An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: Imagine exploring the intricate world within a single cubic millimeter of human brain tissue. It might seem insignificant, but within that tiny space lies a universe of complexity -- 57,000 individual cells, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, and a staggering 150 million synapses, the junctions where neurons communicate. All this information translates to a mind-boggling 1,400 terabytes of data. That's the kind of groundbreaking achievement researchers from Harvard and Google have just accomplished.

Leading the charge at Harvard is Professor Jeff Lichtman, a renowned expert in brain structure. Partnering with Google AI, Lichtman's team has co-created the most detailed 3D reconstruction of a human brain fragment to date. This intricate map, published in Science, offers an unprecedented view of the human temporal cortex, the region responsible for memory and other higher functions. Envision a piece of brain tissue roughly half the size of a rice grain but magnified to reveal every cell and its web of neural connections in vivid detail. This remarkable feat is the culmination of nearly a decade of collaboration between Harvard and Google. Lichtman's expertise in electron microscopy imaging is combined with Google's cutting-edge AI algorithms. [...]

The newly published map in Science reveals previously unseen details of brain structure. One such discovery is a rare but powerful set of axons, each connected by up to 50 synapses, potentially influencing a significant number of neighboring neurons. The team also encountered unexpected structures, like a small number of axons forming intricate whorls. Since the sample came from a patient with epilepsy, it's unclear if these formations are specific to the condition or simply uncommon occurrences.

Last week, NASA announced it is working with a technology development company on a new propulsion system that could transport humans to Mars in only two months -- down from the current nine month journey required to reach the Red Planet. Gizmodo reports: NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program recently selected six promising projects for additional funding and development, allowing them to graduate to the second stage of development. The new "science fiction-like concepts," as described by John Nelson, NIAC program executive at NASA, include a lunar railway system and fluid-based telescopes, as well as a pulsed plasma rocket.

The potentially groundbreaking propulsion system is being developed by Arizona-based Howe Industries. To reach high velocities within a shorter period of time, the pulsed plasma rocket would use nuclear fission -- the release of energy from atoms splitting apart -- to generate packets of plasma for thrust. It would essentially produce a controlled jet of plasma to help propel the rocket through space. Using the new propulsion system, and in terms of thrust, the rocket could potentially generate up to 22,481 pounds of force (100,000 Newtons) with a specific impulse (Isp) of 5,000 seconds, for remarkably high fuel efficiency. [...]

The pulsed plasma rocket would also be capable of carrying much heavier spacecraft, which can be then equipped with shielding against galactic cosmic rays for the crew on board. Phase 2 of NIAC is focused on assessing the neutronics of the system (how the motion of the spacecraft interacts with the plasma), designing the spacecraft, power system, and necessary subsystems, analyzing the magnetic nozzle capabilities, and determining trajectories and benefits of the pulsed plasma rocket, according to NASA.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Tens of millions of Americans each day breathe in carcinogenic chemicals that are woven into the interiors of their cars, a new study has found. While opening a window can help reduce the risk, only reforms can keep people safe, researchers wrote in a study in Environmental Science and Technology. Approximately 124 million Americans commute each day, spending an average of an hour in their cars. By federal law, the interior of these vehicles are required to contain flame retardants, or chemicals that make it harder for them to combust in a crash. These chemicals have been a legally mandated part of modern cars since the 1970s, when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) passed a law requiring their use.

It's arguable how effective this protection is. Patrick Morrison, of the International Association of Firefighters, said in a statement on the study that these chemicals do little to prevent blazes -- but instead simply make them "smokier and more toxic." What the study conclusively demonstrates is that any such protection comes at a price. Virtually all cars investigated by Duke University researchers contained the chemical tris (1-chloro-isopropyl) phosphate, or TCIPP -- which the U.S. National Toxicology Program is investigating as a potential carcinogen. Most cars also had two other phosphate-based flame retardants that the state of California is investigating as potential carcinogens: Those chemicals are tris (1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDCIPP) and tris (2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP). All three chemicals are linked to reproductive and neurological problems -- particularly because they don't stay in the fabrics they're woven into. Flame retardant chemicals off-gas or leach from the seat and interior fabrics into the air, -- especially in hot weather, when car interiors can reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit. A study from 2017 found that the average U.S. child has lost up to 5 IQ points from exposure to flame retardants in cars and furniture. Meanwhile, adults with the highest levels of flame retardants in their blood face a risk of death by cancer that is four times greater than those with the lowest levels, according to a study published last month.

Ancient Slashdot reader jd shares a report from The Guardian: Neuralink's first attempt at implanting its chip in a human being's skull hit an unexpected setback after the device began to detach from the patient's brain, the company revealed on Wednesday. The patient, Noland Arbaugh, underwent surgery in February to attach a Neuralink chip to his brain, but the device's functionality began to decrease within the month after his implant. Some of the device's threads, which connect the miniature computer to the brain, had begun to retract. Neuralink did not disclose why the device partly retracted from Arbaugh's brain, but stated in a blog post that its engineers had refined the implant and restored functionality.

The decreased capabilities did not appear to endanger Arbaugh, and he could still use the implant to play a game of chess on a computer using his thoughts, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first broke the news of the issue with the chip. The possibility of removing the implant was considered after the detachment came to light, the Journal reported. [...] Arbaugh praised the implant during a demonstration in March and said that it had "already changed his life," while also stating that it had not been perfect and they "have run into some issues."

