Number 356
New technology detects breast cancer relapses up to five years in advance
Altum Sequencing, a start-up specialized in oncology, has developed a tool to monitor treatment response in patients with solid tumors from a simple blood sample.
Brain training can make physical exercise more enjoyable
New research suggests even people with a lower subjective exercise tolerance can develop a degree of mental toughness by “training” important brain networks to better cope with the inherent discomfort of exercise.
Smart mRNA drugs listen to the body, adjusting protein production based on disease-related signals
This innovation paves the way for precision treatments that are not only more effective, but also safer.
Some AI prompts could cause 50 times more CO2 emissions than others
Many users, however, are unaware of the substantial carbon footprint associated with LLM technologies.
Chemical profile of fecal samples can help predict mortality in critically ill patients
In a collaborative effort researchers developed the metabolic dysbiosis score (MDS), a novel biomarker index based on the levels of 13 key fecal metabolites—the chemical byproducts of digestion.
Turning coalmines into solar energy plants ‘could add 300GW of renewables by 2030’
Solar panels on defunct surface mines could put land to productive use for renewable generation, report says.
Axolotl Discovery Brings Us Closer Than Ever to Regrowing Human Limbs
Axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) have the incredible ability to regenerate limbs, and even entire organs.
Publishers facing existential threat from AI, Cloudflare CEO says
Search traffic referrals have plummeted as people increasingly rely on AI summaries to answer their queries, forcing many publishers to reevaluate their business models.
Old, inactive oil and gas wells emitting almost 7 times more methane than official estimates
New McGill study is the largest effort ever to measure non-producing oil and gas sites.
== yjc
Chinese Studios Plan AI-Powered Remakes of Kung Fu Classics
The government-endorsed initiative, revealed at the Shanghai Film Festival, will involve 100 martial arts classics undergoing an AI “revitalization.”
16 billion passwords exposed in record-breaking data breach
Several collections of login credentials reveal one of the largest data breaches in history, totaling a humongous 16 billion exposed login credentials. The data most likely originates from various infostealers.
How dark photons could finally work as dark matter
Theoretical progress in dark photon dark matter models has been hindered by the “kinetic mixing constraint.”
== yjc
Ticks carry decades of history in each troublesome bite
In many cases, human actions long ago are the reason ticks carry these diseases so widely today.
Scientists solve 30-year micronutrient mystery
Queuosine, a microscopic molecule first discovered in the 1970s, is a vitamin-like micronutrient that we can’t make ourselves but can only get from food and our gut bacteria.
How Bogong moths use the night sky to navigate hundreds of kilometers
Each spring, billions of Bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) emerge from breeding grounds across southeast Australia and fly up to 1,000 kilometers to a small number of caves and rocky outcrops in the Australian Alps.
Earthworms reveal an evolutionary mechanism that could defy Darwin
In 1859, Darwin imagined evolution as a slow, gradual progress, with species accumulating small changes over time. But even he was surprised to find the fossil record offered no missing links.
Researchers crack the code of the body’s ancient immune defense
The complement system plays a crucial role in identifying foreign materials like microbes, medical devices, or new drugs—particularly the larger ones, like in the COVID vaccine.
Scientists discover a materials maze that prevents bacterial infections
The findings of the study show that when bacterial cells encounter patterned grooves on a surface, they lose their ability to form biofilms.
Passive cooling paint sweats off heat to deliver 10X cooling and 30% energy savings
The design enabled it to achieve superior cooling by combining both radiative, evaporative and reflective cooling mechanisms.
Earliest evidence of humans in the Americas confirmed
The landscape of New Mexico’s White Sands, just west of Alamogordo, looks surreal—endless, rolling dunes of fine beige gypsum, left behind by ancient seas. It’s one of the most unique geologic features in the world.
Every breath we take in contains 21% oxygen, the gas that makes life on Earth possible.
