The first human patient implanted with a brain-chip from Neuralink appears to have fully recovered and is able to control a computer mouse using their thoughts, the startup's founder Elon Musk said late on Monday. From a report: "Progress is good, and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with no ill effects that we are aware of. Patient is able to move a mouse around the screen by just thinking," Musk said in a Spaces event on social media platform X. Musk said Neuralink was now trying to get as many mouse button clicks as possible from the patient. The firm successfully implanted a chip on its first human patient last month, after receiving approval for human trial recruitment in September.

The brightest known object in the universe, a quasar 500tn times brighter than our sun, was "hiding in plain sight," researchers say. From a report: Australian scientists spotted a quasar powered by the fastest growing black hole ever discovered. Its mass is about 17bn times that of our solar system's sun, and it devours the equivalent of a sun a day. The light from the celestial object travelled for more than 12bn years to reach Earth. Australian National University scientists first spotted it using a 2.3-metre telescope at the university's NSW Siding Spring Observatory in Coonabarabran. They then confirmed the find using the European Southern Observatory's (ESO's) Very Large Telescope, which has a primary mirror of 8 metres. The findings by the ANU researchers, in collaboration with the ESO, the University of Melbourne, and France's Sorbonne Universite have been published in Nature Astronomy.

The great libraries of the ancient classical world are "legendary... said to have contained stacks of texts," writes ScienceAlert. But from Rome to Constantinople, Athens to Alexandria, only one collection survived to the present day.

And here in 2024, "we can now start reading its contents." A worldwide competition to decipher the charred texts of the Villa of Papyri — an ancient Roman mansion destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius — has revealed a timeless infatuation with the pleasures of music, the color purple, and, of course, the zingy taste of capers. The so-called Vesuvius challenge was launched a few years ago by computer scientist Brent Seales at the University of Kentucky with support from Silicon Valley investors. The ongoing 'master plan' is to build on Seales' previous work and read all 1,800 or so charred papyri from the ancient Roman library, starting with scrolls labeled 1 to 4.

In 2023, the annual gold prize was awarded to a team of three students, who recovered four passages containing 140 characters — the longest extractions yet. The winners are Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor, and Julian Schilliger. "After 275 years, the ancient puzzle of the Herculaneum Papyri has been solved," reads the Vesuvius Challenge Scroll Prize website. "But the quest to uncover the secrets of the scrolls is just beginning...." Only now, with the advent of X-ray tomography and machine learning, can their inky words be pulled from the darkness of carbon.
A few months ago students deciphered a single word — "purple," according to the article. But "That winning code was then made available for all competitors to build upon." Within three months, passages in Latin and Greek were blooming from the blackness, almost as if by magic. The team with the most readable submission at the end of 2023 included both previous finders of the word 'purple'. Their unfurling of scroll 1 is truly impressive and includes more than 11 columns of text. Experts are now rushing to translate what has been found. So far, about 5 percent of the scroll has been unrolled and read to date. It is not a duplicate of past work, scholars of the Vesuvius Challenge say, but a "never-before-seen text from antiquity."

One line reads: "In the case of food, we do not right away believe things that are scarce to be absolutely more pleasant than those which are abundant."
Thanks to davidone (Slashdot reader #12,252) for sharing the article.

High-capacity DNA data storage "is closer than you think," Slashdot wrote in 2019.

Now IEEE Spectrum brings an update on where we're at — and where we're headed — by a participant in the DNA storage collaboration between Microsoft and the Molecular Information Systems Lab of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. "Organizations around the world are already taking the first steps toward building a DNA drive that can both write and read DNA data," while "funding agencies in the United States, Europe, and Asia are investing in the technology stack required to field commercially relevant devices." The challenging part is learning how to get the information into, and back out of, the molecule in an economically viable way... For a DNA drive to compete with today's archival tape drives, it must be able to write about 2 gigabits per second, which at demonstrated DNA data storage densities is about 2 billion bases per second. To put that in context, I estimate that the total global market for synthetic DNA today is no more than about 10 terabases per year, which is the equivalent of about 300,000 bases per second over a year. The entire DNA synthesis industry would need to grow by approximately 4 orders of magnitude just to compete with a single tape drive. Keeping up with the total global demand for storage would require another 8 orders of magnitude of improvement by 2030. But humans have done this kind of scaling up before. Exponential growth in silicon-based technology is how we wound up producing so much data. Similar exponential growth will be fundamental in the transition to DNA storage...

