Lifeboat Foundation

In celebration of the 31st anniversary of the launching of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers aimed the renowned observatory at a brilliant “celebrity star,” one of the brightest stars seen in our galaxy, surrounded by a glowing halo of gas and dust. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI

The mighty blue giant AG Carinae is not your normal star. One of the brightest stars in our Milky Way galaxy, AG Carinae is sizzling hot, shining with the brilliance of 1 million suns. You would need super sunscreen if you lived in the star’s vicinity. The star is up to 70 times heftier than our Sun and burning fuel at a ferocious rate.

Continue reading “Hubble Captures Sizzling Hot Giant Star on the Edge of Destruction – Shining With the Brilliance of 1 Million Suns” »

AI squad mates. Called this a few years ago. It’s too annoying getting strangers to join up on some online task for a game.

Who wouldn’t want an A.I.to sit there and play backseat gamer? That’s exactly what looks to be happening thanks to a recently revealed Sony patent. The patent is for an automated Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) control mode specifically designed to perform certain tasks, including playing a game while the player is away.

In the patent, as spotted by SegmentNext, it’s detailed that this A.I. will involve assigning a default gameplay profile to the user. This profile will include a compendium of information detailing the player’s gaming habits, play styles, and decision-making processes while sitting down for a new adventure. This knowledge can then be harnessed to simulate the player’s gaming habits, even when said gamer is away from their platform of choice.

Continue reading “Sony Files A Patent For An A.I. That Will Play Your Games And Judge You” »

SpaceX’s Crew-2 mission lit up the sky with a spectacular spaceflight show this morning (April 23) with a successful crewed launch to the International Space Station.

SpaceX lit up the sky with a spectacular rocket show before dawn today (April 23) with a successful Crew-2 astronaut launch to the International Space Station for NASA.

Riding a Falcon 9 rocket, the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as the sun slowly crept above the horizon, making for an especially colorful and striking view.

Scientists have discovered one of the smallest black holes on record – and the closest one to Earth found to date.

Researchers have dubbed it “The Unicorn,” in part because it is, so far, one of a kind, and in part because it was found in the constellation Monoceros – “The Unicorn.” The findings were published on April 21, 2021, in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

“When we looked at the data, this black hole – the Unicorn – just popped out,” said lead author Tharindu Jayasinghe, a doctoral student in astronomy at The Ohio State University and an Ohio State presidential fellow.

Over the last 60 years, scientists have been able to observe how and when genetic information was replicated, determining the existence a “replication timing program,” a process that controls when and in what order segments of DNA replicate. However, scientists still cannot explain why such a specific timing sequence exists. In a study published today in Science, Dr. David Gilbert and his team have answered this 60-year-old question.

“Why would cells care about the order in which they replicate DNA?” asked lead scientist Dr. Gilbert. “After all—all cells need to replicate all their DNA. Our hypothesis has been that it’s not just DNA that replicates, but all of the regulatory molecules that read the DNA replicate as well.” Dr. Gilbert further hypothesized that there might be a purpose behind the replication timing program and process because “mother nature would not squander this opportunity to control how the DNA is read.”

“The time at which you replicate provides an ideal time at which to choose whether to maintain all the regulatory factors and continue with the same functional interpretation of the information in DNA or change it to elicit new functions,” explains Dr. Gilbert.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about drones as a huge military asset. But, since everybody seems to be doing the same thing, the question becomes: how do we counteract them? The U.S. military is also focusing on drones as a threat and what are the best ways to tackle this threat. Aerial Dragnet has the answers.

Early trials show Oxford developers may have finally found an effective jab against the disease.

O,.o.

European cyberknife center to be among the first providers in the world to offer the latest advance in gyroscopic radiosurgery.

Males may have shorter lifespans than females due to repetitive sections of the Y chromosome that create toxic effects as males get older. These new findings appear in a study by Doris Bachtrog of the University of California, Berkeley published April 22 in PLOS Genetics.

In humans and other species with XY sex chromosomes, females often live longer than males. One possible explanation for this disparity may be repetitive sequences within the genome. While both males and females carry these repeat sequences, scientists have suspected that the large number of repeats on the Y chromosome may create a “toxic y effect” that shortens males’ lives. To test this idea, Bachtrog studied male fruit flies from the species Drosophila miranda, which have about twice as much repetitive DNA as females and a shorter lifespan. They showed that when the DNA is in its tightly packed form inside the cells of young male flies, the repeat sections are turned off. But as the flies age, the DNA assumes a looser form that can activate the repeat sections, resulting in toxic side effects.

The new study demonstrates that Y chromosomes that are rich in repeats are a genomic liability for males. The findings also support a more general link between repeat DNA and aging, which currently, is poorly understood. Previous studies in fruit flies have shown that when repeat sections become active, they impair memory, shorten the lifespan and cause DNA damage. This damage likely contributes to aging’s physiological effects, but more research will be needed to uncover the mechanisms underlying repeat DNA’s toxic effects.