Researchers develop a novel edge-highlighting visualization technique for more comprehensible 3D-scanned objects. Improvements in three-dimensional (3D) scanning have enabled quick and accurate scanning of 3D objects, including cultural heritage objects, as 3D point cloud data. However, conventional edge-highlighting visualization techniques, used for understanding complex 3D structures, result in excessive line clutter, reducing clarity. Addressing these issues, a multinational team of researchers have developed a novel technique, involving independent rendering of soft and sharp edges in 3D structures, resulting in improved clarity and depth perception.

Recent advances in three-dimensional (3D) scanning, particularly in photogrammetry and laser scanning, have made it possible to quickly and accurately scan complex 3D objects in the real world. These techniques generate detailed models by collecting large-scale point cloud data, representing the object’s surface geometry through millions of individual points. This technology has applications in different fields, such as the 3D scanning of cultural heritage objects. By preserving these objects in digital formats, researchers can analyze their structures in greater depth. However, the complexity of data is often significant, especially when the scanned object has internal 3D structures, like rough edges.

Edge-highlighting visualization is a technique used to improve the clarity of complex 3D structures by emphasizing the object’s edges, making its shape and structure more distinguishable. However, existing methods struggle when applied to highly complex objects. These methods draw too many lines, which decreases clarity by impairing resolution and depth perception.

It’s been more than three decades, but still there are only two treatments for a stroke: either rapid use of a clot-busting medication called tPA or surgical removal of a clot from the brain with mechanical thrombectomy. However, only 5% to 13% percent of stroke cases are actually eligible for these interventions.

“We need to be persistent with our research to find a new therapy for stroke,” says Rajkumar Verma, M.Pharm., Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Neuroscience at UConn School of Medicine working in cross-campus collaboration with Professor Raman Bahal Ph.D. of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the UConn School of Pharmacy. “Stroke research is hard and challenging to do. But without trying we won’t make progress. We need to keep trying. UConn is determined to keep trying.”

In addition to being life-threatening, stroke is the major cause of long-term disability worldwide.

Sending an object to another star is still the stuff of science fiction. But some concrete missions could get us at least part way there. These “interstellar precursor missions” include a trip to the solar gravitational lens point at 550 AU from the sun—farther than any artificial object has ever been, including Voyager.

To get there, we’ll need plenty of new technologies, and a recent paper presented at the 75th International Astronautical Congress in Milan this month looks at one of those potential technologies—electric propulsion systems, otherwise known as ion drives.

The paper aimed to assess when any existing ion drive technology could port a large payload on one of several trajectories, including a trip around Jupiter, one visiting Pluto, and even one reaching that fabled solar gravitational lens. To do so, they specified an “ideal” ion drive with characteristics that enabled optimal values for some of the system’s physical characteristics.

Researchers at Tampere University have developed the world’s first soft touchpad that can sense the force, area and location of contact without electricity. The device utilises pneumatic channels, enabling its use in environments such as MRI machines and other conditions that are unsuitable for electronic devices. Soft devices like soft robots and rehabilitation aids could also benefit from this new technology.

Researchers at Tampere University have developed the world’s first soft touchpad that is able to sense the force, area and location of contact without electricity.

That has traditionally required electronic sensors, but the newly developed touchpad does not need electricity as it uses pneumatic channels embedded in the device for detection.

Researchers from the University of Bonn have trained an AI process to predict potential active ingredients with special properties. Therefore, they derived a chemical language model — a kind of ChatGPT for molecules. Following a training phase, the AI was able to exactly reproduce the chemical structures of compounds with known dual-target activity that may be particularly effective medications. The study has now been published in Cell Reports Physical Science.

Anyone who wants to delight their granny with a poem on her 90th birthday doesn’t need to be a poet nowadays: A short prompt in ChatGPT is all it takes, and within a few seconds the AI spits out a long list of words that rhyme with the birthday girl’s name. It can even produce a sonnet to go with it if you like.

Researchers at the University of Bonn have implemented a similar model in their study — known as a chemical language model. This does not, however, produce rhymes. Instead, the AI displays the structural formulas of chemical compounds that may have a particularly desirable property: They are able to bind to two different target proteins. In the organism, this means, for example, they can inhibit two enzymes at once.