Companies like DNA Script and Molecular Assemblies are commercializing automated systems that use enzymes to synthesize DNA. These techniques are replacing traditional chemical DNA synthesis for some applications in the biotechnology industry... [I]t won't be long before we can combine the two technologies into one functional device: a semiconductor chip that converts digital signals into chemical states (for example, changes in pH), and an enzymatic system that responds to those chemical states by adding specific, individual bases to build a strand of synthetic DNA. The University of Washington and Microsoft team, collaborating with the enzymatic synthesis company Ansa Biotechnologies, recently took the first step toward this device... The path is relatively clear; building a commercially relevant DNA drive is simply a matter of time and money...

At the same time, advances in DNA synthesis for DNA storage will increase access to DNA for other uses, notably in the biotechnology industry, and will thereby expand capabilities to reprogram life. Somewhere down the road, when a DNA drive achieves a throughput of 2 gigabases per second (or 120 gigabases per minute), this box could synthesize the equivalent of about 20 complete human genomes per minute. And when humans combine our improving knowledge of how to construct a genome with access to effectively free synthetic DNA, we will enter a very different world... We'll be able to design microbes to produce chemicals and drugs, as well as plants that can fend off pests or sequester minerals from the environment, such as arsenic, carbon, or gold. At 2 gigabases per second, constructing biological countermeasures against novel pathogens will take a matter of minutes. But so too will constructing the genomes of novel pathogens. Indeed, this flow of information back and forth between the digital and the biological will mean that every security concern from the world of IT will also be introduced into the world of biology...

The future will be built not from DNA as we find it, but from DNA as we will write it.
The article makes an interesting point — that biology labs around the world already order chemically-synthesized ssDNA, "delivered in lengths of up to several hundred bases," and sequence DNA molecules up to thousands of bases in length.

"In other words, we already convert digital information to and from DNA, but generally using only sequences that make sense in terms of biology."

Japanese scientists plan to launch a satellite made of magnolia wood this summer on a U.S. rocket, reports the Observer.

Experiments carried out on the International Space Station showed magnolia wood was unusually stable and resistant to cracking — and "when it burns up as it re-enters the atmosphere after completing its mission, will produce only a fine spray of Âbiodegradable ash." The LignoSat probe has been built by researchers at Kyoto University and the logging company Sumitomo Forestry in order to test the idea of using biodegradable materials such as wood to see if they can act as environmentally friendly alternatives to the metals from which all satellites are currently constructed. "All the satellites which re-enter the Earth's atmosphere burn and create tiny alumina particles, which will float in the upper atmosphere for many years," Takao Doi a Japanese astronaut and aerospace engineer with Kyoto University, warned recently. "Eventually, it will affect the environment of the Earth."

To tackle the problem, Kyoto researchers set up a project to evaluate types of wood to determine how well they could withstand the rigours of space launch and lengthy flights in orbit round the Earth. The first tests were carried out in laboratories that recreated conditions in space, and wood samples were found to have suffered no measurable changes in mass or signs of decomposition or damage. "Wood's ability to withstand these conditions astounded us," said Koji Murata, head of the project.

After these tests, samples were sent to the ISS, where they were subjected to exposure trials for almost a year before being brought back to Earth. Again they showed little signs of damage, a phenomenon that Murata attributed to the fact that there is no oxygen in space which could cause wood to burn, and no living creatures to cause it to rot.
The article adds that if it performs well in space, "then the door could be opened for the use of wood as a construction material for more satellites."

"Would you like to live on Mars?" NASA asked Friday on social media.

