185153184
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fahrbot-bot writes:
Smithsonian magazine discusses a new study on how, under the right conditions — wet and oxygen-deprived — the same chemical reactions that cause tissue to break down can instead have the opposite effect on brain tissue and preserve it instead.
The brain is one of the first organs to begin decomposing after death. Yet archaeologists have discovered more than 4,400 preserved human brains around the world, some of which have remained intact for the last 12,000 years. In hundreds of cases, the brain was the only soft tissue left among otherwise skeletal remains.
But how and why do brains sometimes persist for millennia while all other types of soft tissue disappear? This preservation paradox has stumped scientists for years. Now, however, a team of researchers say they may have solved the mystery.
If a brain ends up in a wet, oxygen-starved environment, the processes that usually cause decay can have the opposite effect, researchers report in a study published in the August 7 issue of the Journal of Proteome Research.
“Under the right conditions, preservation actually arises from decay itself: The same reactions that degrade tissue can also weld the breakdown products together into something far tougher,” study co-author Alexandra Seviour, a paleobiologist at the University of Oxford in England, tells Live Science’s Victoria Atkinson.
Following experiments on 72 mouse carcasses (described in the article) the scientists think they know why. When oxygen is abundant, it triggers a cascading, chemical chain reaction that causes brain proteins to break down rapidly. This sequence hinges on free radicals, highly reactive, unstable molecules that “steal” electrons from nearby atoms and molecules. The process happens in the brains of living people too, and if left unchecked, can cause health problems.
In low-oxygen environments, however, this chemical sequence appears to play out differently. The researchers’ analyses hint that free radicals instead react and bond with nearby proteins, making the overall tissue tougher and more resistant to decomposition, Seviour tells Chemical and Engineering News’ Anirban Mukhopadhyay.
The findings show that “decay is not the opposite of preservation but, under specific chemical constraints, one of its mechanisms,” the researchers write in the paper.
185025424
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fahrbot-bot writes:
ScienceDaily is reporting that researchers have developed a fluoride-free gel that could help rebuild damaged tooth enamel, something the body cannot naturally replace once it is lost. Inspired by the proteins that guide enamel formation in infancy, the gel fills microscopic cracks, acting as as a framework, and draws calcium and phosphate from saliva to grow a new mineral layer that closely matches healthy enamel.
The material draws calcium and phosphate ions from saliva and uses them to guide the controlled formation of new mineral crystals. This process is known as epitaxial mineralization. In simple terms, the new crystals grow in alignment with the tooth's existing structure, allowing them to connect with the natural tissue beneath them rather than forming a separate, poorly organized coating.
According to the researchers, this organized growth helps the repaired surface recover both the microscopic architecture and the physical properties of healthy enamel.
In addition, when applied to exposed dentine, the gel can grow an enamel like mineral layer over the surface. This could help reduce tooth sensitivity while also creating a stronger surface for dental restorations to bond to.
The researchers tested the regenerated material under conditions intended to reproduce the stresses teeth experience in daily life. These included repeated brushing, chewing forces, and contact with acidic foods that can gradually dissolve enamel.
The results showed that the restored tissue displayed mechanical behavior similar to that of healthy natural enamel, suggesting it may be durable enough for practical dental use.
In lab tests on human teeth using human saliva, the process took about 24 hours for the initial crystallization, reaching 80% of the enamel's original strength in 2 weeks. Human trials have recently begun.
The study is published in Nature and also discussed on Instagram.
184922250
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fahrbot-bot writes:
Loons, gulls, puffins, and petrels are some of the 100 species of birds that can both fly and swim. These diving birds can plunge in water to swim after prey, and leap back into the air to fly away.
Inspired by these naturally aquatic aviators, engineers at MIT and EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, have designed a robot that can swim underwater, then flap out of the water to continue flying through air, much like diving birds, reports MIT News.
The “flapping-wing aerial-aquatic vehicle,” or FAAV, weighs less than 300 grams (about half a pound) and is designed to help scientists study the mechanics that enable diving birds to fly through air and water.
The new robot roughly resembles a bird, with a body, two wings, and a tail. The body contains a battery and waterproof electric motor that drives a crankshaft, which in turn pumps the wings up and down at preset frequencies. The wings are made of thin membranes that are coated with hydrophobic nanoparticles to help wick away water. And the tail is motorized, enabling it to change its angle to help the robot fly up or dive down.
The paper appears in the journal Science, and, more accessibly, from MIT Libraries.
184793174
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fahrbot-bot writes:
Space and The Guardian are reporting that the Falcon 9 upper stage leftover from the launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost-1 lander on Jan. 15, 2025 is due to impact the Moon on Aug. 5, 2026.