A team of AI researchers with Google’s DeepMind London group has found that certain large language models (LLMs) can serve as effective mediators between groups of people with differing viewpoints regarding a given topic. The work is published in the journal Science.

Over the past several decades, political divides have become common in many countries—most have been labeled as either liberal or conservative. The advent of the internet has served as fuel, allowing people from either side to promote their opinions to a wide audience, generating anger and frustration. Unfortunately, no tools have surfaced to diffuse the tension of such a political climate. In this new effort, the team at DeepMind suggests AI tools such as LLMs may fill that gap.

To find out if LLMs could serve as effective mediators, the researchers trained LLMs called Habermas Machines (HMs) to serve as caucus mediators. As part of their training, the LLMs were taught to identify areas of overlap between viewpoints of people in opposing groups—but not to try to change anyone’s opinions.

As Canadians brace for “vitamin D winter”—months when the sun’s angle is too low to produce the vitamin in the skin—a McGill University study explains why vitamin D deficiency early in life is associated with a higher risk of autoimmune diseases.

During childhood, the thymus helps train immune cells to distinguish between the body’s own tissues and harmful invaders. A vitamin D deficiency at that stage of life causes the thymus to age more quickly, the researchers discovered.

The study is published in the journal Science Advances.

As people who research aging like to quip, the best thing you can do to increase how long you live is to pick good parents. After all, it has long been recognized that longer-lived people tend to have longer-lived parents and grandparents, suggesting that genetics influence longevity.

Complicating the picture, however, is that we know that the sum of your lifestyle, specifically diet and exercise, also significantly influences your health into older age and how long you live. What contribution lifestyle versus genetics makes is an open question that a recent study in Nature has shed new light on.

Scientists have long known that reducing calorie intake can make animals live longer. In the 1930s, it was noted that rats fed reduced calories lived longer than rats who could eat as much as they wanted. Similarly, people who are more physically active tend to live longer. But specifically linking single genes to longevity was until recently a controversial one.

Physicists show that neutron stars may be shrouded in clouds of ‘axions’ — and that these clouds can teach us a lot. A team of physicists from the universities of Amsterdam, Princeton and Oxford have shown that extremely light particles known as axions may occur in large clouds around neutron stars. These axions could form an explanation for the elusive dark matter that cosmologists search for — and moreover, they might not be too difficult to observe.

A multi-institutional group of researchers led by the Hubrecht Institute and Roche’s Institute of Human Biology has developed strategies to identify regulators of intestinal hormone secretion. In response to incoming food, these hormones are secreted by rare hormone producing cells in the gut and play key roles in managing digestion and appetite. The team has developed new tools to identify potential ‘nutrient sensors’ on these hormone producing cells and study their function. This could result in new strategies to interfere with the release of these hormones and provide avenues for the treatment of a variety of metabolic or gut motility disorders. The work will be presented in an article in Science, on October 18th.

The intestine acts as a vital barrier. It protects the body from harmful bacteria and highly dynamic pH levels, while allowing nutrients and vitamins to enter the bloodstream. The gut is also home to endocrine cells, which secrete many hormones that regulate bodily functions. These enteroendocrine cells (EECs, endocrine cells of the gut) are very rare cells that release hormones in response to various triggers, such as stretching of the stomach, energy levels and nutrients from food. These hormones in turn regulate key aspects of physiology in response to the incoming food, such as digestion and appetite. Thus, EECs are the body’s first responders to incoming food, and instruct and prepare the rest of the body for what is coming.

Medications that mimic gut hormones, most famously GLP-1, are very promising for the treatment of multiple metabolic diseases. Directly manipulating EECs to adjust hormone secretion could open up new therapeutic options. However, it has been challenging to understand how gut hormone release can be influenced effectively. Researchers have had trouble identifying the sensors on EECs, because EECs themselves represent less than 1% of cells in the intestinal epithelium, and in addition the sensors on these EECs are expressed in low amounts. Current studies mainly rely on mouse models, even though the signals to which mouse EECs respond are likely different compared to those to which human EECs respond. Therefore, new models and approaches were required to study these signals.