"You can help us move humanity toward that goal by participating in a simulated, year-long Mars surface mission at NASA's Johnson Space Center." NASA is seeking applicants to participate in its next simulated one-year Mars surface mission to help inform the agency's plans for human exploration of the Red Planet. The second of three planned ground-based missions called CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) is scheduled to kick off in spring 2025.

Each CHAPEA mission involves a four-person volunteer crew living and working inside a 1,700-square-foot, 3D-printed habitat based at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The habitat, called the Mars Dune Alpha, simulates the challenges of a mission on Mars, including resource limitations, equipment failures, communication delays, and other environmental stressors. Crew tasks include simulated spacewalks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, exercise, and crop growth.

NASA is looking for healthy, motivated U.S. citizens or permanent residents who are non-smokers, 30-55 years old, and proficient in English for effective communication between crewmates and mission control. Applicants should have a strong desire for unique, rewarding adventures and interest in contributing to NASA's work to prepare for the first human journey to Mars...

As NASA works to establish a long-term presence for scientific discovery and exploration on the Moon through the Artemis campaign, CHAPEA missions provide important scientific data to validate systems and develop solutions for future missions to the Red Planet. With the first CHAPEA crew more than halfway through their yearlong mission, NASA is using research gained through the simulated missions to help inform crew health and performance support during Mars expeditions.
You can see the simulated Mars habitat in this NASA video.

The deadline for applicants is Tuesday, April 2, according to NASA. "A master's degree in a STEM field such as engineering, mathematics, or biological, physical or computer science from an accredited institution with at least two years of professional STEM experience or a minimum of one thousand hours piloting an aircraft is required."

For the first time, scientists say they've detected water molecules on the surface of an asteroid. Space.com reports: Scientists studied four silicate-rich asteroids using data gathered by the now-retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a telescope-outfitted plane operated by NASA and the German Aerospace Center. Observations by SOFIA's Faint Object InfraRed Camera (FORCAST) instrument showed that two of the asteroids -- named Iris and Massalia -- exhibit a specific wavelength of light that indicated the presence of water molecules at their surface, a new study reports.

While water molecules have previously been detected in asteroid samples returned to Earth, this is the first time that water molecules have been found on the surface of an asteroid in space. In a previous study, SOFIA found similar traces of water on the surface of the moon, in one of the largest craters in its southern hemisphere. [...]

Therefore, the findings at Iris and Massalia suggest that some silicate asteroids can conserve some of their water over the eons and may be more commonly found in the inner solar system than previously thought. In fact, asteroids are believed to be the primary source of Earth's water, providing the necessary elements for life as we know it. Understanding of the distribution of water through space will help researchers better assess where to search for other forms of potential life, both in our solar system and beyond. The findings have been published in The Planetary Science Journal.

A paper (PDF) from researchers at the University of Cambridge, supported by voices from numerous academic institutions including OpenAI, proposes remote kill switches and lockouts as methods to mitigate risks associated with advanced AI technologies. It also recommends tracking AI chip sales globally. The Register reports: The paper highlights numerous ways policymakers might approach AI hardware regulation. Many of the suggestions -- including those designed to improve visibility and limit the sale of AI accelerators -- are already playing out at a national level. Last year US president Joe Biden put forward an executive order aimed at identifying companies developing large dual-use AI models as well as the infrastructure vendors capable of training them. If you're not familiar, "dual-use" refers to technologies that can serve double duty in civilian and military applications. More recently, the US Commerce Department proposed regulation that would require American cloud providers to implement more stringent "know-your-customer" policies to prevent persons or countries of concern from getting around export restrictions. This kind of visibility is valuable, researchers note, as it could help to avoid another arms race, like the one triggered by the missile gap controversy, where erroneous reports led to massive build up of ballistic missiles. While valuable, they warn that executing on these reporting requirements risks invading customer privacy and even lead to sensitive data being leaked.

Meanwhile, on the trade front, the Commerce Department has continued to step up restrictions, limiting the performance of accelerators sold to China. But, as we've previously reported, while these efforts have made it harder for countries like China to get their hands on American chips, they are far from perfect. To address these limitations, the researchers have proposed implementing a global registry for AI chip sales that would track them over the course of their lifecycle, even after they've left their country of origin. Such a registry, they suggest, could incorporate a unique identifier into each chip, which could help to combat smuggling of components.

