Science

A Beijing-based energy company has taken a major step toward commercial airborne wind power after completing the maiden flight and grid-connected power generation test of its megawatt-class system in Southwest China.

The test took place on Sunday in Yibin, Sichuan Province, where the floating wind power platform rose to about 6,560 feet (2,000 meters) and successfully delivered electricity to the grid, as reported by China’s state-backed Global Times.

An experimental mRNA treatment has converted the liver into an immune cell "nursery" that pumped out greater numbers of healthy T cells in mice. Since the immune system has a powerful effect on other things like organ health and inflammation, it is hoped that such a treatment in humans might significantly expand our "healthspan", keeping us healthier and more disease-free later in life.

Each time Matthew Zipple, a behavioral ecologist at Cornell University, releases a mouse that was born and raised in a laboratory into the green expanse of a field, he is amazed. He transports the mouse in a paper cup, lays the cup on its side in the grass, and takes off the lid. “When the…

Archived: https://archive.is/AXYs8

[...]Japanese researchers are moving forward with an experimental drug that promises to regrow human teeth. Human trials began in September 2024.

“We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,” Katsu Takahashi, the head of dentistry at the medical research institute at Kitano Hospital in Osaka, told The Mainichi. “While there has been no treatment to date providing a permanent cure, we feel that people’s expectations for tooth growth are high.”

This development follows years of study around a particularly antibody named Uterine sensitization–associated gene-1 (USAG-1), which has been shown to inhibit the growth of teeth in ferrets and mice. Back in 2021, scientists from the Kyoto University—who will also be involved in future human trials—discovered a monoclonal antibody (a technique usually used in fighting cancer) that disrupted the interaction between USAG-1 and molecules known as bone morphogenetic protein, or BMP.

“We knew that suppressing USAG-1 benefits tooth growth. What we did not know was whether it would be enough,” Kyoto University’s Katsu Takahashi, a co-author of the study, said in a press statement at the time. “Ferrets are diphyodont animals with similar dental patterns to humans.”

Now, scientists will see just how similar, because humans are undergoing a similar trial. Lasting 11 months, this study focuses on 30 males between the ages of 30 and 64—each missing at least one tooth. The drug will be administered intravenously to prove its effectiveness and safety, and luckily, no side effects have been reported in previous animal studies.

If all goes well, Kitano Hospital will administer the treatment to patients between the ages of 2 to 7 who are missing at least four teeth, with the end goal of having a tooth-regrowing medicine available by the year 2030. While these treatments are currently focused on patients with congenital tooth deficiency, Takahashi hopes the treatment will be available for anyone who’s lost a tooth.

relevant paper

Researchers at Stanford Medicine report that blocking a protein linked to aging can restore cartilage that naturally wears away in the knees of older mice. In the study, the injectable treatment not only rebuilt cartilage but also stopped arthritis from developing after knee injuries similar to ACL tears, which are common among athletes and active adults. A pill-based version of the same therapy is already being tested in clinical trials aimed at treating muscle weakness associated with aging.

Human knee tissue collected during joint replacement surgeries also responded positively to the treatment. These samples, which include both the joint’s supporting extracellular scaffolding, or matrix, and cartilage-producing chondrocyte cells, began forming new cartilage that functioned normally.

Together, these findings point to the possibility that cartilage lost through aging or arthritis could one day be restored using a localized injection or an oral medication, potentially eliminating the need for knee or hip replacement surgery.

Americans can become more cynical about the state of society when they see harmful behavior online. Three studies of the American public (n = 1,090) revealed that they consistently and substantially overestimated how many social media users contribute to harmful behavior online. On average, they believed that 43% of all Reddit users have posted severely toxic comments and that 47% of all Facebook users have shared false news online. In reality, platform-level data shows that most of these forms of harmful content are produced by small but highly active groups of users (3–7%). This misperception was robust to different thresholds of harmful content classification. An experiment revealed that overestimating the proportion of social media users who post harmful content makes people feel more negative emotion, perceive the United States to be in greater moral decline, and cultivate distorted perceptions of what others want to see on social media. However, these effects can be mitigated through a targeted educational intervention that corrects this misperception. Together, our findings highlight a mechanism that helps explain how people's perceptions and interactions with social media may undermine social cohesion.

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We knew from prior analyses that a distant asteroid sampled in 2020 carried all but one of the molecules needed to kick-start life, and researchers have just found the missing ingredient: sugar

From the outside, it looks like any ordinary nappy – one of the tens of billions that end up in landfill each year. But the Hiro diaper comes with an unusual companion: a sachet of freeze-dried fungi to sprinkle over a baby’s gloopy excretions.

The idea is to kickstart a catalytic process that could see the entire nappy – plastics and all – broken down into compost within a year.

Hiro was one of several innovations recognised this week by the Future is Fungi Awards, which honour groundbreaking innovations using fungi to tackle some of the planet’s most urgent environmental challenges.

Several forces are converging to put fungi in the spotlight, said Prof Andrew Adamatzky at the University of the West of England in Bristol, who is investigating whether fungi could be incorporated into unconventional computing circuits.

Hello everyone 🌿

I’m applying to the Foresight Institute — AI for Science program, and I need one neutral reference contact (full name and email) — not a recommendation, not a letter, and no endorsement of the content.

The role is minimal: If the committee decides to reach out (most likely they won’t), they may ask only:

whether you have seen or read the work;

whether the application appears serious.

I am developing an interdisciplinary model called ICT (Information–Consciousness–Temporality).

At the core of the model: — dI/dT as a formal dynamic of consciousness, — I_fixed as a model of material fixation of informational states.

Discussion and preprint: https://www.academia.edu/s/8924eff666

PDF: https://www.academia.edu/144946662/The_Conceptual_Model_of_the_Essence_of_Information_Temporal_Interaction_of_Consciousness_and_Matter_The_ICT_Model_by_Baturo_Elion_

DOI: https://zenodo.org/records/17584783 Docx format

If any researchers here are willing to serve as such a neutral contact, I would be very grateful. It requires zero time from you other than possibly confirming briefly by email.

Thank you to everyone who responds.

Today all that’s left of the ancient city of Semiyarka are a few low earthen mounds and some scattered artifacts, nearly hidden beneath the waving grasses of the Kazakh Steppe, a vast swath of grassland that stretches across northern Kazakhstan and into Russia. But recent surveys and excavations reveal that 3,500 years ago, this empty plain was a bustling city with a thriving metalworking industry, where nomadic herders and traders might have mingled with settled metalworkers and merchants.

University College of London archaeologist Miljana Radivojevic and her colleagues recently mapped the site with drones and geophysical surveys (like ground-penetrating radar, for example), tracing the layout of a 140-hectare city on the steppe in what’s now Kazakhstan.

The Bronze Age city once boasted rows of houses built on earthworks, a large central building, and a neighborhood of workshops where artisans smelted and cast bronze. From its windswept promontory, it held a commanding view of a narrow point in the Irtysh River valley, a strategic location that may have offered the city “control over movement along the river and valley bottom,” according to Radivojevic and her colleagues. That view inspired archaeologists’ name for the city: Semiyarka, or City of Seven Ravines.

Archaeologists have known about the site since the early 2000s, when the US Department of Defense declassified a set of photographs taken by its Corona spy satellite in 1972, when Kazakhstan was a part of the Soviet Union and the US was eager to see what was happening behind the Iron Curtain. Those photos captured the outlines of Semiyarka’s kilometer-long earthworks, but the recent surveys reveal that the Bronze Age city was much larger and much more interesting than anyone realized.