Lifeboat Foundation

A new type of lung cell is rare in our bodies, but is the main place where the gene involved in the common hereditary condition cystic fibrosis is active.

The 21st century’s longest lunar eclipse has passed, eclipse doomsday fever has subsided, and all that’s left are the memories and pictures, which you can find everywhere online. But one image really stood out to us—not because of the way the Moon looked, but because of how it made the Earth look.

Australian amateur astronomer Tom Harradine had always wanted to create an image of the Earth’s umbra, the darkest inner region of the shadow. But during an eclipse, the Moon doesn’t pass through the whole of the Earth’s shadow. He needed a trick in order to show the whole thing.

“One way, I thought, to get the full circle of the umbra from a single eclipse event is to artificially locate and rotate successive eclipse images so as the shadow boundary forms a circle,” he said. “The trick is to keep the curvature of the shadow matching up as precisely as possible. Which images to choose is up to artistic license and I chose a spiral effect, not only to show the umbra but to also show the progression of the eclipse as time went on.”

Continue reading “Here’s What Earth’s Shadow Actually Looks Like” »

Grow-your-own organs could be available for desperately ill patients within five years, after scientists successfully transplanted bioengineered lungs into pigs for the first time.

The team at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) showed that lab-grown organs were quickly accepted by the animals, and within just two weeks had developed a network of blood vessels.

Previous attempts have failed with several hours of transplantation because the organs did not establish the complicated web of vessels needed for proper oxygen and blood flow.

Continue reading “Grow-your-own organs could be here within five years, as scientists prove they work in pigs” »

The WasteShark may have a scary name, but really it’s an awesome little water drone that preys on trash in urban waters to prevent it from reaching our oceans.

Scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB), found that the chances for life to develop on the surface of a rocky planet like Earth are connected to the type and strength of light given off by its host star.

Their study, published in the journal Science Advances, proposes that stars which give off sufficient ultraviolet (UV) light could kick-start life on their orbiting planets in the same way it likely developed on Earth, where the UV light powers a series of chemical reactions that produce the building blocks of life.

“We should not start from steam and railways, or the old technologies—that is already done,” Assefa argues.

That makes sense to academics like Singh — though he also cautions that political forces are often slow to see the bigger picture. There is definitely an opportunity for developing countries, he says. “But any time we have a technological revolution, the political institutions have to catch up.”

A 2017 report (pdf) by the World Wide Web Foundation suggested that Ethiopian “intelligence services are using machine intelligence techniques to break encryption and find patterns in social media posts that can be used to identify dissidents.” And while mobile phone and internet penetration in Ethiopia is comparatively poor—a situation made worst amid widespread anti-government protests, which prompted an internet crackdown in February — the report added that government surveillance and oppression could increase as the use of smartphones expands.

Continue reading “Futurists in Ethiopia are betting on artificial intelligence to drive development” »

NASA is naming eight astronauts who will fly the first test missions on commercial spaceships designed by Boeing and SpaceX. The space agency is broadcasting live video — here’s how to watch the NASA announcement.

Could it work?

A rope coiled on dusty trail may trigger a frightened jump by hiker who recently stepped on a snake. Now a new study better explains how a one-time visual experience can shape perceptions afterward.