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April 3 (Reuters) — NASA on Monday named the first woman and the first African American ever assigned as astronauts to a lunar mission, introducing them as part of the four-member team chosen to fly on what would be the first crewed voyage around the moon in more than 50 years.

Christina Koch, 44, an engineer who already holds the record for longest continuous spaceflight by a woman and was part of NASA’s first three all-female spacewalks, was named as a mission specialist for the Artemis II lunar flyby expected as early as next year.

She will be joined by Victor Glover, 46, a U.S. Navy aviator and veteran of four spacewalks who NASA has designated as pilot of Artemis II. He will be the first Black astronaut ever to be sent on a lunar mission.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) analyzes structural brain asymmetries in schizophrenia.

Study: Large-scale analysis of structural brain asymmetries in schizophrenia via the ENIGMA consortium. Image Credit: hutpaza / Shutterstock.com

The saliva of mosquitoes infected with dengue viruses contains a substance that thwarts the human immune system and makes it easier for people to become infected with the potentially deadly viruses, new research published in PLOS Pathogens reveals.

Dengue has spread in recent years to Europe and the southern United States in addition to longstanding hotspots in tropical and subtropical areas such as Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. The new discovery, from a University of Virginia School of Medicine scientist and his collaborators, helps explain why the disease is so easily transmitted—and could eventually lead to new ways to prevent infection.

“It is remarkable how clever these viruses are. They subvert mosquito biology to tamp down our immune responses so that infection can take hold,” said Dr. Mariano A. Garcia-Blanco, who recently joined the UVA faculty as chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology. “There is no doubt in my mind that a better understanding of the fundamental biology of transmission will eventually lead to effective transmission-blocking measures.”

A new accessibility-focused robot under development will allow children of mixed visual abilities to have a balanced conversation where everyone participates equally.

Researchers at the Interactive Technologies Institute have recently released a study on using a robot to mediate group discussions between children with mixed–visual abilities.

The team presented the study during the ACM/IEEE conference this March in Stockholm, and it’s now published as part of the Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction.

China and Brazil have struck a deal to trade in their local currencies instead of the US dollar. They joined a long list of countries including Saudi Arabia, Kenya and India. Why is the world attempting to de-dollarise? Palki Sharma decodes.

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#vantageonfirstpost #palkisharma #firstpost #worldnews #globalnews.

Continue reading “Why The World Is Dumping The American Dollar | Vantage with Palki Sharma” »

Here’s a breakdown of how I used AI to make a video game.

Here’s the game: https://mreflow.com/jump-game/

Continue reading “I Used AI To Make A Game (ZERO Coding Experience)” »

If we navigate an uncertain future with a collective sense of agency, we can surf existential hope toward a deep civilization.

In a demonstration that promises to help scale up quantum computers based on tiny dots of silicon, RIKEN physicists have succeeded in connecting two qubits—the basic unit for quantum information—that are physically distant from one another.

Many big IT players—including the likes of IBM, Google and Microsoft—are racing to develop quantum computers, some of which have already demonstrated the ability to greatly outperform conventional computers for certain types of calculations. But one of the greatest challenges to developing commercially viable quantum computers is the ability to scale them up from a hundred or so qubits to millions of qubits.

In terms of technologies, one of the front-runners to achieve large-scale quantum computing is silicon quantum dots that are a few tens of nanometers in diameter. A key advantage is that they can be fabricated using existing silicon fabrication technology. But one hurdle is that, while it is straightforward to connect two quantum dots that are next to each other, it has proved difficult to link quantum dots that are far from each other.

Donald Hoffman and Hannah Critchlow debate the origins of consciousness.

This excerpt was taken from “The key to consciousness,” featuring Sam Coleman, Donald Hoffman, and Hannah Critchlow. Joanna Kavenna hosts.

Continue reading “Does consciousness arise from the brain? | Donald Hoffman challenges Hannah Critchlow” »