At the more extreme end of the spectrum, researchers have suggested that kill switches could be baked into the silicon to prevent their use in malicious applications. [...] The academics are clearer elsewhere in their study, proposing that processor functionality could be switched off or dialed down by regulators remotely using digital licensing: "Specialized co-processors that sit on the chip could hold a cryptographically signed digital "certificate," and updates to the use-case policy could be delivered remotely via firmware updates. The authorization for the on-chip license could be periodically renewed by the regulator, while the chip producer could administer it. An expired or illegitimate license would cause the chip to not work, or reduce its performance." In theory, this could allow watchdogs to respond faster to abuses of sensitive technologies by cutting off access to chips remotely, but the authors warn that doing so isn't without risk. The implication being, if implemented incorrectly, that such a kill switch could become a target for cybercriminals to exploit.

Another proposal would require multiple parties to sign off on potentially risky AI training tasks before they can be deployed at scale. "Nuclear weapons use similar mechanisms called permissive action links," they wrote. For nuclear weapons, these security locks are designed to prevent one person from going rogue and launching a first strike. For AI however, the idea is that if an individual or company wanted to train a model over a certain threshold in the cloud, they'd first need to get authorization to do so. Though a potent tool, the researchers observe that this could backfire by preventing the development of desirable AI. The argument seems to be that while the use of nuclear weapons has a pretty clear-cut outcome, AI isn't always so black and white. But if this feels a little too dystopian for your tastes, the paper dedicates an entire section to reallocating AI resources for the betterment of society as a whole. The idea being that policymakers could come together to make AI compute more accessible to groups unlikely to use it for evil, a concept described as "allocation."

After a 6-1 vote by the district board, San Francisco middle schools will teach Algebra I again this fall. Axios reports: Roughly a third of SFUSD middle schools this fall will begin offering the course to eighth graders at about a third of its 13 middle schools as well as six of its K-8 schools, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Students at other campuses will have access to the course via online classes or summer school while their schools take three years to make the transition. Those eighth graders will otherwise have to wait until high school to take the course.

District officials plan to evaluate the best way to enroll students throughout the district in a pilot at the first schools this fall. The first approach would be to enroll all eighth graders. The second would prioritize students' interest or readiness. The third would give students the option of taking Algebra I on top of current eighth-grade math curricula.

The 6-1 vote by the San Francisco Unified School District board Tuesday followed a decadelong battle over eighth graders' access to higher-level math courses and a larger debate over academic opportunity and equity in math performance. SFUSD previously taught eighth-grade algebra. But in 2014, the board voted to wait until high school to try to address racial gaps that had emerged as some students moved quicker to advanced math classes. Studies have shown that inequities including socioeconomic status, language differences and implicit bias often impede Black and Latino students' educational pursuits and result in lower rates of enrollment in higher-level classes. Yes, but: Stanford researchers found last year that large racial and ethnic gaps in advanced math enrollment persisted even after the policy change.

Jordan Pearson reports via Motherboard: A peer-reviewed science journal published a paper this week filled with nonsensical AI-generated images, which featured garbled text and a wildly incorrect diagram of a rat penis. The episode is the latest example of how generative AI is making its way into academia with concerning effects. The paper, titled "Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway" was published on Wednesday in the open access Frontiers in Cell Development and Biology journal by researchers from Hong Hui Hospital and Jiaotong University in China. The paper itself is unlikely to be interesting to most people without a specific interest in the stem cells of small mammals, but the figures published with the article are another story entirely. [...]

