science

The new moon occurs on Wednesday, Oct. 2, at 2:49 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (1849 GMT), according to the U.S. Naval Observatory, and for observers in the southeastern Pacific islands and southern Chile and Argentina there will be an annular solar eclipse.

counts me out.

Now for the first time scientists researching the brain of a fly have identified the position, shape and connections of every single one of its 130,000 cells and 50 million connections.

It's the most detailed analysis of the brain of an adult animal ever produced.

One leading brain specialist independent of the new research described the breakthrough as a "huge leap" in our understanding of our own brains.

Interesting application of machine learning to actually reduce computational intensity for once...

New analysis of Betelgeuse’s brightness variations and other data points to a small, close companion for this giant star.

"... Researchers are hoping to do that now that they have a new map — the most complete for any organism so far — of the brain of a single fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). The wiring diagram, or ‘connectome’, includes nearly 140,000 neurons and captures more than 54.5 million synapses, which are the connections between nerve cells.

... The map is described in a package of nine papers about the data published in Nature today. Its creators are part of a consortium known as FlyWire, co-led by neuroscientists Mala Murthy and Sebastian Seung at Princeton University in New Jersey."

See the associated Nature collection: The FlyWire connectome: neuronal wiring diagram of a complete fly brain, which also has links to the nine papers

All nine papers are open access!

ELI12 TLDR: Decent accuracy was found ~80% when using these to differentiate between people with Long COVID versus people who had recovered. People with Long COVID tend to have high Artemin which is linked to nerve cell communication problems and the elevated levels found may provide a clue into the cognitive problems many of these patients have. High Galectin-9 levels (which were also found here) are often associated with immune issues such as overactivation, which seems to fit well with all the immune abnormalities we see in these patients.

Abstract: This study aimed to assess plasma galectin-9 (Gal-9) and artemin (ARTN) concentrations as potential biomarkers to differentiate individuals with Long COVID (LC) patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) from SARS-CoV-2 recovered (R) and healthy controls (HCs). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis determined a cut-off value of plasma Gal-9 and ARTN to differentiate LC patients from the R group and HCs in two independent cohorts. Positive correlations were observed between elevated plasma Gal-9 levels and inflammatory markers (e.g. SAA and IP-10), as well as sCD14 and I-FABP in LC patients. Gal-9 also exhibited a positive correlation with cognitive failure scores, suggesting its potential role in cognitive impairment in LC patients with ME/CFS. This study highlights plasma Gal-9 and/or ARTN as sensitive screening biomarkers for discriminating LC patients from controls. Notably, the elevation of LPS-binding protein in LC patients, as has been observed in HIV infected individuals, suggests microbial translocation. However, despite elevated Gal-9, we found a significant decline in ARTN levels in the plasma of people living with HIV (PLWH). Our study provides a novel and important role for Gal-9/ARTN in LC pathogenesis.

links to www.quantamagazine.org, a site with many interesting articles.

Gargantuan, a space term

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20317598

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_Borealis

A society has been formed to share the ideas of quantum physicist, philosopher David Bohm (1917-1992).

"I can tell you one thing. David Bohm knows a lot more than just a little about physics." - Richard Feynman

WASHINGTON — A new study suggests that your morning brew might be doing more than just perking you up — it could be protecting you from a range of serious heart conditions. Researchers working with the Endocrine Society have found that drinking a moderate amount of coffee is associated with a lower risk of developing multiple cardiometabolic diseases. In simpler terms, your daily cup of coffee (or three) might help ward off conditions like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

“Consuming three cups of coffee, or 200-300 mg caffeine, per day might help to reduce the risk of developing cardiometabolic multimorbidity in individuals without any cardiometabolic disease,” says Dr. Chaofu Ke, the lead author of the study from Suzhou Medical College in China, in a media release.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/3-cups-of-coffee-diseases/

A Science News report about Dr. Eliezer Masliah (who held a highly important role at the National Institute of Aging), a 300-page dossier composed of misconducts at his lab, as well as followups... Featuring everyone's favorite research integrity sleuths (Elizabeth Bik, Mu Yang, "Cheshire", ...) and more.

Post URL points to archive.org due to soft paywall on Science News. Here's the original link

Semiconductors have already had a very profound effect on society, accelerating scientific research and driving greater connectivity. Future semiconductor hardware will open up new possibilities in quantum computing, artificial intelligence and edge computing, for applications such as cybersecurity and personalized healthcare. By nature of its ethos, open hardware provides opportunities for even greater collaboration and innovations across education, academic research and industry. Here we present Flex-RV, a 32-bit microprocessor based on an open RISC-V instruction set fabricated with indium gallium zinc oxide thin-film transistors on a flexible polyimide substrate, enabling an ultralow-cost bendable microprocessor. Flex-RV also integrates a programmable machine learning (ML) hardware accelerator inside the microprocessor and demonstrates new instructions to extend the RISC-V instruction set to run ML workloads. It is implemented, fabricated and demonstrated to operate at 60 kHz consuming less than 6 mW power. Its functionality when assembled onto a flexible printed circuit board is validated while executing programs under flat and tight bending conditions, achieving no worse than 4.3% performance variation on average. Flex-RV pioneers an era of sub-dollar open standard non-silicon 32-bit microprocessors and will democratize access to computing and unlock emerging applications in wearables, healthcare devices and smart packaging.

theres a hint there about spsce travel

We finally have an answer: The beginning and the end of the sliding motion that produces static electricity experience different forces – resulting in a charge differential between the front and the back that results in the crackle of static electricity.

YouTube description: 58 of you watching this video right now will not be alive next week. And it’s not because of some freak accident or rare disease. It’s because of everyday actions you probably think are harmless. Let’s save your life today by looking at what is most likely to kill you next week – so you can avoid it.

"Octopuses normally hunt alone, but footage captured by divers has revealed that they can collaborate with fish to find their next meal. The videos, described today in Nature Ecology & Evolution (citation 1), show that the different species even adopt specific roles to maximize the success of joint hunting expeditions."

Associated research article (open access): Sampaio E et al. Multidimensional social influence drives leadership and composition-dependent success in octopus–fish hunting groups. Nature Ecology & Evolution (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02525-2

Same news that was independently reported by Science News (might need membership): https://www.science.org/content/article/some-octopuses-treat-fish-hunting-buddies

many interesting pictures