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A Billionaire-Backed Startup Wants to Grow ‘Organ Sacks’ to Replace Animal Testing

As the Trump administration phases out the use of animal experimentation across the federal government, a biotech startup has a bold idea for an alternative to animal testing: nonsentient “organ sacks.”

Bay Area-based R3 Bio has been quietly pitching the idea to investors and in industry publications as a way to replace lab animals without the ethical issues that come with living organisms. That’s because these structures would contain all of the typical organs—except a brain, rendering them unable to think or feel pain. The company’s long-term goal, cofounder Alice Gilman says, is to make human versions that could be used as a source of tissues and organs for people who need them.

For Immortal Dragons, a Singapore-based longevity fund that’s invested in R3, the idea of replacement is a core strategy for human longevity. “We think replacement is probably better than repair when it comes to treating diseases or regulating the aging process in the human body,” says CEO Boyang Wang. “If we can create a nonsentient, headless bodyoid for a human being, that will be a great source of organs.”

Firehorse superstition helps uncover why women’s education may not drive Japan’s fertility decline

The rapidly declining marriage and fertility rates across developed East Asian societies strain pension and health care systems, threaten economic growth, and reshape entire societies. To tackle this issue, governments in Japan and across East Asia have invested heavily in pronatalist measures, but often with limited success. For instance, Japan’s government has repeatedly expanded childcare subsidies and parental leave provisions, yet the total fertility rate hit a record low of 1.20 in 2024.

A common narrative in media commentary, policy circles, and even within families is that women are “too educated” or “too career-focused” to marry and have children. However, the exact causal relationship between women’s education level and family formation is not well understood.

To fill this knowledge gap, a team of researchers from Japan and Singapore, led by Associate Professor Rong Fu from the Faculty of Commerce, Waseda University, Japan, used a novel quasi-experimental approach to understand the relationship between education, fertility, and marriage in Japan.

New Models Track Lava Flow on Earth and Other Planets

Scientists have used satellite data from the Mauna Loa eruption to improve lava flow modeling for both Earth and other planetary bodies. [ https://www.labroots.com/trending/earth-and-the-environment/…-planets-2](https://www.labroots.com/trending/earth-and-the-environment/…-planets-2)

Do lava flows behave the same on other planets as they do on Earth? This is what a recent study published in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated new methods for predicting the lava flow behavior and how this could be applied to other planets. This study has the potential to help scientists and engineers develop novel scientific methods that can be applied both on Earth and beyond.

For the study, the researchers examined satellite data from the 2022 Mauna Loa eruption in Hawaii that lasted from November 27 to December 10. The motivation behind the study was to address a longstanding knowledge gap regarding the limitations of using individual satellite datasets for volcanic hazard response. To address this, the team analyzed satellite data from a combination of private companies and government agencies to gain insight into the entire time period of the eruption.

In the end, the researchers successfully identified an origin for the eruption along with gathering data and fresh insight on the lava flow behavior during the eruption and post-eruption activity. They note several times throughout the study that this new method could be used to study volcanic activity on Mars, Venus, and Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, the last of which is the most volcanically active planetary body in the entire solar system that boasts hundreds of active volcanoes.

Canada arrests three for operating “SMS blaster” device in Toronto

Canadian authorities have arrested three men for operating an “SMS blaster” device that pretends to be a cellular tower to send phishing texts to nearby phones.

Such tools trick devices into connecting to them by emitting signals that mimic a legitimate tower. Mobile phones in its range automatically link to them as there is stronger reception.

Once the connection is established, the operators of these rogue cellular base stations can push SMS messages directly to connected devices, which appear to come from trusted entities such as banks or the government.

Hidden mosquito viruses emerge as RNA immune signals map global infections

Aedes aegypti, commonly known as the yellow fever mosquito, is a highly adapted, invasive mosquito species recognized as a major global health threat that acts as the primary vector for several severe diseases, most notably dengue fever, as well as yellow fever, chikungunya and Zika virus. Local government agencies conduct routine molecular surveillance of these mosquitoes to detect and track viruses. However, they are primarily limited to using conventional reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction methodologies, which can only detect known pathogens that have already been identified and for which specific genetic primers have been developed.

Recent research efforts applying high-throughput RNA sequencing have led to a large expansion in the mosquito virome (the entire collection of viruses contained within mosquitoes). However, questions remain as to how persistent insect viruses are within mosquito colonies, how insect viruses interact with mosquito immune responses and how frequently insect viruses can be transmitted.

A new study by Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine researchers looked at the mosquitoes’ immune response to discover many more insect viruses and they hope to someday use the mosquitoes’ own immune system to battle some of the most pervasive and antagonistic human viruses. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

I’ve fired one of America’s most powerful lasers—here’s what a shot day looks like

If you walk across the open yard in front of the Physics, Math and Astronomy building at the University of Texas at Austin, you’ll see a 17-story tower and a huge L-shaped building. What you won’t see is what’s underneath you. Two floors below ground, behind heavy double doors stamped with a logo that most students have never noticed, sits one of the most powerful lasers in the United States.

I was the lead laser scientist on the Texas Petawatt, or TPW as we called it, from 2020 to 2024. Texas Petawatt, which is currently closed due to funding cuts, was a government-funded research center where scientists from across the country applied for time to use specialized equipment. It was part of LaserNetUS, a Department of Energy network of high-power laser labs.

This type of laser takes a tiny pulse of light, stretches it out so it doesn’t blast optics to pieces, and amplifies it until, for a brief instant, it carries more power than the entire U.S. electrical grid. Then it compresses the pulse back to a trillionth of a second to create a star in a vacuum chamber.

3 Interventions to Show Aging is Treatable: The US Government’s $38M Bet

The US Government is finally treating aging as a modifiable condition. Discover the VITAL-H trial: a $38M federal study testing Rapamycin, Semaglutide, and Dapagliflozin to set the first FDA-approved roadmap for healthy longevity.
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Is aging finally becoming a recognized medical priority? In this video, we break down the historic VITAL-H trial, a $38 million initiative funded by ARPA-H (the \.

Signed software abused to deploy antivirus-killing scripts

A digitally signed adware tool has deployed payloads running with SYSTEM privileges that disabled antivirus protections on thousands of endpoints, some in the educational, utilities, government, and healthcare sectors.

In a single day, researchers observed more than 23,500 infected hosts in 124 countries trying to connect to the operator’s infrastructure, with hundreds of infected endpoints present in high-value networks.

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