It's unclear how this all got through the editing, peer review, and publishing process. Motherboard contacted the paper's U.S.-based reviewer, Jingbo Dai of Northwestern University, who said that it was not his responsibility to vet the obviously incorrect images. (The second reviewer is based in India.) "As a biomedical researcher, I only review the paper based on its scientific aspects. For the AI-generated figures, since the author cited Midjourney, it's the publisher's responsibility to make the decision," Dai said. "You should contact Frontiers about their policy of AI-generated figures." Frontier's policies for authors state that generative AI is allowed, but that it must be disclosed -- which the paper's authors did -- and the outputs must be checked for factual accuracy. "Specifically, the author is responsible for checking the factual accuracy of any content created by the generative AI technology," Frontier's policy states. "This includes, but is not limited to, any quotes, citations or references. Figures produced by or edited using a generative AI technology must be checked to ensure they accurately reflect the data presented in the manuscript."

On Thursday afternoon, after the article and its AI-generated figures circulated social media, Frontiers appended a notice to the paper saying that it had corrected the article and that a new version would appear later. It did not specify what exactly was corrected. UPDATE: Frontiers retracted the article and issued the following statement: "Following publication, concerns were raised regarding the nature of its AI-generated figures. The article does not meet the standards of editorial and scientific rigor for Frontiers in Cell and Development Biology; therefore, the article has been retracted. This retraction was approved by the Chief Executive Editor of Frontiers. Frontiers would like to thank the concerned readers who contacted us regarding the published article."

According to NASA, the OSIRIS-REx mission has successfully collected 121.6 grams, or almost 4.3 ounces, of rock and dust from the asteroid Bennu. Universe Today reports: These samples have been a long time coming. The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) was approved by NASA back in 2011 and launched in September 2016. It reached its target, the carbonaceous Apollo group asteroid 101955 Bennu, in December 2018. After spending months studying the asteroid and reconnoitring for a suitable sampling location, it selected one in December 2019. After two sampling rehearsals, the spacecraft gathered its sample on October 20th, 2020. In September 2023, the sample finally returned to Earth.

For OSIRIS-REx to be successful, it had to collect at least 60 grams of material. With a final total that is double that, it should open up more research opportunities and allow more of the material to be held untouched for future research. NASA says they will preserve 70% of the sample for the future, including for future generations. The next step is for the material to be put into containers and sent to researchers. More than 200 researchers around the world will receive samples. Many of the samples will find their way to scientists at NASA and institutions in the US, while others will go to researchers at institutions associated with the Canadian Space Agency, JAXA, and other partner nations. Canada will receive 4% of the sample, the first time that Canada's scientific community will have direct access to a returned asteroid sample.

Texas-based Intuitive Machines' inaugural moon mission began early Thursday morning, heading toward what could be the first U.S. lunar landing in more than 50 years. From a report: Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lander launched from Florida on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, beginning the IM-1 mission. "It is a profoundly humbling moment for all of us at Intuitive Machines. The opportunity to return the United States to the moon for the first time since 1972 is a feat of engineering that demands a hunger to explore," Intuitive Machines vice president of space systems Trent Martin said during a press conference.

The IM-1 lander, named "Odysseus" after the mythological Greek hero, is carrying 12 government and commercial payloads -- six of which are for NASA under an $118 million contract. NASA leadership emphasized before the launch that "IM-1 is an Intuitive Machines' mission, it's not a NASA mission." But it marks the second mission under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which aims to deliver science projects and cargo to the moon with increasing regularity in support of the agency's Artemis crew program. The agency views CLPS missions as "a learning experience," NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration in the science mission directorate, Joel Kearns, told press before the launch.
UPDATE: See their first images transmitted from space....

Dumping chemicals in the ocean? Spraying saltwater into clouds? Injecting reflective particles into the sky? Scientists are resorting to once unthinkable techniques to cool the planet because global efforts to check greenhouse gas emissions are failing. From a report: These geoengineering approaches were once considered taboo by scientists and regulators who feared that tinkering with the environment could have unintended consequences, but now researchers are receiving taxpayer funds and private investments to get out of the lab and test these methods outdoors. The shift reflects growing concern that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions aren't moving fast enough to prevent the destructive effects of heat waves, storms and floods made worse by climate change. Geoengineering isn't a substitute for reducing emissions, according to scientists and business leaders involved in the projects. Rather, it is a way to slow climate warming in the next few years while buying time to switch to a carbon-free economy in the longer term.

