The idea of spending millions on non-existent land may sound ludicrous, but feverish predictions of a virtual reality future are pushing investors to bet big on digital real estate. This week, New York-based company Republic Realm announced it had spent a record-breaking $4.3 million on digital land through The Sandbox, one of several "virtual world" websites where people can socialize, play games, and even attend concerts, reports Tech Xplore. That came on the heels of...
The Higgs boson doesn't stick around for long. Once it is created in particle collisions, the famed particle lives for less than a trillionth of a billionth of a second or, more precisely, 1.6 x 10-22 seconds. According to theory, that is, for so far experiments have only been able to set bounds on the value of the particle's lifetime or to determine this property with a large uncertainty. Until now. In a new study, the...
A multi-institutional team of astrophysicists headquartered at Boston University (BU) has made a breakthrough in our understanding of the cosmic forces that shape the protective bubble surrounding our solar system – a bubble that shelters life on Earth and is known by space researchers as the heliosphere. Astrophysicists believe the heliosphere protects the planets within our solar system from powerful radiation emanating from supernovas, the final explosions of dying stars throughout the universe. They...
Biomedical engineers at Duke University have devised a test to quickly and easily assess how well a person's neutralizing antibodies fight infection from multiple variants of COVID-19 such as Delta and the newly discovered Omicron variant. This test could potentially tell doctors how protected a patient is from new variants and those currently circulating in a community or, conversely, which monoclonal antibodies to treat a COVID-19 patient. The test is described online Dec. 3 in the...
Following research about college students from before COVID-19 with a survey at the pandemic's one-year mark, an international team of scientists detected no improvement in the students' mental well-being even after the introduction of vaccines and the easing of social distancing methods, let alone a return to campuses in many instances. In fact, the researchers in spring 2021 found marked declines in both physical and emotional health – students sustained a 35% decline in their number of...
Biomedical engineering professor Corey Neu and PhD student Benjamin Seelbinder of the University of Colorado at Boulder wanted to answer two fundamental questions. How do cells adapt to their environment, and how does a mechanical environment influence a cell? What they discovered during more than six years of research has the potential to help tackle major health obstacles and advance artificial tissue engineering, writes Rachel Leuthauser of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Their research, published on...
Executives of eight major cryptocurrency firms have been called to testify before a U.S. congressional committee on Dec. 8, reports the BBC. Witnesses called to appear include Coinbase's Alesia Haas, Circle's Jeremy Allaire, and Bitfury's Brian Brooks. It will be the first time companies representing the controversial sector have been questioned in this way. U.S. officials across the political spectrum have called for more scrutiny of cryptocurrencies. Senator Elizabeth Warren of the Democratic Party has called for tougher...
A bionic eye being developed by a team of researchers at the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales has shown to be safe and stable for long-term implantation in a three-month study, paving the way toward human trials. The Phoenix99 Bionic Eye is an implantable system, designed to restore a form of vision to patients living with severe vision impairment and blindness caused by degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa. The device has two main...
According to media reports from Washington, the Biden administration wants to engage China in talks on arms control and non-proliferation. U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping discussed the issue during their recent virtual summit, reports Christoph Bluth of The Conversation. The issue has not previously been high on the agenda in talks between the two countries, but China's recent test of a hypersonic missile that can attack multiple targets in flight has lent a new urgency...
A new study has identified serpentinite – a green rock that looks like snakeskin and holds fluids in its mineral structures – as a key driver of the oxygen recycling process, which helped create and maintain the sustaining atmosphere for life on Earth. "This cycle is a really a big deal," said Esteban Gazel, associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences in Cornell's College of Engineering, and co-lead author on the study. "In the end,...