Successful synthesis of neutral N6 opens door for future energy storage
Nitrogen finally joins the elite tier of elements like carbon that can form neutral allotropes—different structural forms of a single chemical element.
The Inca string code that reveals Peru’s climate history
Five centuries ago, the Incas ruled the western half of South America with the help of a unique form of writing based on colored and knotted cords.
Lake Tahoe mystery: Why aren’t the lake’s famous waters getting more clear?
The clarity of Lake Tahoe is in the middle of a curious trend.
Study finds planetary waves linked to wild summer weather have tripled since 1950
Planetary waves flow across Earth all the time, but sometimes they get amplified, becoming stronger, and the jet stream gets wavier with bigger hills and valleys.
Unexpectedly deep roots in plants unearth new questions about soil carbon storage
Plants and trees extend their roots into the earth in order to draw nutrients and water from the soil—however, these roots are thought to decline as they move deeper underground.
Tree rings reveal increasing rainfall seasonality in the Amazon
Scientists have used clues locked into tree rings to reveal major changes in the Amazon’s rainfall cycle over the last 40 years: wet seasons are getting wetter and dry seasons drier.
Dramatic stretch in quantum materials confirms 100-year-old prediction
The researchers explored magnetoelastic coupling, which is the change in the size or shape of a material when exposed to a magnetic field.
== ~2 hours a day??
Longer walks linked to lower risk of chronic low back pain
Low back pain affects people of all ages and accounts for 7.7% of all years lived with disability worldwide.
Scammers Use Google Ads To Inject Phony Help Lines On Apple, Microsoft Sites
Tech support scammers have devised a method to inject their fake phone numbers into webpages when a target’s web browser visits official sites for Apple, PayPal, Netflix, and other companies.
== wish there were pictures of the finished panels
Huge Roman ‘jigsaw’ reveals 2,000-year-old wall paintings
The frescoes are from at least 20 walls of the building, with beautifully painted details of musical instruments, birds, flowers and fruit.
What farmers’ adaptation to climate change means for the future of food
Productive regions in higher-income countries could be hit hard despite adaptation.
Is it true that … there’s no gain without pain?
Feeling the burn is your body’s way of signalling effort, but you don’t always have to suffer to make progress.
Massive JSFireTruck Malware Campaign Infects Over 269,000 Websites
At the heart of this campaign is an unusually disguised form of JavaScript that appears almost unreadable to the average developer.
== yjc
How Field Notes went from side project to cult notebook
Two decades after Aaron Draplin and Jim Coudal launched Field Notes, the analog notebook company is crushing it in the digital age.
== British perspective, but similar situations likely to happen all over the world
Sharks and oysters set to thrive in warmer UK waters
The UK seas are a hotspot for these effects of climate change and are among 20 places globally that have warmed fastest over the past 50 years.
Honda Successfully Launches and Lands Reusable Rocket
Reusable launch vehicles have been the driver of emerging commercial space missions over the past decade, led by SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
== yjc, people fascinate me
Craig Mod on the Creative Power of Walking
“From this boredom, words flow. I can’t stop them.”
A flesh-eating fly is spreading north to the US
The consequences could be severe for the cattle industry, but this parasite is not picky—it will infest a wide range of hosts, including humans and their pets.
By measuring gases around young stars, astronomers unlock major clues to planet formation
An international team of scientists has produced the most accurate measurement of the gases swirling around young stars and how their mass changes over time.
== this is an issue everywhere in the world, this is just one example
A Lake Mead’s worth of water has vanished from the ground: Could Las Vegas suffer?
The water beneath our feet that we use to bathe, drink and water crops is vanishing faster than ever in the Colorado River Basin, according to a new study.
What is uranium enrichment and how is it used for nuclear bombs?
To understand what it means to “enrich” uranium, you need to know a little about uranium isotopes and about splitting the atom in a nuclear fission reaction.