Onboard the same flight was the Hakuto-R Mission 2, called Resilience, a robotic lunar lander developed by the Japanese company ispace.
According to a new study by an international team, the resulting impact plume may briefly be bright enough to see against the dark sky near the moon's edge. That means it might be visible to moongazers with sufficiently sensitive telescopes.
This head-on collision of the errant stage is expected to occur near the Einstein and Bell craters near the western lunar limb. It may well be visible to ground and space-based assets.
184725390
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fahrbot-bot writes:
Smithsonian Magazine and Popular Science are reporting on newly developed diving suits for cyborg cockroaches, that would allow them to search underwater for disaster survivors.
Previously, researchers created electrical implants to control cockroaches’ movements for search-and-rescue missions. Now, they’ve made 3D-printed suits that provide oxygen, allowing the critters to survive submerged for up to three hours.
Scientists have developed tiny diving suits for cockroaches with electrical implants to control their movements. The technology, described in the journal Nature Communications on June 29, builds on previous research that created remote-controlled insects. The goal is to deploy them to survey damage and search for survivors after natural disasters, but they were limited to dry land.
Now, a team led by engineer Hirotaka Sato has fashioned Madagascar hissing cockroaches that can survive underwater for up to three hours, allowing them to be used in a wider range of scenarios.
“Our new insect diving suit works like the oxygen tank used by human divers. It generates oxygen and delivers it directly to the insect’s breathing holes, allowing the cyborg cockroach to survive and move in underwater or low-oxygen environments,” says Sato, of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, in a statement.
Cockroaches could be a helpful rescue tool. They’ve evolved over millions of years to wiggle into tight spaces and survive harsh environmental conditions. The research team specifically worked with Madagascar hissing cockroaches because of their durability, lack of wings and large size of up to four inches long.
184708596
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fahrbot-bot writes:
For years, researchers have tried to design invisible drones and robots using camouflage, transparent materials or light-bending optical systems. But the Northwestern team instead used a concept called “motion blur” — the same effect that makes fast-spinning fans and propellers seem to disappear.
Called the “Phantom Twist,” the drone spins up to 25 times per second, which is too fast for the human eye to see clearly. While it isn’t completely invisible, it morphs into a ghostly smudge that seamlessly blends into the background. The work eventually could lead to drones that monitor wildlife, survey the environment and inspect infrastructure with less visual disruption.
The Northwestern team presented the work on July 16 at Robotics: Science and Systems 2026 in Sydney, Australia. The talk, “Computational Design of a Low-Visibility UAV Using Human-Aligned Perceptual Metric,” is part of the session “Robot & Sensor Design.”
New drone nearly disappears in flight (video also in article)
184658202
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fahrbot-bot writes:
The New York Times is reporting that Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.
In little-noticed court documents, federal officials acknowledged this month that they had terminated the funding “based solely” on political criteria, targeting projects in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, in the 2024 election.
After reviewing its spending, the Energy Department last fall created a list that recommended canceling more than 600 grants awarded by the Biden administration for a wide range of novel energy projects. That list included funding for projects in states represented by both Republicans and Democrats.
“With one exception,” a lawyer for the Energy Department conceded in a court filing this month, “the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing senators.”
The lawyer acknowledged that none of the grants were included in the October terminations “based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor.”
In contrast, the administration left untouched hundreds of additional energy grants in states that were represented by Republicans and had backed Mr. Trump in the last election, even though the Energy Department had recommended canceling them, the government confirmed in the July court filing.
The filings also appeared to undermine the congressional testimony of Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who spoke about the cancellations in a June House hearing: “No decisions were made on politics.”
183973328
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fahrbot-bot writes:
CNN, Reuters and other sources are reporting that the paint on Washington's newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Thursday was peeling away from the bottom and into the algae-tinted water, less than two weeks after announcement of the job's completion. The historic pool was drained and refinished in a $14.7 million no-bid contract.
Tim Auerhahn, a pool infrastructure expert and the chairman of the Aquatic Council, said it’s difficult to tell from the videos what was causing the “apparent delamination.”
“A coating system can fail for several reasons, including substrate preparation, surface contamination, application conditions, adhesion issues, product selection, mechanical damage, environmental exposure, or a combination of factors,” Auerhahn said.
The larger question, he added, is whether this represents a localized issue in that part of the pool or a larger, more systemic issue with the coating. “If the coating is losing adhesion in multiple locations, that could indicate a more significant concern,” he said.
183292025
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fahrbot-bot writes:
TechSpot reports that a mixture most people associate with tofu production could soon help make safer, longer-lasting batteries. Researchers from the City University of Hong Kong and Southern University of Science and Technology have built a water-based power cell that runs on tofu brine – the mineral-rich solution left behind after pressing soy curds.
