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Feb 19, 2022

Scientists map entire human gut at single cell resolution

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

If you get nervous, you might feel it in your gut. If you eat chili, your gut might revolt, but your friend can eat anything and feel great. You can pop ibuprofen like candy with no ill effects, but your friend’s belly might bleed and might get no pain relief. Why is this? The quick answer is because we’re all different. The next questions are how different exactly, and what do these differences mean for health and disease? Answering these is much more difficult, but the UNC School of Medicine lab of Scott Magness, Ph.D., is revealing some interesting scientific answers.

For the first time, the Magness lab used entire human GI tracts from three organ donors to show how cell types differ across all regions of the intestines, to shed light on , and to show gene expression differences between these cells and between individuals.

This work, published in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, opens the door to exploring the many facets of gut health in a much more precise manner at greater resolution than ever before.

Feb 19, 2022

Self-healing materials for robotics made from ‘jelly’ and salt

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, sustainability

Researchers have developed self-healing, biodegradable, 3D-printed materials that could be used in the development of realistic artificial hands and other soft robotics applications.

The low-cost jelly-like materials, developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, can sense strain, temperature and humidity. And unlike earlier robots, they can also partially repair themselves at room temperature.

The results are reported in the journal NPG Asia Materials.

Feb 19, 2022

The most ancient supermassive black hole is bafflingly big

Posted by in category: cosmology

The farthest known quasar challenges ideas about how the first supermassive black holes in the universe formed.

Feb 19, 2022

Elon Musk’s Boring Company Plots Texas Tunnels

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, habitats

Documents show plans for an R&D facility with employee housing.

Feb 18, 2022

Magnetic control of tokamak plasmas through deep reinforcement learning

Posted by in category: futurism

A newly designed control architecture uses deep reinforcement learning to learn to command the coils of a tokamak, and successfully stabilizes a wide variety of fusion plasma configurations.

Feb 18, 2022

IoT Implementation in Smart Farming

Posted by in categories: energy, food

Electronic components applied to implement IoT based smart farming systems, ranging from processors, sensors, signal conditioning, power management, connectivity, and positioning.


The IoT systems in smart farming have been depicted in six main sections by EET India, which are processors, sensors, signal conditioning, power management, connectivity, and positioning. Common use cases like automatic fertilization, automatic irrigation, crop management, precision farming, and livestock monitoring all can be realized through IoT systems. After sensors detect the environmental phenomena and target objects, the information will be transmitted to controlled processors through wireless connectivity. Then, the processors can collect and analyze these data, or even help farmers with further decision making.

Fig. 1 An IoT system in smart farming (Source: EET India, TECHDesign)

Feb 18, 2022

Engineering Student Builds Solar Panels That Don’t Need Direct Sunlight, Uses UV Light

Posted by in categories: engineering, solar power, sustainability

Also read: IIT delhi built solar panels that track sun’s movement to generate more electricity.

However, now an engineer from the Philippines has developed a new kind of solar panel that doesn’t really need sunlight to generate electricity. At least not directly.

Developed by Carvey Ehren Maigue, a student at Mapua University in the Philippines, the novel solar panels (called AuRES) are designed to feed off the UV rays of the sun — something that even dense cloudy days cannot block.

Feb 18, 2022

Quantum algorithms for computing observables of nonlinear partial differential equations

Posted by in categories: computing, information science, mapping, quantum physics

We construct quantum algorithms to compute physical observables of nonlinear PDEs with M initial data. Based on an exact mapping between nonlinear and linear PDEs using the level set method, these new quantum algorithms for nonlinear Hamilton-Jacobi and scalar hyperbolic PDEs can be performed with a computational cost that is independent of M, for arbitrary nonlinearity. Depending on the details of the initial data, it can also display up to exponential advantage in both the dimension of the PDE and the error in computing its observables. For general nonlinear PDEs, quantum advantage with respect to M is possible in the large M limit.

Feb 18, 2022

Joby under NTSB scanner after air taxi prototype crashes in California

Posted by in categories: electronics, transportation

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says it is investigating the February 16 crash of a Joby Aviation air taxi prototype in Jolon, California.


The experimental air taxi was being piloted remotely when it went down during a flight at the company’s test base on Wednesday. According to a preliminary report by the FAA, no injuries have been reported.

Feb 18, 2022

Inside the lab that connects brains to quantum computers

Posted by in categories: computing, neuroscience, quantum physics

Scientists at the University of Plymouth are in the early stages of developing tech that would allow humans to control quantum computers with their thoughts.