== yjc
Better basketball through theoretical physics
Arias said he first thought about DFT in terms of crowd behavior—at a concert, for example—then wrote out some equations and realized “these were exactly the equations we use in our many-body physics and quantum mechanical theories.’”
Carbon dioxide removal methods could worsen marine oxygen loss
Methods to enhance the ocean’s uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) are being explored to help tackle the climate crisis. However, some of these approaches could significantly exacerbate ocean deoxygenation.
Amazon canopy trees reveal complex strategies for managing intense light and heat
When trees absorb more energy than they can use for photosynthesis, it must be safely dissipated, either as heat or re-emitted as light—a process called chlorophyll fluorescence.
Nanoneedle patch offers painless alternative to traditional cancer biopsies
A patch containing tens of millions of microscopic nanoneedles could soon replace traditional biopsies.
Astronomers have found the home address for the universe’s ‘missing’ matter
Previously, astronomers have used techniques including X-ray emission and ultraviolet observations of distant quasars to find hints of vast amounts of this missing mass in the form of very thin, warm gas in between galaxies.
Simulation reveals emergence of jet from binary neutron star merger followed by black hole formation
Binary neutron star mergers, cosmic collisions between two very dense stellar remnants made up predominantly of neutrons, have been the topic of numerous astrophysics studies due to their fascinating underlying physics and their possible cosmological outcomes.
Feather-legged lace weaver spider kills prey in novel way
A research team has found that a common spider kills its prey with poison but does not inject it into them—instead, it covers them with a web of silk and then covers the silk with regurgitated toxins.
Microbe With Bizarrely Tiny Genome May Be Evolving Into a Virus
With DNA focused almost entirely on replication, newly discovered organism blurs the line between cells and viruses.
Denmark Tests Unmanned Robotic Sailboat Fleet
From a distance they look almost like ordinary sailboats, their sails emblazoned with the red-and-white flag of Denmark.
Your Brain Has a Hidden Beat – and Smarter Minds Sync To It
When we focus, switch tasks, or face tough mental challenges, the brain starts to sync its internal rhythms, especially in the midfrontal region.
== yjc
Search for century-old artifact from Canadian shipwreck solved with a call from the U.S.
Ronald Stopani, 81, kept the wireless telegraph machine for 51 years before donating to museum.
Researchers Create World’s First Completely Verifiable Random Number Generator
Einstein believed that nature isn’t random, famously saying, “God does not play dice with the universe.” Scientists have since proved that Einstein was wrong.
== people are truly strange
Mysterious carving found in northern Ontario wilderness
Theory is carving was made in early 1800s by Swedish person working for Hudson’s Bay Company.
== my plan, 2 perfectly good PCs, not going to trash them to keep MS happy
LibreOffice Explains ‘Real Costs’ of Upgrading to Microsoft’s Windows 11, Urges Taking Control with Linux
A big change is coming to Windows PCs as Microsoft will soon end support for systems and devices running on Windows 10. As such, the company, alongside its partners like AMD, Asus, and Dell, have begun urging users to embrace the “mandatory Windows 11 upgrade.”
Mitsubishi Launches EV Battery Swap Network in Tokyo - for Both Cars and Trucks
Despite a number of early EV adopters with an overdeveloped concept of ownership, battery swap technology has proven to be both extremely effective and extremely positive to the overall EV ownership experience.
Could This City Be the Model for How to Tackle the Both the Climate and Housing Crisis?
In Vienna, sustainable buildings like aren’t just affordable, they’re widespread. The apartments are what the Viennese call “social housing” — housing that’s built or supported by the government.
17-Year-Old Student Builds 3D-printed Drone In Garage
It all started when Taylor’s little sister got a drone, and he was disappointed to see that it could fly for only about 30 minutes before running out of power.
Space is the Perfect Place to Study Cancer and Someday Even Treat It
An experiment involving artificial organs is just one way researchers are trying to capitalize on the weird ways low-gravity environments affect the human body.
