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Solar Energy Conversion Efficiency Of 47% Demonstrated

Posted in Hardware on 26th Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

A new six-junction solar cell, developed by NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory), converts 47.1% of incident light into electricity when combined with optical concentration.

Coronavirus Antibody Immunity Fades By 70% Within 2-3 Months

Posted in Medicine on 23rd Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

Antibody levels found in recovered COVID-19 patients fell sharply in 2-3 months after infection for both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients, according to a Chinese study published in Nature Medicine. This raises questions about the length of any immunity against the novel coronavirus.

Airbus To Continue Work On ESA's Fetch Mars Rover

Posted in Hardware, Science on 17th Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

ESA has awarded a contract to Airbus Defence and Space to go ahead on the next phase to develop the advanced Sample Fetch Rover.

Artificial Synapses And Living Cells Communicate Using Brain Chemicals

Posted in Science on 17th Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

A new biohybrid artificial synapse allows living cells to communicate with electronics using electrochemical signals

CRISPR At Lightning Speeds

Posted in Science on 17th Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University has developed a way to speed up the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing process by using light-sensitive nucleotides.

Synthetic Fungal Compound Activates Cancer's Self-destruct Switch

Posted in Medicine on 12th Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

Scientists at the University of Tokyo have developed a synthetic version of a fungal compound that could help swing things back in our favor, by reactivating a missing gene that would normally drive these sinister cells to self-destruction.

Impressive Long-term Benefits Of MDMA For Treating PTSD, Study Reports

Posted in Medicine on 11th Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

At the original end-point of the trials, 56 percent of the cohort no longer met the clinical criteria for PTSD. The long-term follow-up data revealed continued improvements in most subjects for well over a year, with 67 percent of the cohort subsequently no longer meeting the PTSD criteria.

World-first 3D Bionic Eye Could Enable Superhuman Sight, Night Vision

Posted in Hardware, Medicine on 11th Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

A team led by scientists at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed what they call the Electrochemical Eye (EC-Eye).

How A Crowdsourcing Challenge Turbocharged Brain Research During Lockdown

Posted in Medicine, Science on 10th Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

Thanks to big data and machine learning, large-scale collaborations for mapping the brain have already been made possible through data-sharing, such as the Human Brain Project or the BRAIN Initiative.

ESA's Prometheus To Usher In Cheaper, Reusable Next-gen Rocket Engines

Posted in Medicine on 8th Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

ESA's Prometheus to usher in cheaper, reusable next-gen rocket engines

Northrop Grumman Selected To Design And Build Gateway's Habitat Module

Posted in Science on 8th Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

Northrop Grumman has been awarded a US$187 million contract to design the Habitation And Logistics Outpost (HALO) crew module for NASA's Gateway deep space outpost.

Facebook Creates Shopping Data Sets To Make More Humanlike Chatbots

Posted in Online, Software on 5th Jun, 2020
by Alex Muller

The hope is that this assistant emulates human chat partners by responding to images, messages, and messages about images as naturally as a person might.