SCIENCE and things like that

[Daehawk]

Engineers figured out how to cook 3D-printed chicken with lasers

[Daehawk]

In a gene tied to growth, scientists see glimmers of human history

A new study delves into the evolution and function of the human growth hormone receptor gene, and asks what forces in humanity's past may have driven changes to this vital piece of DNA.

The research shows, through multiple avenues, that a shortened version of the gene—a variant known as GHRd3—may help people survive in situations where resources are scarce or unpredictable.

Findings will be published on Sept. 24 in Science Advances.

Here's the story the study tells: GHRd3 emerged about 1-2 million years ago, and was likely the overwhelmingly predominant version of the gene in the ancestors of modern humans, as well as in Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Then, "In the last 50,000 years or so, this variant becomes less prevalent, and you have a massive decrease in the frequency of this variant among East Asian populations we studied, where we see the estimated allele frequency drop from 85% to 15% during the last 30,000 years," says University at Buffalo evolutionary biologist Omer Gokcumen. "So the question becomes: Why? Was this variant favored in the past, and it fell out of evolutionary favor recently? Or is what we are observing just a blip among the complexity of genomes?"

[Daehawk]

[Daehawk]

U.S. surgeons successfully test pig kidney transplant in human patient

For the first time, a pig kidney has been transplanted into a human without triggering immediate rejection by the recipient's immune system, a potentially major advance that could eventually help alleviate a dire shortage of human organs for transplant.

The procedure done at NYU Langone Health in New York City involved use of a pig whose genes had been altered so that its tissues no longer contained a molecule known to trigger almost immediate rejection.

[Daehawk]

The music is irksome so lower the volume if you value your sanity.

[Daehawk]

Thanks Blues News

[Daehawk]

‘Megaspider’ that can bite through human fingernail found in park

According to a press release from Australian Reptile Park, the spider measures in at 8 centimeters compared with the average size of 1 to 5 centimeters. It has fangs almost 2 centimeters in length, capable of biting through a human fingernail.

According to the release, the park encourages residents to safely catch funnel spiders and turn them in for its antivenom program. The spiders are then milked, and the venom is made into antivenom. That antivenom saves about 300 lives per year.

[Daehawk]

Bike science.

Hate Exposed Derailleurs? The New ‘Supre Drive’ Might Be For You

[Daehawk]

Why the U.S. once bombed an erupting volcano

[Daehawk]

A Cure for Type 1 Diabetes? For One Man, It Seems to Have Worked.

[stessier]

This was a fun read.

You asked. Ars answers. Here’s how to give an electric eel an MRI
Bonus: Shedd Aquarium vets spill the beans on how to perform knee surgery on a bullfrog

[The Meal]

A guy in our poker group leads a team at NiST that just won Physics World’s 2021 prize for breakthrough of the year for their work on macroscopic quantum entanglement.

https://physicsworld.com/a/quantum-enta ... -the-year/

I can’t help but refer to it as the Physics World Weekly’s prize.

[Daehawk]

Scientists Succeed in Culturing the Pygmy Zebra Octopus – The Size of a Grain of Rice When They Hatch

[Daehawk]

Spectacularly Rare, Enormous Eagle Shows Up in North America, 5,000 Miles From Home

Bird watchers in Massachusetts have been given an early Christmas present in the form of an incredibly rare sighting – a Steller's sea eagle, which is native to Asia almost 8,000 km (5,000 miles) away.

The large sea eagles are native to the Kamchatka Peninsula in far eastern Russia, and also seen in Japan, China, and Korea. There are estimated to be only around 5,000 individuals left, including this one, which has somehow made its way to the Taunton river in Massachusetts.

Steller's sea eagles (Haliaeetus pelagicus) are among the heaviest eagles on the planet, weighing 5 to 9 kg (11 to 20 pounds) and with a wingspan of up to 2.5 meters (8 feet).

[Daehawk]

The 12 foot flying reptile that would eat you like a worm

Fleshing out the bones of Quetzalcoatlus, Earth’s largest flier ever

But 70 million years ago, along the Rio Grande River in Texas, a more impressive and scarier creature stalked the marshes: the 12-foot-tall pterosaur known as Quetzalcoatlus. With a 37- to 40-foot wingspan, it was the largest flying animal that ever lived on Earth.

[Isgrimnur]

ABC

In a medical first, doctors transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life and a Maryland hospital said Monday that he's doing well three days after the highly experimental surgery.

While it’s too soon to know if the operation really will work, it marks a step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants. Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center say the transplant showed that a heart from a genetically modified animal can function in the human body without immediate rejection.

