Category: Just plain interesting!

Groundbreaking Research Identifies Likely Cause of Alzheimer’s Disease – Potential for New Treatment

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Groundbreaking Research Identifies Likely Cause of Alzheimer’s Disease – Potential for New Treatment

source: scitechdaily.com  | image: pexels.com

 

A likely cause of Ground-breaking new Curtin University-led research has discovered a likely cause of Alzheimer’s disease, in a significant finding that offers potential new prevention and treatment opportunities for Australia’s second-leading cause of death.

The study, published in the prestigious PLOS Biology journal and tested on mouse models, identified that a probable cause of Alzheimer’s disease was the leakage from blood into the brain of fat-carrying particles transporting toxic proteins. 

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The World’s Most Creative People Have This One Thing In Common

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The World’s Most Creative People Have This One Thing In Common

Researchers used artificial intelligence to study the careers of 4,500 directors, 70,000 scientists, and 2,000 artists. The most successful among them share an important trait.

 

source: fastcompany.com

Image by Alexandr Ivanov from Pixabay 

When it comes to creative careers, success can be hard to achieve and even harder to define. But what if there were a magic formula that could increase your odds of a creative breakthrough?

A new study suggests that this magic formula may well exist. The secret to creativity lies in hitting “hot streaks,” or bursts of repeated successes, like Jackson Pollock’s “drip paintings” begun in the late 1940s, or Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy in the early 2000s. Published in Nature, the study explores exactly what people do before and during a hot streak. Using artificial intelligence to comb through rich datasets related to artists, film directors, and scientists, the researchers identified a pattern that is present across all three fields. The study author believes it could apply to designers, too.

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I Can’t Forget the Lessons of Vietnam. Neither Should You.

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I Can’t Forget the Lessons of Vietnam. Neither Should You.

source: nytimes.com (contributed by Bob Wallace)

image:  pixabay.com

 

Aug. 19, 2021

By Viet Thanh Nguyen

Mr. Nguyen is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Sympathizer” and its sequel, “The Committed.” He is a professor of English, American studies and comparative literature at the University of Southern California.

I was 4 years old when Saigon fell, so I do not remember any of it. I count myself lucky, since many Vietnamese who survived the end of that war were greatly traumatized by it. The collapse of the American-backed Southern regime began in my Central Highlands hometown, Ban Me Thuot, in March 1975. In less than two months, all of South Vietnam capitulated to the North Vietnamese. Soldiers fled in chaotic retreat among civilians. My mother, brother and I were among them. We left behind my adopted sister. After walking nearly 200 kilometers to escape the advancing North Vietnamese army, the three of us made it to the seaside city of Nha Trang, where we managed to find a boat to take us to Saigon where my father was.

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21st Century Dunkirk…

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21st Century Dunkirk: The story of how air traffic controllers used social media DMs to help rescue friends trapped in Afghanistan

source: warisboring.com  |  image: pixabay.com

sourced by Bob Wallace

This is a fascinating article published by Bright Mountain Media.  Unfortunately, we are unable to post any part of the article here.  Instead, however, we encourage you to navigate directly to warisboring.com where you can read the article in its entirety.

The full article can be seen here

 

THINK SMALL: WHY THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY SHOULD DO LESS ABOUT NEW THREATS

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THINK SMALL: WHY THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY SHOULD DO LESS ABOUT NEW THREATS

source: warontherocks.com. 

Image by WikiImages from Pixabay 

 

A week into his administration, President Joe Biden announced that he was “putting the climate crisis at the center of United States foreign policy and national security,” and directed the intelligence community to draft a national intelligence estimate on the implications of climate change. In so doing, the president injected new urgency into an old question: What counts as a national security threat?

For intelligence agencies, the traditional answer has revolved around foreign military powers. The architects of the U.S. intelligence community designed a bureaucracy whose main focus was watching the Soviet Union, assessing its conventional and nuclear capabilities, and searching for signs of attack. After the Cold War its focus shifted to terrorism and support for military operations, as the United States undertook a series of humanitarian interventions and state-building campaigns.

 

 

Recent years have witnessed an even more profound change. A growing chorus of analysts argues that security is not primarily about guarding the nation from hostile states or great powers. War is in decline, they say, and acts of terrorism against Americans are rare. The real dangers are transnational threats like climate change and pandemics. Nothing has a more tangible effect on the safety and well-being of American citizens. The odds that any of us will be affected by war or terrorism are vanishingly small. The odds that all of us will suffer from transnational security threats are rising.

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World’s first 3D-printed steel bridge opens to pedestrians in Amsterdam

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source: cnet.com

The pedestrian bridge took four years of research and 4.9 tons of stainless steel to construct.

