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,...
It looks like a normal car, but the white taxi by the curb has nobody driving it, and communicates with customers digitally to obtain directions and take payment. Beijing this week approved its first autonomous taxis for commercial use, bringing dozens of the so-called "robotaxis" to the streets of the Chinese capital, Tech Xplore reports. The vehicles can only carry two passengers at a time and are confined to the city's southern Yizhuang area. An employee of the taxi firm also...
The World Health Organization has designated Omicron a COVID-19 variant of concern, and many countries are racing to try and contain it, banning flights from southern Africa. Scientists are working to dissect the variant and try to understand its behaviour, Medical Xpress reports. Here is a brief explainer of what is known so far about Omicron – days after it emerged – as shared by South African scientists. It is unclear where the variant originated,...
A study published today by the British Medical Journal finds a gradual increase in the risk of COVID-19 infection from 90 days after receiving a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The study was carried out by the Research Institute of Leumit Health Services in Israel. Israel was one of the first countries to roll out a large-scale COVID-19 vaccination campaign in December 2020, and has seen a resurgence of infections since June 2021. Researchers examined electronic...
A new "image analysis pipeline" is giving scientists rapid new insight into how disease or injury have changed the body, down to the individual cell, reports Tech Xplore. It's called TDAExplore, which takes the detailed imaging provided by microscopy, pairs it with a hot area of mathematics called topology, which provides insight on how things are arranged, and the analytical power of artificial intelligence to give, for example, a new perspective on changes in...
The hunt for planets beyond our solar system has turned up more than 4,000 far-flung worlds, orbiting stars thousands of light years from Earth. These extrasolar planets are a veritable menagerie, from rocky super-Earths and miniature Neptunes, to colossal gas giants. Among the more confounding planets discovered to date are "hot Jupiters" – massive balls of gas that are about the size of our own Jovian planet but that zing around their stars in less than 10 days, in...