The patient, David Bennett, a 57-year-old Maryland handyman, knew there was no guarantee the experiment would work but he was dying, ineligible for a human heart transplant and had no other option, his son told The Associated Press.
...
The Maryland surgeons used a heart from a pig that had undergone gene-editing to remove a sugar in its cells that’s responsible for that hyper-fast organ rejection.

[Pyperkub]

One of my buddies has decided that if pig hearts are possible, he wants a horse phallus...

[Isgrimnur]

Does he just want to take it out at the table and stroke it like Blofeld's cat?

[Daehawk]

[Isgrimnur]

ABC

In a medical first, doctors transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life and a Maryland hospital said Monday that he's doing well three days after the highly experimental surgery.

Guardian

The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking experiment, the Maryland hospital that performed the surgery announced on Wednesday.

David Bennett, 57, died on Tuesday at the University of Maryland medical center. Doctors did not give an exact cause of death, saying only that his condition had begun deteriorating several days earlier.
...
One next question is whether scientists have learned enough from Bennett’s experience and some other recent experiments with gene-edited pig organs to persuade the FDA to allow a clinical trial possibly with an organ such as a kidney that is not immediately fatal if it fails.

Twice last year, surgeons at New York University got permission from the families of deceased individuals to temporarily attach a gene-edited pig kidney to blood vessels outside the body and watch them work before ending life support. And surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham went a step further, transplanting a pair of gene-edited pig kidneys into a brain-dead man in a step-by-step rehearsal for an operation they hope to try in living patients possibly later this year.

[Daehawk]

Why didn't they give him another heart for more time?

[stessier]

Why didn't they give him another heart for more time?

I don't understand your thinking - replacement is major trauma and he probably wasn't up to another surgery. It had only been two months.

[Daehawk]

World-first' heart-thymus transplant success for Easton

The pioneering procedure was done to save his life, but could also revolutionise the field of organ transplantation, they hope.

The donated thymus tissue should help stop his body rejecting the new heart.

Months on from the surgery, tests reveal Easton is progressing well.

The thymus tissue is working, meaning his body is building critical immune cells which might ultimately reduce or even eliminate the need for him to take lifelong anti-rejection drugs.

[disarm]

Why didn't they give him another heart for more time?

I don't understand your thinking - replacement is major trauma and he probably wasn't up to another surgery. It had only been two months.

Actually, while it's rarely necessary, getting someone another transplant isn't entirely unheard of in cases of severe acute rejection. The fact that they just recently underwent a transplant isn't really all that relevant.

[Daehawk]

Octopuses are using human garbage as shelter, camouflage and more, study finds

[stessier]

I found this very interesting - calculating Pi by hand out to 100 digits.

[stessier]

Sorry - one more. Calculating the curvature of the earth and comparing to the result from a millennia ago. There was several moments were I was laughing out loud in this one.

[Daehawk]

[Daehawk]

A robot dog guards a 2000 year old dead Roman city. Sounds like a book.

A Robotic Dog Will Now Patrol the Ancient Streets of Pompeii in a Bid to Preserve Its Ruins. See the Dystopian Images Here

Cutting-edge technology is being utilized in one of the world’s great ancient ruins. A canine robot named Spot, built by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff engineering and robotics company Boston Dynamics, has been deployed to patrol the weathered terra-cotta and cement streets of Pompeii as part of a push to introduce innovation at the Italian site.

The broader project, dubbed Smart@POMPEI, is to make the site a “Smart Archaeological Park,” with “intelligent, sustainable, and inclusive management.” Spot is just one of a series of new technologies that park authorities have enlisted to help monitor the structural and safety issues that have long plagued the Roman ruin, which was buried under volcanic ash after Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. In 2013, UNESCO found vast structural deficiencies at the site, and threatened to remove it from the World Heritage List if officials didn’t take action.

Enter the four-legged robot.

Im 100% certain that the Romans never imagined a robotic dog would one day walk on those stone made roads.

[stessier]

[Daehawk]

I remember that. Id seen it long before they solved it then when they solved it I was like "Thats it?" lol.

[Alefroth]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60993523

Scientists just outside Chicago have found that the mass of a sub-atomic particle is not what it should be.

The measurement is the first conclusive experimental result that is at odds with one of the most important and successful theories of modern physics.

The team has found that the particle, known as a W boson, is more massive than the theories predicted.

[Jeff V]

I live fairly close to Fermilab, a friend who works there came by for lunch today. Are these new particles they found going to be more or less dangerous than the radon already plaguing the area?

[Daehawk]

Solar panels that can generate electricity at night have been developed at Stanford

While standard solar panels can provide electricity during the day, this device can serve as a "continuous renewable power source for both day- and nighttime," according to the study published this week in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

The device incorporates a thermoelectric generator, which can pull electricity from the small difference in temperature between the ambient air and the solar cell itself.