If you thought 3D-printed scooters were cool, wait till you see where you can take them if you happen to be in Amsterdam. Earlier this month, engineers installed the world’s first 3D-printed steel bridge, over the Oudezijds Achterburgwal canal in Amsterdam’s Red Light District. After being dedicated by Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, the bridge is now open to pedestrians and cyclists (and, presumably, scooterists), according to a report from the Imperial College of London.

Physical construction of the bridge took four giant, torch-wielding robots six months to complete, layer by painstaking layer, using a net total of 4.9 tons of steel. However, before that process began, scientists at Dutch company MX3D spent four years on preliminary research and development to make sure the finished product would be sound.

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Transient Pacemaker Harmlessly Dissolves In Body

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Transient pacemaker harmlessly dissolves in body

Wireless, fully implantable device gives temporary pacing without requiring removal

source: sciencedaily.com

Researchers at Northwestern and George Washington (GW) universities have developed the first-ever transient pacemaker — a wireless, battery-free, fully implantable pacing device that disappears after it’s no longer needed.

The thin, flexible, lightweight device could be used in patients who need temporary pacing after cardiac surgery or while waiting for a permanent pacemaker. All components of the pacemaker are biocompatible and naturally absorb into the body’s biofluids over the course of five to seven weeks, without needing surgical extraction.

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8 Free Streaming Services to Save You From Subscription Hell

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8 Free Streaming Services to Save You From Subscription Hell

source: wired.com

You may not have heard of Tubi, Pluto TV, or Kanopy—but they’re the perfect cure for subscription fatigue.

THE MAIN CASUALTY of the streaming wars so far has been your wallet. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, Hulu, Apple TV+, Disney+, Discovery+: They all demand a monthly tithe. Toss in a live service like YouTube TV, the music app of your choice, and whatever gaming concoction suits your needs, and you’re suddenly ringing up a pretty grim bill. But wait! Recent years have seen a bumper crop of free streaming services as well. They’re the perfect cure for subscription fatigue.

The old adage that you get what you pay for does apply here to some extent. Free streaming services typically don’t have as many viewing options as their paid counterparts, and most make you watch a few ads along the way. But they’re also better than you might expect, and they continue to improve. Some even include original programming, or something close to it; the Roku Channel acquired the rights to dozens of shows that originally appeared on the ill-fated Quibi streaming service, and it began showing them on Thursday.

While you shouldn’t expect any of the following free streaming services to replace Netflix in your streaming regimen, you shouldn’t count them out either. Each almost certainly offers at least something you want to watch, and they won’t cost you an arm and a leg—or anything at all—to take advantage.

 

The Roku Channel

 

OK, this could potentially be confusing, since Roku is made up of thousands of “channels,” including the majors like Hulu and HBO Now. But it also operates the Roku Channel, which offers an eclectic mix of movies and TV shows. Typically it doesn’t have much that’s new new, although you can find plenty of older hits like Troy and The Queen, along with slightly musty television classics like Alias and 3rd Rock From the Sun. (Most notably: It has the full run of The Prisoner, the original 1967 version, which you should watch right now if you haven’t already.)

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Advanced Computer Model Enables…

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Advanced Computer Model Enables Improvements to “Bionic Eye” Technology

Researchers at Keck School of Medicine of There are millions of people who face the loss of their eyesight from degenerative eye diseases. The genetic disorder retinitis pigmentosa alone affects 1 in 4,000 people worldwide.

Today, there is technology available to offer partial eyesight to people with that syndrome. The Argus II, the world’s first retinal prosthesis, reproduces some functions of a part of the eye essential to vision, to allow users to perceive movement and shapes.

While the field of retinal prostheses is still in its infancy, for hundreds of users around the globe, the “bionic eye” enriches the way they interact with the world on a daily basis. For instance, seeing outlines of objects enables them to move around unfamiliar environments with increased safety.

That is just the start. Researchers are seeking future improvements upon the technology, with an ambitious objective in mind.

 

 

 

 

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Ready for Post-Vaccine Life? This Astronaut Explains…

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Ready for Post-Vaccine Life? This Astronaut Explains How to Reenter Society After a Long Time Away

source: fastcompany.com

Douglas Wheelock spent five months on the International Space Station before coming back to Earth. He says we’re all about to have a small version of the same experience, and it helps to be ready.

“The planet,” says decorated NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock, “is this beautiful explosion of life and color during the day, and just raging with light and motion at night. It’s this oasis of life in this vast, empty, dark sea of just blackness.” Those were his impressions of the earth as viewed from the International Space Station, where he spent five months in 2010. “I’m kind of ashamed that I lived so many years without realizing how special our existence is in this universe.”