Three field experiments are under way in the U.S. and overseas. This month, researchers aboard a ship off the northeastern coast of Australia near the Whitsunday Islands are spraying a briny mixture through high-pressure nozzles into the air in an attempt to brighten low-altitude clouds that form over the ocean. Scientists hope bigger, brighter clouds will reflect sunlight away from the Earth, shade the ocean surface and cool the waters around the Great Barrier Reef, where warming ocean temperatures have contributed to massive coral die-offs. The research project, known as marine cloud brightening, is led by Southern Cross University as part of the $64.55 million, or 100 million Australian dollars, Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program. The program is funded by the partnership between the Australian government's Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and includes conservation organizations and several academic institutions.

An anonymous reader shares a report: When California state legislators passed a 2014 law banning single-use plastic bags, the hope was that it would notably reduce the amount of discarded plastic. But fast-forward nearly a decade: Californians are tossing more pounds of plastic bags than before the legislation was passed. That's according to a recent report by the consumer advocacy group CALPIRG, which took population changes into account and found the tonnage of discarded bags rose from 4.08 per 1,000 people in 2014 to 5.89 per 1,000 people in 2022. How could this happen?

As Susanne Rust reported this week, plastic bag manufacturers replaced one kind of plastic bag for another. You've probably noticed them at grocery stores or had them loaded into your car during a drive-up order. These newer bags are thicker and meet technical specifications to be called "reusable." As Jenn Engstrom, CALPIRG'S state director, explained to Susanne, the switch created a loophole because the newer bags -- which typically cost 10 cents -- "are clearly not being reused and don't look like reusable bags and ... just circumvent the law's intent." The pandemic was also a contributing factor. COVID restrictions led many to get groceries, restaurant dishes and other products delivered to our doors, often in thick plastic bags.

There's an effort to close the loophole, though. New legislation is being proposed that would also ban the thicker plastic bags from grocery and large retail stores. Clearly, not enough consumers have changed their plastic bag habits at the checkout stand. But the onus isn't on individuals. Plastic manufacturers create these products. Businesses buy the bags so customers have somewhere to put the goods they buy from businesses. [...] Under the new law, at least 30% of plastic items sold, distributed or imported into California must be recyclable by Jan. 1, 2028. It also stipulates that single-use plastic waste be reduced 25% by 2032. But as Susanne pointed out, plastics companies will have notable oversight and authority over the program "via a Producer Responsibility Organization, which will be made up of industry representatives."

Researchers have made significant progress toward developing a blood test that can predict the risk of dementia up to 15 years before clinical diagnosis. The Guardian reports: Hopes for the test were raised after scientists discovered biological markers for the condition in blood samples collected from more than 50,000 healthy volunteers enrolled in the UK Biobank project. Analysis of the blood identified patterns of four proteins that predicted the onset of dementia in general, and Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia specifically, in older age. When combined with more conventional risk factors such as age, sex, education and genetic susceptibility, the protein profiles allowed researchers to predict dementia with an estimated 90% accuracy nearly 15 years before people received clinical confirmation of the disease.

For the latest study, blood samples from 52,645 UK adults without dementia were collected and frozen between 2006 and 2010 and analyzed 10 to 15 years later. More than 1,400 participants went on to develop dementia. Using artificial intelligence, the researchers looked for connections between nearly 1,500 blood proteins and developing dementia years later. Writing in Nature Aging, they describe how four proteins, Gfap, Nefl, Gdf15 and Ltbp2, were present in unusual levels among those who developed all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease or vascular dementia. Higher levels of the proteins were warning signs of disease. Inflammation in the brain can trigger cells called astrocytes to over-produce Gfap, a known biomarker for Alzheimer's. People with raised Gfap were more than twice as likely to develop dementia than those with lower levels.