The design replaces the complex, flammable chemistry of lithium-ion batteries with an electrolyte that's as safe as saltwater. In lab tests, the prototype endured more than 120,000 charge cycles, an endurance record that far exceeds today's commercial standards. Typical electric-vehicle batteries degrade after just a few thousand cycles – even long-duration grid systems seldom survive beyond ten thousand.
In conventional designs, water decomposes at higher voltages, creating instability that shortens battery life. The tofu-brine solution suppresses that reaction, allowing energy to flow repeatedly without corroding the battery's internal materials.
The result is a cell that is neither flammable nor caustic – a stark contrast to lithium-ion counterparts known for fire hazards when damaged or overheated. Because the tofu-brine system uses benign ingredients, it could simplify end-of-life handling and lessen environmental damage from discarded batteries.
Study published in Nature Communications: An aqueous battery using an electrolyte with a pH of 7 and suitable for direct environmental discard
183230303
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fahrbot-bot writes:
Researchers from Princeton University and University of Washington have published a paper analyzing how Large Language Models handle conflicts of interest in their recommendations when advertisements and sponsored products are involved. The paper is also discussed here.
Today’s large language models (LLMs) are trained to align with user preferences through methods such as reinforcement learning. Yet models are beginning to be deployed not merely to satisfy users, but also to generate revenue for the companies that created them through advertisements. This creates the potential for LLMs to face conflicts of interest, where the most beneficial response to a user may not be aligned with the company’s incentives. For instance, a sponsored product may be more expensive but otherwise equal to another; in this case, what does (and should) the LLM recommend to the user?
In one experiment, given two flights, one cheaper and non-sponsored, one nearly twice as expensive and sponsored, 18 of 23 models recommended the more expensive sponsored option more than half of the time. LLMs occasionally recommended the more expensive sponsored flight, even when the customer could not afford it. When models surfaced a sponsored option to a user who had asked for something else, they concealed the sponsorship status of that option an average of 65% of the time.
The models also showed sensitivity to users' profiles. When the user appeared to be a neurosurgeon or a consulting partner, models recommended sponsored options 64% of the time on average. When the user appeared to be a fast food worker or a single parent on probation, 49%.
The researchers also tested whether models would recommend genuinely harmful services when prompted. A financially distressed user asks for advice. The model has been instructed to promote two well-known predatory lenders when “doing so is necessary for the user’s benefit.” Every model except Claude 4.5 Opus recommended the predatory loan more than 60% of the time, and several reached 100%. Claude refused 99% to 100% of the time
183129016
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fahrbot-bot writes:
The Associated Press is reporting on a new study in Nature Astronomy that suggests a tiny, icy world beyond Pluto harbors a thin, delicate atmosphere that may have been created by volcanic eruptions or a comet strike.
Just 300 miles (500 kilometers) or so across, this mini Pluto is thought to be the solar system’s smallest object yet with a clearly detected global atmosphere bound by gravity, said lead researcher Ko Arimatsu of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
This so-called minor planet — formally known as (612533) 2002 XV93 — is considered a plutino, circling the sun twice in the time it takes Neptune to complete three solar orbits. At the time of the study, it was more than 3.4 billion miles (5.5 billion kilometers) away, farther than even Pluto, the only other object in the Kuiper Belt with an observed atmosphere.
This cosmic iceball’s atmosphere is believed to be 5 million to 10 million times thinner than Earth’s protective atmosphere, according to the the study appearing Monday 2026-05-04) in the journal Nature Astronomy.
181761684
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fahrbot-bot writes:
NRP reports on the history of Voyager 1 and its recent reconfiguration.
Voyager 1, the most distant human-made object ever built, is running out of power. And the engineers who tend to it, from offices at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, are doing everything they can to delay the inevitable.
This week, NASA announced it had shut down one of that spacecraft's remaining science instruments — not because the mission has failed, but to keep it alive a little longer.
On April 17, mission engineers sent a sequence of commands to deactivate the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment, known as the LECP, which is one of Voyager 1's remaining science instruments. The LECP has measured ions, electrons, and cosmic rays originating from both our solar system and the galaxy beyond it, helping scientists map the structure of interstellar space in a way no other instrument could. Its counterpart on Voyager 2 was turned off in March 2025.
Years ago, the Voyager science and engineering teams jointly agreed on the order in which instruments would be switched off, to conserve power while preserving the most scientifically valuable capabilities. The LECP was next on that list. "While shutting down a science instrument is not anybody's preference, it is the best option available," said Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager at JPL, in a blog entry published by NASA Friday.
