By Brad Smith, University of California, Los Angeles
A new study by UCLA researchers and colleagues demonstrates that the Ebola vaccine known as rVSVΔG-ZEBOV-GP results in a robust and enduring antibody response among vaccinated individuals in areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo that are experiencing outbreaks of the disease. Among the more than 600 study participants, 95.6% demonstrated antibody persistence six months after they received the vaccine.
The study is the first published research examining post–Ebola-vaccination...
Could a laser send a spacecraft to Mars? That's a proposed mission from a group at McGill University, designed to meet a solicitation from NASA, reports Phys.org.
The laser, a 10-metre-wide array on Earth, would heat hydrogen plasma in a chamber behind the spacecraft, producing thrust from hydrogen gas and sending it to Mars in only 45 days. There, it would aerobrake in Mars's atmosphere, shuttling supplies to human colonists or, someday perhaps, even humans themselves.
In...
Pornography websites will be legally required to verify the age of their users under new internet safety laws, reports the BBC.
The legislation, which is part of the draft Online Safety Bill, is intended to give children better protection from explicit material.
The measures, to ensure users are 18 or over, could see people asked to prove they own a credit card or confirm their age via a third-party service.
Sites that fail to act could be...
In collaboration with a team at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, MIT experts have begun designing and testing technical research through which further examination of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) can be performed in the U.S.
The effort, known as Project Hamilton, is in an exploratory phase, and the research is not intended as a pilot or for public deployment. Instead, the researchers have explored two approaches that could be used to process...
By Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology PhD researcher Lauren Ashwood has studied sea anemones' venom makeup extensively, in particular, Telmatactis stephensoni a reef-based sea anemone that can grow from 8-10 cm.
Ashwood found that this species produced different venoms for biological functions – defense, predation, and digestion – and that the toxins were located at sites that corresponded to their function.
"Unlike snakes, which deliver their venom via fangs, T. stephensoni venom is a complex cocktail of...
Psychoactive drugs include all manner of hallucinogens, deliriants, hypnotics, and psychedelics. But what is a psychedelic, really? Insofar as many in the field are now moving toward bringing new molecules with presumably desirable introspective properties into a larger, potentially druggable populace, there is a palpable need for increased clarity, reports Medical Xpress.
There is a curious push to define psychedelics as compounds that alter consciousness by acting on serotonin receptors in the brain, most notably 5-HT2A receptors. However,...
Meta has announced a new feature to allow more personal space for people's avatars in virtual-reality worlds.
The metaverse is still at concept stage, but the latest attempts to create virtual worlds are already facing an age-old problem: harassment.
Bloomberg's technology columnist Parmy Olson told the BBC's Tech Tent program about her "creepy" experiences.
And one woman likened her own traumatic experience in VR to sexual abuse.
Meta has now announced a new feature, Personal Boundary, which begins...
High doses of a widely used drug used in the hormonal treatment of conditions such as excessive hair growth, early puberty, and prostate cancer, are linked to an increased risk of meningioma – the most common type of benign brain tumour, finds a University of Bristol-led study of over 8 million patients. The study is published in Scientific Reports.
Typically slow growing, meningiomas are benign tumours that are often revealed incidentally by imaging but can cause significant...
University of Delaware (UD) engineers have demonstrated a way to effectively capture 99% of carbon dioxide from air using a novel electrochemical system powered by hydrogen.
It is a significant advance for carbon dioxide capture and could bring more environmentally friendly fuel cells closer to market, writes Karen Roberts of the University of Delaware.
The research team, led by UD professor Yushan Yan, reported its method in Nature Energy today.
Fuel cells work by converting fuel chemical energy directly into electricity. They can be used in...
Social media giant Facebook has seen its daily active users (DAUs) drop for the first time in its 18-year history, the BBC reports.
Facebook's parent company Meta Networks says DAUs fell to 1.929 billion in the three months to the end of December, compared to 1.930 billion in the previous quarter.
The firm warned of slowing revenue growth in the face of competition from rivals including TikTok and YouTube, while advertisers are also cutting spending.
Meta's shares...
