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Lunar regolith simulant used to grow chickpeas

Dr. Sara Santos: “The research is about understanding the viability of growing crops on the moon. How do we transform this regolith into soil? What kinds of natural mechanisms can cause this conversion?” [ https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30294/lunar-regolith…hickpeas-2](https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30294/lunar-regolith…hickpeas-2)

How will astronauts grow food during long-term missions to the Moon? This is what a recent study published in Scientific Reports hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the prospect of growing food on the Moon. This study has the potential to help scientists, mission planners, engineers, and astronauts develop new methods for growing food on the Moon, which could help advance such techniques when humans go to Mars.

For the study, the researchers grew chickpeas using simulated lunar regolith (often mistakenly called “soil”) and fungi, with the latter being used to test plant stress levels, decrease toxins, and enhance the mixture of regolith simulant and fungi. The team tested a variety of mixtures, including 25 to 100 percent regolith simulant and with and without the fungi. The goal of the study was to ascertain the plausibility of growing food on the Moon under climate-controlled conditions using lunar regolith and Earth-based products. In the end, the researchers found that the most promising mixture was 75 percent regolith simulant with fungi.

AI Research Symposium: The Next Frontiers | Keynotes by Demis Hassabis, Yoshua Bengio & Yann LeCun

Welcome to the Research Symposium on Enabling AI at Nation Scale, hosted by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

This landmark event brings together the world’s leading pioneers in Artificial Intelligence to discuss the future of discovery, engineering, and national infrastructure. Featuring keynote addresses from Turing Award winners and industry visionaries, we explore how AI acts as a catalyst for scientific breakthroughs and the \.

Abstract: Glioblastoma remains profoundly resistant to current immunotherapeutic strategies

Here, Fanghui Lu & team report OLIG2, a master transcription factor in glioblastoma stem cells, enables immune evasion by suppressing CXCL10. And, targeting OLIG2 overcomes immunotherapy resistance and improves survival.

1Department of Cancer Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.

2Department of Neurosurgery, Key Laboratory of Major Brain Disease and Aging Research (Ministry of Education), The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.

3School of Basic Medical Sciences, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.

The homogenizing effect of large language models on human expression and thought

AI chatbots are homogenizing human expression and risk reducing humanity’s collective wisdom, computer scientists and psychologists say. http://spkl.io/6181AI6Jh.

TrendsInCognitiveScience.

Cognitive diversity, reflected in variations of language, perspective, and reasoning, is essential to creativity and collective intelligence. This diversity is rich and grounded in culture, history, and individual experience. Yet, as large language models (LLMs) become deeply embedded in people’s lives, they risk standardizing language and reasoning. We synthesize evidence across linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, and computer science to show how LLMs reflect and reinforce dominant styles while marginalizing alternative voices and reasoning strategies. We examine how their design and widespread use contribute to this effect by mirroring patterns in their training data and amplifying convergence as all people increasingly rely on the same models across contexts.

Robust Mouse Rejuvenation: Breaking the Ceiling of Longevity Research

For decades, the field of biogerontology has largely focused on a single strategy: manipulating metabolism to slow down the rate at which we age. While approaches like caloric restriction have produced fascinating results in short-lived organisms like worms and flies, they have shown clear limits in mammals. Slowing the accumulation of damage does not remove the damage that is already there. It merely delays (not prevents) the onset of disease, particularly when applied late in life.

This Spacetime Quasicrystal Could Solve Physicists’ Biggest Problem

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What is space, really? That’s one of the biggest questions in science. According to a pair of researchers from the Perimeter Institute, the answer to that is: a quasicrystal. What is a quasicrystal, and how is space a quasicrystal? Let’s take a look.

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.

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📩 Free weekly science newsletter ➜ https://sabinehossenfelder.com/newsle… Audio only podcast ➜ https://open.spotify.com/show/0MkNfXl… 🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜ / @sabinehossenfelder 📚 Buy my book ➜ https://amzn.to/3HSAWJW #science #sciencenews #spacetime #physicsteacher What is space? That’s one of the biggest questions, not just in the foundations of physics, but in all of science. According to a new paper, the answer may be a quasicrystal, an idea from researchers working on quantum gravity. This video explores the implications of this idea, touching on concepts like String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity, to understand what it might mean for theoretical physics.
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#science #sciencenews #spacetime #physicsteacher.

What is space? That’s one of the biggest questions, not just in the foundations of physics, but in all of science. According to a new paper, the answer may be a quasicrystal, an idea from researchers working on quantum gravity. This video explores the implications of this idea, touching on concepts like String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity, to understand what it might mean for theoretical physics.

Continue reading “This Spacetime Quasicrystal Could Solve Physicists’ Biggest Problem” | >

Palladium-Catalyzed Asymmetric Oxidative Amination of Internal α,β-Unsaturated Esters with Lewis Basic AminesClick to copy article linkArticle link copied!

Chiral amines are privileged chiral building blocks with extensive applications in pharmaceuticals, advanced materials, and asymmetric catalysis owing to their unique structural features and functional diversity. Although palladium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic C–H amination offers an efficient strategy for constructing these motifs, the simultaneous challenges of coordinating sterically hindered internal alkenes and suppressing catalyst deactivation by Lewis basic amines have severely limited the development of asymmetric oxidative amination systems. In this study, we disclose a novel ester, an unmodified native functional group-directed strategy that enables the palladium-catalyzed asymmetric oxidative allylic amination of internal α,β-unsaturated esters with basic amines. This protocol yields a diverse array of non-natural γ-amino acid derivatives with excellent yields and high enantioselectivity (93% to >99% e.e.). Comprehensive mechanistic investigations, incorporating controlled experiments and density functional theory calculations, elucidate the intricate reaction pathway. The synthetic utility is further demonstrated through various product derivatizations and the streamlined synthesis of bioactive compounds. This work establishes a general platform for accessing enantioenriched nitrogen-containing architectures from readily available alkenes and amines.

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