By restoring some functions to intact brains from deceased donors, the startup Bexorg hopes to create a better drug development test bed for neurodegenerative diseases
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Could Telomeres Reverse Aging?
What if aging isn’t just “getting older” but the gradual breakdown of the biological systems protecting our DNA? Scientists are now exploring therapies designed to directly lengthen telomeres, the protective caps linked to cellular aging itself. The future of longevity may be far more programmable than we thought.
The Growing Cybersecurity Risks To The Supply Chain In The AI Era
#cybersecurity #suppychains #ai #tech
Supply chains are a primary target for cybercriminals and provide the foundation of global commerce in the hyper-connected digital ecosystem of today. Artificial intelligence (AI) simultaneously exacerbates vulnerabilities as it revolutionizes operations through predictive analytics, automation, and real-time visibility. Sophisticated threat actors, ransomware groups, and nation-state actors employ AI to exploit the vulnerable links in intricate, multi-tiered supply networks.
Artificial intelligence can create dual-use dynamics. It promotes efficiency by facilitating real-time data transfers and hyper-connected operations, while simultaneously significantly expanding the attack surface. Compromises of a single vendor or update have been shown to have a cascading effect on economies, governments, and critical infrastructure through supply chain attacks.
In The AI Era, Supply Chains Are Prime Targets.
The complexity of supply chains is inherent, as they encompass continents, jurisdictions, and a multitude of third-party vendors, contractors, and software components. Each link—whether it be legacy systems, unvetted code, IoT devices, or 5G-enabled connections—provides potential entry points. AI exacerbates these risks by allowing attackers to automate reconnaissance, create polymorphic malware that evades detection, create personalized phishing campaigns, and identify vulnerabilities quicker than defenders can apply patches.
Orbital Data Centers: Power and Thermal Management for Scalable Architectures
Redwire’s latest whitepaper examines the challenges and opportunities associated with scaling orbital data centers (ODCs), with a focus on power generation and thermal management. ODCs could eventually surpass terrestrial data centers by leveraging abundant solar energy in space and avoiding Earth-based infrastructure limitations.
The whitepaper examines the scaling of power and thermal systems for ODCs within a single-spacecraft architecture and highlights how the future success of ODCs will depend on treating power and thermal management as primary architectural drivers from the earliest stages of design.
Drawing on decades of Redwire’s spaceflight heritage in deployable structures, high-power solar arrays, and thermal management systems, the in-depth study also highlights how existing flight-proven technologies can support practical and scalable orbital compute architectures.
Scientists just captured a mysterious quantum “dance” inside superconductors
Scientists just spotted a mysterious quantum “dance” that could rewrite superconductivity—and reshape future tech. For the first time, researchers have directly visualized the quantum behavior that drives superconductivity, a state in which paired electrons allow electricity to flow with zero resistance at very low temperatures.
But what they observed came as a surprise.
In a study published April 15 in Physical Review Letters, the team captured images of individual atoms forming pairs inside a specially prepared gas cooled to nearly absolute zero — the unreachable limit to how cold anything can get. This system, known as a Fermi gas, lets scientists replace electrons with atoms so they can study superconductivity in a highly controlled environment.
Scientists just discovered what coffee is really doing to your gut and brain
C Decaf even improved learning and memory, while caffeine boosted focus and reduced anxiety. Together, they show coffee works through multiple pathways beyond just caffeine.
Researchers at APC Microbiome Ireland, a leading research center at University College Cork, have taken a major step toward understanding how coffee benefits the body. For the first time, scientists have closely examined how coffee interacts with the gut-brain axis, the communication network that links the digestive system and the brain.
The findings, published in Nature Communications and supported by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC), show that regularly drinking both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee can shape the gut microbiome and influence mood and stress.
A Residual N-Terminal Peptide Enhances Signaling of Depalmitoylated Hedgehog to the Patched Receptor
During their biosynthesis, Sonic hedgehog (Shh) morphogens are covalently modified by cholesterol at the C-terminus and palmitate at the N-terminus. Although both lipids initially anchor Shh to the plasma membrane of producing cells, it later translocates to the extracellular compartment to direct developmental fates in cells expressing the Patched (Ptch) receptor. Possible release mechanisms for dually lipidated Hh/Shh into the extracellular compartment are currently under intense debate. In this paper, we describe the serum-dependent conversion of the dually lipidated cellular precursor into a soluble cholesteroylated variant (ShhC) during its release. Although ShhC is formed in a Dispatched- and Scube2-dependent manner, suggesting the physiological relevance of the protein, the depalmitoylation of ShhC during release is inconsistent with the previously postulated function of N-palmitate in Ptch receptor binding and signaling. Therefore, we analyzed the potency of ShhC to induce Ptch-controlled target cell transcription and differentiation in Hh-sensitive reporter cells and in the Drosophila eye. In both experimental systems, we found that ShhC was highly bioactive despite the absence of the N-palmitate. We also found that the artificial removal of N-terminal peptides longer than eight amino acids inactivated the depalmitoylated soluble proteins in vitro and in the developing Drosophila eye. These results demonstrate that N-depalmitoylated ShhC requires an N-peptide of a defined minimum length for its signaling function to Ptch.