Another blood protein, Nefl, is linked to nerve fibre damage, while higher than normal Gdf15 can occur after damage to the brain's blood vessels. Rising levels of Gfap and Ltbp2 was highly specific for dementia rather than other brain diseases, the scientists found, with changes occurring at least 10 years before people received a dementia diagnosis. The researchers are speaking to companies to develop the test but said the cost, currently at several hundred pounds, would need to come down to make it viable.

"Mutant wolves roaming the deserted streets of Chernobyl appear to have developed resistance to cancer," reports Sky News, "raising hopes the findings can help scientists fight the disease in humans." Dr Cara Love, an evolutionary biologist and ecotoxicologist at Princeton University in the U.S., has been studying how the Chernobyl wolves survive despite generations of exposure to radioactive particles... The researchers discovered that Chernobyl wolves are exposed to upwards of 11.28 millirem of radiation every day for their entire lives — which is more than six times the legal safety limit for a human. Dr Love found the wolves have altered immune systems similar to cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment, but more significantly she also identified specific parts of the animals' genetic information that seemed resilient to increased cancer risk.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.

"Something revolutionary is on the horizon..." claims the company's web site. "Wearable neurotechnology that augments sleep, attention, and ultimately the human experience."

Or, as Fierce Biotech put it, "A startup emerged from stealth this week with grand plans to pioneer a new form of neurotech dubbed 'electric medicine.'" Elemind's approach centers on artificial intelligence-powered algorithms that are trained to continuously analyze neurological activity collected by a noninvasive wearable device, then to deliver through the wearable bursts of neurostimulation that are uniquely tailored to those real-time brain wave readings. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company claims that its approach — which is based on research from its founders, a group of high-profile scientists hailing from the likes of MIT, Stanford and Harvard — offers a more "natural" treatment option than pharmaceuticals for neurological conditions like insomnia, essential tremor and memory loss.

"Chemical drugs affect the entire body, often leading to unwanted side effects. Elemind offers a nonchemical, direct and on-demand solution that learns and dynamically adjusts to each person," Meredith Perry, a co-founder of Elemind and its CEO, said in the company's debut announcement. "We're the first and only company able to precisely guide and redirect brainwaves in real time."
"Elemind's first product is a general wellness device and will not be subject to FDA regulation," notes an announcement from the company. But they've thoroughly researched the product's potential: To date, Elemind's technology is supported by five clinical trials and several publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Clinical trials show Elemind's technology is effective at inducing sleep up to 74% faster, suppressing essential tremor with a significant decrease after only 30 seconds of stimulation, and boosting memory. Clinical trials also demonstrate Elemind is effective at increasing pain thresholds and enhancing sedation; this study is currently in peer review....

"You can think about it like noise cancellation for the mind," said Dr. David Wang, CTO and co-founder of Elemind. "Our technology uses phase-locking auditory stimuli to align precisely with the user's brainwaves and steer them to a different frequency associated with a different state."
The company plans to announce its first product within a few months, reports the Boston Globe, noting that the company's $12 million in seed funding came from "a consortium that includes Village Global, an early-stage venture fund backed by high-tech billionaires Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates., Reid Hoffman, and Ann Wojcicki..."

More info from VentureBeat.

schwit1 quotes a report from Phys.Org: The Joint European Torus (JET), one of the world's largest and most powerful fusion machines, has demonstrated the ability to reliably generate fusion energy, while simultaneously setting a world record in energy output. These notable accomplishments represent a significant milestone in the field of fusion science and engineering. In JET's final deuterium-tritium experiments (DTE3), high fusion power was consistently produced for five seconds, resulting in a ground-breaking record of 69 megajoules using a mere 0.2 milligrams of fuel.

JET is a tokamak, a design which uses powerful magnetic fields to confine a plasma in the shape of a doughnut. Most approaches to creating commercial fusion favor the use of two hydrogen variants -- deuterium and tritium. When deuterium and tritium fuse together they produce helium and vast amounts of energy, a reaction that will form the basis of future fusion powerplants. Dr. Fernanda Rimini, JET Senior Exploitation Manager, said, "We can reliably create fusion plasmas using the same fuel mixture to be used by commercial fusion energy powerplants, showcasing the advanced expertise developed over time."