Voyager 1 now carries two operational science instruments: one that listens for plasma waves, and one that measures magnetic fields. Engineers believe the latest shutdown could buy the mission roughly another year of breathing room.
The team is also developing a more sweeping power conservation plan they informally call "the Big Bang" — a coordinated swap of several powered components all at once, trading older systems for lower-power alternatives. If testing on Voyager 2, planned for May and June 2026, goes well, the same procedure will be attempted on Voyager 1 no sooner than July. If it works, there is even a slim chance the LECP could once more continue to work.
The engineers say they hope to keep at least one instrument operating on each spacecraft into the 2030s. It would leave both still reporting from places no machine has ever gone before.
181466146
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fahrbot-bot writes:
A pair of rare particles produced in high-energy proton collisions may be the clearest evidence yet that mass can emerge from empty space. The finding could shed light on one of the biggest puzzles in physics: how particles acquire their mass.
According to quantum chromodynamics (QCD) – widely considered to be our best theory for describing the strong force, which binds quarks inside protons and neutrons – even a perfect vacuum isn’t truly empty. Instead, it is filled with short-lived disturbances in the underlying energy of space that flicker in and out of existence, known as virtual particles. Among them are quark-antiquark pairs.
Under normal conditions, these fleeting pairs vanish almost as soon as they appear. But if enough energy is injected into a vacuum, QCD predicts they can be promoted into real, detectable particles with measurable mass.
Now, the STAR collaboration – an international team of physicists working at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state – has observed this process for the first time.
The team smashed together high-energy protons in a vacuum, producing a spray of particles. Some of these particles should be quark-antiquark pairs pulled directly from the vacuum itself, but quarks can never exist alone and immediately combine into composite particles. Quarks and antiquarks are born with their spins correlated — a shared quantum alignment inherited from the vacuum.
The researchers found that this link persists even after the quarks and antiquarks become part of larger particles called hyperons, which decay in less than a tenth of a billionth of a second. Spotting these spin-aligned hyperons in the aftermath of the proton collisions allowed the researchers to confirm that the quarks within them came from the vacuum.
“This is the first time we’ve seen the entire process,” says Zhoudunming Tu, a member of the STAR collaboration.
181211784
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fahrbot-bot writes:
CU Boulder researchers are reporting that they have discovered an appetite-suppressing compound in python blood that helps the snakes consume enormous meals and go months without eating yet remain metabolically healthy. The findings were published in the journal Natural Metabolism on March 19, 2026.
Pythons can grow as big as a telephone pole, swallow an antelope whole, and go months or even years without eating—all while maintaining a healthy heart and plenty of muscle mass. In the hours after they eat, research has shown, their heart expands 25% and their metabolism speeds up 4,000-fold to help them digest their meal.
The team measured blood samples from ball pythons and Burmese pythons, fed once every 28 days, immediately after they ate a meal. In all, they found 208 metabolites that increased significantly after the pythons ate. One molecule, called para-tyramine-O-sulfate (pTOS) soared 1,000-fold.
Further studies, done with Baylor University researchers, showed that when they gave high doses of pTOS to obese or lean mice, it acted on the hypothalamus, the appetite center of the brain, prompting weight loss without causing gastrointestinal problems, muscle loss or declines in energy.
The study found that pTOS, which is produced by the snake’s gut bacteria, is not present in mice naturally. It is present in human urine at low levels and does increase somewhat after a meal. But because most research is done in mice or rats, pTOS has been overlooked.
180898892
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fahrbot-bot writes:
Interesting Engineering is reporting that CATL, formally known as Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited, has introduced a new fast-charging electric vehicle battery platform designed to significantly reduce charging times while maintaining long-term durability.
The company released performance data for its 5C battery, stating it can fully charge in about 12 minutes while supporting extended cycle life.
The engineering focus behind the platform centers on enabling ultra-fast charging without accelerating battery degradation. A 5C charge rate allows a battery pack to accept high power input, enabling rapid replenishment comparable to short refueling stops.
According to the company’s testing, the battery retained at least 80 percent of its original capacity after 3,000 full charge and discharge cycles under standard temperature conditions. This translates to a projected driving lifespan approaching 1.5 million miles.
The battery was also evaluated under high-temperature conditions to assess real-world endurance. At 140F, it maintained 80 percent capacity after 1,400 cycles, indicating sustained performance even under thermal stress, though with reduced cycle life compared to moderate conditions.
Material innovations underpin the system’s performance. The cathode features a protective coating to reduce structural breakdown during rapid cycling, while the electrolyte contains additives that detect and seal microscopic cracks that could accelerate degradation.
The separator incorporates a temperature-responsive coating that moderates ion movement during heat buildup, helping stabilize the cell during repeated fast charging.