Race to mine metals for EV batteries threatens marine paradise
Stark images, captured from a drone by environmental campaigners, appear to show how nickel mining has stripped forests and polluted waters in one of the most biodiverse marine habitats on Earth.
Do Biofuels Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
Biofuels policy has been a failure for the climate, new report claims
Increased Traffic from Web-Scraping AI Bots is Hard to Monetize
A new kind of AI bot takes over the web.
World’s First 2D, Atom-Thin Non-Silicon Computer Developed
Using molybdenum disulfide and tungsten diselenide, they fabricated over 2,000 transistors capable of executing logic operations on a computer free of traditional silicon.
== yjc
How a neurologist faces the disease that is slowly stealing his cognitive powers: Q&A
It was 2006 when Dr. Daniel Gibbs first noticed he was losing his sense of smell. But it wasn’t what he didn’t smell that tipped him off that something might be wrong.
Potential anti-breast cancer drug identified
A surgeon can excise breast cancer from the body, but even the most skilled scalpel may not be able to remove every cell—especially when the cells have spread from the original disease site elsewhere in the body.
Scientists detect light passing through entire human head, opening new doors for brain imaging
Valued for portability and low cost, fNIRS has a major drawback: it can’t see very deep into the brain. Light typically only reaches the outermost layers of the brain.
Hybrid biomaterial shows how aging in the heart could be reversed
A new lab-grown material has revealed that some of the effects of aging in the heart may be slowed and even reversed.
New model could enable climate-tailored crops for food security
They found that plants sense and respond to temperature through decentralized genetic networks of proteins and biological processes.
== have had article on this idea before
How the disappearance of mastodons still threatens native South American forests
Ten thousand years ago, mastodons vanished from South America. With them, an ecologically vital function also disappeared.
Increased forest fires due to climate change could alter oceanic CO2 absorption
From air quality to landscape configuration and resource availability, the consequences of fire have influenced the development of society throughout history. Their effects on the oceans, though less known, are equally significant.
Some plants make their own pesticide—but at what cost to the atmosphere?
A natural alternative to pesticides may be hiding in a misunderstood plant compound—but it could come at an environmental cost.
Decoding high energy physics with AI and machine learning
In the world of particle physics artificial intelligence and machine learning are making waves with how they’re increasing understanding of the most fundamental particles. Central to this exploration are parton distribution functions (PDFs).
Fossil corals point to possibly steeper sea level rise under a warming world
Newly uncovered evidence from fossil corals found on an island chain in the Indian Ocean suggests that sea levels could rise even more steeply in our warming world than previously thought.
Researchers have shown how “swarm intelligence” resembling advance planning can nevertheless emerge from the concerted operation of many of these tiny brains.
Strange radio pulses detected coming from ice in Antarctica
A cosmic particle detector in Antarctica has emitted a series of bizarre signals that defy the current understanding of particle physics, according to an international research group.
NASA delays commercial crew launch to assess space station air leak
NASA engineers decided they needed more time to assess recent efforts to plug an air leak aboard the International Space Station in a Russian vestibule known as the PrK. The PrK serves as a passageway between the station’s Zvezda module and spacecraft docked at its aft port.
Smart tires will report on the health of roads in new pilot program
Pirelli is partnering with Apulia to monitor roads with connected tires.
IBM Says It’s Cracked Quantum Error Correction
A new chip design and architecture has IBM aiming for fault tolerance by 2029
Enterprise AI adoption stalls as inferencing costs confound cloud customers
Broader AI adoption by enterprise customers is being hindered by the complexity of trying to forecast inferencing costs amid a fear being saddled with excessive bills for cloud services.
“We can't substitute complex thinking with machines. AI can't replace our curiosity, creativity or emotional intelligence.”
- Mateusz Demski, a journalist in Poland, tells the Guardian about how his radio station employer laid him off, only to later launch shows fronted by AI-generated presenters.