Biologists have created a synthetic cell with only the bare minimum number of genes it needs to live and reproduce in a lab, reports CBC's Quirks & Quarks. "What we have is an organism that is right now as simple as anything that can live on the planet," said John Glass, a professor of synthetic biology at the J. Craig Venter Institute in California. Mr. Glass has obviously not met my friend Bill.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/coyotes-doing-well-in-the-city-asteroid-impact-created-rainforests-the-minimal-organism-and-more-1.5980412/scientists-create-the-simplest-cell-with-only-bare-essentials-for-life-and-reproduction-1.5980420
The asteroid impact 66 million years ago may have wiped out 75 percent of all life including the dinosaurs, but it set the stage for the creation of rainforests, says a new study by geologist and paleontologist Carlos Jaramillo and his colleagues. The result of the post-impact settling of dust, after several million years of evolution, was the dense, diverse tropical rainforests we know today, according to the report. The vast clouds of minerals ejected onto the landscape by the...
The Crab Nebula's pulsar, located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus and formed in a supernova whose light is believed to have reached Earth in 1054, is among the brightest pulsars in the sky. Dr. Teruaki Enoto from the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research and colleagues, tracking the Crab pulsar simultaneously with X-ray and radio telescopes, made fascinating observations published in the journal Science. “Out of more than 2,800 pulsars cataloged, the Crab pulsar is...
Neuralink released footage today appearing to show a monkey playing a video game after getting brain-chip implants, Reuters reports. The three-minute video by Neuralink, which Elon Musk co-founded in 2016, shows Pager, a male macaque with chips embedded on each side of its brain, playing Mind Pong. He reportedly controls the paddle by thinking about moving his hand up or down. "First @Neuralink product will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster...
Credit: NASA
It could be this Sunday that NASA attempts the first powered, controlled flight on another planet with the Ingenuity helicopter. NASA will livestream coverage of the confirmation of Ingenuity's first flight starting around 12:30 a.m. PT on Monday. This won't be like watching a sporting event with live footage, but the NASA team hopes to get results back indicating a successful hover operation, CNET reports. NASA has emphasized that Ingenuity is a high-risk, high-reward...
Emily Conover takes us on a fascinating examination of the history of nuclear physics in ScienceNews. "The neutron and positron were both found in laboratories that are small in comparison with today’s, and each discovery was attributed to a single physicist, relatively soon after the particles had been proposed," Conover writes. "Those discoveries kicked off frantic developments that seemed to roll in one after another."
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/physics-atom-matter-particle-nuclear-power-neutron
Whitney Wolfe Herd, 31, became the world's youngest self-made female billionaire when she took Bumble public in February. The central focus of dating app Bumble is that only women can initiate a conversation in heterosexual matches. Wolfe Herd owns a 11.6% stake in Bumble, giving her an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion. She also heads Badoo. The two apps have a combined 40 million users, 2.4 million of whom pay a subscription, reports the BBC. Wolfe...
2020 was an amazing year for the world's wealthiest, as you will see in facts and figures from Forbes' 35th annual World's Billionaires List. Jeff Bezos ($177 billion) and Elon Musk ($151 billion) top a list that added a record 493 new members. The total of 2,755 billionaires saw a $5-trillion boost in their collective wealth. Well, there is your silver (and gold, platinum, and Bitcoin) lining for what was a difficult year for...
A new study indicates that mines in China powering nearly 80 percent of the global trade in cryptocurrencies risk undercutting the country's climate goals, reports Tech Xplore. The Nature Communications study found that unchecked, China's bitcoin mines will generate 130.50 million metric tons of carbon emissions by 2024 – close to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from Italy or Saudi Arabia. About 40 percent of China's bitcoin mines are powered with coal, while the rest use renewables, the study...
Scientists from MIT and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have grown small amounts of self-organizing brain tissue, known as organoids, in a tiny 3D-printed system that allows observation while they develop, Tech Xplore reports. The investigators tested their device with organoids derived from human cells. They observed the growing brain organoids with a microscope and were able to successfully follow their development for seven days. The small bit of brain tissue developed a cavity or ventricle...