[Isgrimnur]

Salon

Scientists believe they have discovered a fossilized time capsule from the exact day when Earth transformed from being a verdant, dinosaur-ridden world to a soot-covered apocalyptic hellscape. Within that time capsule was a very well-preserved dinosaur leg from a dinosaur that scientists believe died that spring day, some 66 million years ago.

The discovery, which was made at the Tanis dig site in North Dakota, will be discussed in more detail in a BBC documentary narrated by David Attenborough titled "Dinosaurs: The Final Day." A version of the documentary will be broadcast on PBS in the United States next month. While the findings have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, scientists are very excited about the discovery and the prospect of what information it might hold.
...
Additional fossilized remains that the scientists found were the remains of a turtle, skin from a triceratops, a pterosaur embryo inside its egg, and perhaps a fragment on the impactor itself. According to the New York Times, the fragments within two of the spherules were "wildly different," DePalma said.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Salon

Scientists believe they have discovered a fossilized time capsule from the exact day when Earth transformed from being a verdant, dinosaur-ridden world to a soot-covered apocalyptic hellscape. Within that time capsule was a very well-preserved dinosaur leg from a dinosaur that scientists believe died that spring day, some 66 million years ago.

The discovery, which was made at the Tanis dig site in North Dakota, will be discussed in more detail in a BBC documentary narrated by David Attenborough titled "Dinosaurs: The Final Day." A version of the documentary will be broadcast on PBS in the United States next month. While the findings have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, scientists are very excited about the discovery and the prospect of what information it might hold.
...
Additional fossilized remains that the scientists found were the remains of a turtle, skin from a triceratops, a pterosaur embryo inside its egg, and perhaps a fragment on the impactor itself. According to the New York Times, the fragments within two of the spherules were "wildly different," DePalma said.

I think I read an article in the NYTs about the graduate student quoted in this article. He has a history of making bold claims that don't hold up under peer review. But would be very cool if legit.

[Daehawk]

Wonder after a rock smashes us again and gets rid of us if something will dig us up in 50+ million years and wonder at us.

[Kraken]

Salon

Scientists believe they have discovered a fossilized time capsule from the exact day when Earth transformed from being a verdant, dinosaur-ridden world to a soot-covered apocalyptic hellscape. Within that time capsule was a very well-preserved dinosaur leg from a dinosaur that scientists believe died that spring day, some 66 million years ago.

The discovery, which was made at the Tanis dig site in North Dakota, will be discussed in more detail in a BBC documentary narrated by David Attenborough titled "Dinosaurs: The Final Day." A version of the documentary will be broadcast on PBS in the United States next month. While the findings have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, scientists are very excited about the discovery and the prospect of what information it might hold.
...
Additional fossilized remains that the scientists found were the remains of a turtle, skin from a triceratops, a pterosaur embryo inside its egg, and perhaps a fragment on the impactor itself. According to the New York Times, the fragments within two of the spherules were "wildly different," DePalma said.

I think I read an article in the NYTs about the graduate student quoted in this article. He has a history of making bold claims that don't hold up under peer review. But would be very cool if legit.

This dig and its interpretation were first published in the popular press maybe a year ago. The data hadn't been peer reviewed yet, which pissed off a lot of peers. Since then, it's begun to go through the grinder and is withstanding scrutiny, although IDK if their grandest claims will be supported. It's super cool if it's real.

[Isgrimnur]

NASA

NASA innovators recently developed a new metal alloy using a 3D printing process that dramatically improves the strength and durability of the components and parts used in aviation and space exploration, resulting in better and longer-lasting performance.

NASA Alloy GRX-810, an oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) alloy, can endure temperatures over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, is more malleable, and can survive more than 1,000 times longer than existing state-of-the-art alloys. These new alloys can be used to build aerospace parts for high temperature applications, like those inside aircraft and rocket engines, because ODS alloys can withstand harsher conditions before reaching their breaking point.

“The nanoscale oxide particles convey the incredible performance benefits of this alloy,” said Dale Hopkins, deputy project manager of NASA’s Transformational Tools and Technologies project.

It's challenging and expensive to produce ODS alloys for these extreme environments. To develop NASA Alloy GRX-810, agency researchers used computational models to determine the alloy’s composition. The team then leveraged 3D printing to uniformly disperse nanoscale oxides throughout the alloy, which provides improved high-temperature properties and durable performance. This manufacturing process is more efficient, cost effective, and cleaner than conventional manufacturing methods.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Very tangentially science-related, but, as my parents always feared, I made the NY Post.