that is possible.
Doordash said, for now, it "plans to stay the course" with its summer internship program, but is exploring options for conducting the program remotely and will "continue to re-evaluate as the situation progresses."

Submission + - Injecting the flu vaccine into a tumor gets the immune system to attack it (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Joe_NoOne
Joe_NoOne writes: From this perspective, the immune system's inability to eliminate tumor cells isn't only the product of their similarities to healthy cells. It's also the product of the signaling networks that help restrain the immune system to prevent it from attacking normal cells. A number of recently developed drugs help release this self-imposed limit, winning their developers Nobel Prizes in the process. These drugs convert a "cold" immune response, dominated by signaling that shuts things down, into a "hot" one that is able to attack a tumor.

Submission + - Microsoft bans CCleaner (mspoweruser.com)

Submitted by Joe_NoOne
Joe_NoOne writes: Microsoft has never been a fan of registry cleaners, and today we have learned that the company has taken steps to ensure that such software is not recommended to users who are having issues with their PCs. HTNovo reports that Microsoft has added CCleaner.com to their blacklist of domains on the official Microsoft Support forums.

Submission + - Four new DNA letters double life's alphabet (nature.com)

Submitted by Joe_NoOne
Joe_NoOne writes: The DNA of life on Earth naturally stores its information in just four key chemicals — guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine, commonly referred to as G, C, A and T, respectively. Now scientists have doubled this number of life’s building blocks, creating for the first time a synthetic, eight-letter genetic language that seems to store and transcribe information just like natural DNA.

Benner’s team, which includes researchers from various US companies and institutions, created the synthetic letters by tweaking the molecular structure of the regular bases. The letters of DNA pair up because they form hydrogen bonds: each contains hydrogen atoms, which are attracted to nitrogen or oxygen atoms in their partner. Benner explains that it’s a bit like Lego bricks that snap together when the holes and prongs line up. By adjusting these holes and prongs, the team has come up with several new pairs of bases, including a pair named S and B, and another called P and Z2. In the latest paper, they describe how they combine these four synthetic bases with the natural ones. The researchers call the resulting eight-letter language ‘hachimoji’ after the Japanese words for ‘eight’ and ‘letter’. The additional bases are each similar in shape to one of the natural four, but have variations in their bonding patterns.

The researchers then conducted a series of experiments that showed that their synthetic sequences shares properties with natural DNA that are essential for supporting life.

Submission + - Scrap dealer finds Apollo-era NASA computers in dead engineer's basement (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Joe_NoOne
Joe_NoOne writes: A pair of Apollo-era NASA computers and hundreds of mysterious tape reels have been discovered in a deceased engineer’s basement in Pittsburgh. Most of the tapes are unmarked, but the majority of the rest appear to be instrumentation reels for Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, NASA’s fly-by missions to Jupiter and Saturn. At some point in the early 1970s, an IBM engineer working for NASA at the height of the Space Race took home the computers—and the mysterious tape reels. A scrap dealer, invited to clean out the deceased’s electronics-filled basement, discovered the computers. The devices were clearly labelled “NASA PROPERTY,” so the dealer called NASA to report the find.

"Please tell NASA these items were not stolen," the engineer's heir told the scrap dealer, according to the report. "They belonged to IBM Allegheny Center Pittsburgh, PA 15212. During the 1968-1972 timeframe, IBM was getting rid of the items so [redacted engineer] asked if he could have them and was told he could have them."
HP

HP Made a Laptop Slightly Thicker To Add 3 Hours of Battery Life (theverge.com) 167

Posted by BeauHD from the not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that dept.
When a technology company like Apple releases a new product, chances are it's going to be thinner than its predecessor -- even if may be slightly worse off for it. HP is taking a different approach with its new 15.6-inch Spectre x360 laptop, which was recently announced at CES. The machine is slightly thicker than its predecessor, and HP claims it features three hours of additional battery life. The Verge reports: The difference between the new x360 and the old x360, in terms of thickness, is minimal, from 15.9mm to 17.8mm. (For reference, the 2015 MacBook Pro was 18mm thick.) It's an increase of 1.9mm for the Spectre, but HP says it's now including a battery that's 23 percent larger in exchange. At the same time, the laptop is also getting narrower, with its body shrinking from 14.8 inches wide to 14 inches wide. Unfortunately, the claimed three hours of additional battery life aren't meant to make this laptop into some long-lasting wonder -- they're really just meant to normalize its battery life. HP will only be selling the 15.6-inch x360 with a 4K display this year, and that requires a lot more power. By increasing the laptop's battery capacity, HP is able to push the machine's battery life from the 9.5 hours it estimated for the 4K version of its 2016 model to about 12 hours and 45 minutes for this model. So it is adding three hours of battery life, but in doing so, it's merely matching the battery life of last year's 1080p model. The x360 is also being updated to include Intel's Kaby Lake processors. It includes options that max out at an i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and Nvidia GeForce 940MX graphics. It's supposed to be released February 26th, with pricing starting at $1,278 for an entry-level model.

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