Professor Ambrogio Fasoli, Program Manager (CEO) at EUROfusion, said, "Our successful demonstration of operational scenarios for future fusion machines like ITER and DEMO, validated by the new energy record, instill greater confidence in the development of fusion energy. Beyond setting a new record, we achieved things we've never done before and deepened our understanding of fusion physics." Dr. Emmanuel Joffrin, EUROfusion Tokamak Exploitation Task Force Leader from CEA, said, "Not only did we demonstrate how to soften the intense heat flowing from the plasma to the exhaust, we also showed in JET how we can get the plasma edge into a stable state thus preventing bursts of energy reaching the wall. Both techniques are intended to protect the integrity of the walls of future machines. This is the first time that we've ever been able to test those scenarios in a deuterium-tritium environment."

India's Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will send a humanoid robot astronaut into this space this year, then send it back alongside actual humans in 2025 on its long-delayed Gaganyaan orbital mission. From a report: According to the space agency, the robot-crewed Vyommitra Mission is scheduled for the third quarter of this year. The robot -- whose name translates to "Space Friend" in Sanskrit -- can monitor module parameters, issue alerts and execute life support operations. Vyommitra is also an excellent multitasker that can operate six panels while responding to queries and mimicking human functions. The humanoid speaks two languages: Hindi and English.

It's also been designated as female -- to the extent possible for a legless robot -- and sports coiffed hair, feminine facial features, and hands that look like they are wearing white gloves. It resembles a wax figurine or mannequin and The Register fancies it mostly manages to stay out of the Uncanny Valley -- the term applied to robots and digital depictions of humans that try to appear human but instead come off as creepy and/or unsettling.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Health insurance companies cannot use algorithms or artificial intelligence to determine care or deny coverage to members on Medicare Advantage plans, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) clarified in a memo (PDF) sent to all Medicare Advantage insurers. The memo -- formatted like an FAQ on Medicare Advantage (MA) plan rules -- comes just months after patients filed lawsuits claiming that UnitedHealth and Humana have been using a deeply flawed, AI-powered tool to deny care to elderly patients on MA plans. The lawsuits, which seek class-action status, center on the same AI tool, called nH Predict, used by both insurers and developed by NaviHealth, a UnitedHealth subsidiary.

According to the lawsuits, nH Predict produces draconian estimates for how long a patient will need post-acute care in facilities like skilled nursing homes and rehabilitation centers after an acute injury, illness, or event, like a fall or a stroke. And NaviHealth employees face discipline for deviating from the estimates, even though they often don't match prescribing physicians' recommendations or Medicare coverage rules. For instance, while MA plans typically provide up to 100 days of covered care in a nursing home after a three-day hospital stay, using nH Predict, patients on UnitedHealth's MA plan rarely stay in nursing homes for more than 14 days before receiving payment denials, the lawsuits allege.

It's unclear how nH Predict works exactly, but it reportedly uses a database of 6 million patients to develop its predictions. Still, according to people familiar with the software, it only accounts for a small set of patient factors, not a full look at a patient's individual circumstances. This is a clear no-no, according to the CMS's memo. For coverage decisions, insurers must "base the decision on the individual patient's circumstances, so an algorithm that determines coverage based on a larger data set instead of the individual patient's medical history, the physician's recommendations, or clinical notes would not be compliant," the CMS wrote. "In all, the CMS finds that AI tools can be used by insurers when evaluating coverage -- but really only as a check to make sure the insurer is following the rules," reports Ars. "An 'algorithm or software tool should only be used to ensure fidelity,' with coverage criteria, the CMS wrote. And, because 'publicly posted coverage criteria are static and unchanging, artificial intelligence cannot be used to shift the coverage criteria over time' or apply hidden coverage criteria."

The CMS also warned insurers to ensure that any AI tool or algorithm used "is not perpetuating or exacerbating existing bias, or introducing new biases." It ended its notice by telling insurers that it is increasing its audit activities and "will be monitoring closely whether MA plans are utilizing and applying internal coverage criteria that are not found in Medicare laws."