The largest ever recorded leap in the amount of carbon dioxide laden in the world's atmosphere has just occurred, according to researchers who monitor the relentless accumulation of the primary gas that is heating the planet. From a report: The global average concentration of carbon dioxide in March this year was 4.7 parts per million (or ppm) higher than it it was in March last year, which is a record-breaking increase in CO2 levels over a 12-month period. The increase has been spurred, scientists say, by the periodic El Nino climate event, which has now waned, as well as the ongoing and increasing amounts of greenhouse gases expelled into the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

"It's really significant to see the pace of the increase over the first four months of this year, which is also a record," said Ralph Keeling, director of the CO2 Program at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "We aren't just breaking records in CO2 concentrations, but also the record in how fast it is rising." The global CO2 readings have been taken from a station perched upon the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii since the measurements began in 1958 under Keeling's father, Charles. The concentrations of CO2 have increased each year since, as the heat-trapping gas continues to progressively accumulate due to rampant emissions from power plants, cars, trucks and other sources, with last year hitting a new global record in annual emissions.

Carl Zimmer reports via the New York Times: Ever since the discovery of whale songs almost 60 years ago, scientists have been trying to decipher their lyrics. Are the animals producing complex messages akin to human language? Or sharing simpler pieces of information, like dancing bees do? Or are they communicating something else we don't yet understand? In 2020, a team of marine biologists and computer scientists joined forces to analyze the click-clacking songs of sperm whales, the gray, block-shaped leviathans that swim in most of the world's oceans. On Tuesday, the scientists reported that the whales use a much richer set of sounds than previously known, which they called a "sperm whale phonetic alphabet." In the study published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers found that sperm whales communicate using sequences of clicks, called codas, that exhibit contextual and combinatorial structure. MIT News reports: The researchers identified something of a "sperm whale phonetic alphabet," where various elements that researchers call "rhythm," "tempo," "rubato," and "ornamentation" interplay to form a vast array of distinguishable codas. For example, the whales would systematically modulate certain aspects of their codas based on the conversational context, such as smoothly varying the duration of the calls -- rubato -- or adding extra ornamental clicks. But even more remarkably, they found that the basic building blocks of these codas could be combined in a combinatorial fashion, allowing the whales to construct a vast repertoire of distinct vocalizations.

[...] By developing new visualization and data analysis techniques, the CSAIL researchers found that individual sperm whales could emit various coda patterns in long exchanges, not just repeats of the same coda. These patterns, they say, are nuanced, and include fine-grained variations that other whales also produce and recognize. "One of the intriguing aspects of our research is that it parallels the hypothetical scenario of contacting alien species. It's about understanding a species with a completely different environment and communication protocols, where their interactions are distinctly different from human norms," says Pratyusha Sharma, an MIT PhD student in EECS, CSAIL affiliate, and the study's lead author. "We're exploring how to interpret the basic units of meaning in their communication. This isn't just about teaching animals a subset of human language, but decoding a naturally evolved communication system within their unique biological and environmental constraints. Essentially, our work could lay the groundwork for deciphering how an 'alien civilization' might communicate, providing insights into creating algorithms or systems to understand entirely unfamiliar forms of communication."

Several large-scale, human-driven changes to the planet -- including climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the spread of invasive species -- are making infectious diseases more dangerous to people, animals and plants, according to a new study. From a report: Scientists have documented these effects before in more targeted studies that have focused on specific diseases and ecosystems. For instance, they have found that a warming climate may be helping malaria expand in Africa and that a decline in wildlife diversity may be boosting Lyme disease cases in North America. But the new research, a meta-analysis of nearly 1,000 previous studies, suggests that these patterns are relatively consistent around the globe and across the tree of life.

"It's a big step forward in the science," said Colin Carlson, a biologist at Georgetown University, who was not an author of the new analysis. "This paper is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that I think has been published that shows how important it is health systems start getting ready to exist in a world with climate change, with biodiversity loss." In what is likely to come as a more surprising finding, the researchers also found that urbanization decreased the risk of infectious disease. The new analysis, which was published in Nature on Wednesday, focused on five "global change drivers" that are altering ecosystems across the planet: biodiversity change, climate change, chemical pollution, the introduction of nonnative species and habitat loss or change.

AstraZeneca said on Tuesday it had initiated the worldwide withdrawal of its COVID-19 vaccine due to a "surplus of available updated vaccines" since the pandemic. From a report: The company also said it would proceed to withdraw the vaccine Vaxzevria's marketing authorizations within Europe. "As multiple, variant COVID-19 vaccines have since been developed there is a surplus of available updated vaccines," the company said, adding that this had led to a decline in demand for Vaxzevria, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied. According to media reports, the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker has previously admitted in court documents that the vaccine causes side-effects such as blood clots and low blood platelet counts.

Pam Belluck reports via the New York Times: Scientists are proposing a new way of understanding the genetics of Alzheimer's that would mean that up to a fifth of patients would be considered to have a genetically caused form of the disease. Currently, the vast majority of Alzheimer's cases do not have a clearly identified cause. The new designation, proposed in a study published Monday, could broaden the scope of efforts to develop treatments, including gene therapy, and affect the design of clinical trials. It could also mean that hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone could, if they chose, receive a diagnosis of Alzheimer's before developing any symptoms of cognitive decline, although there currently are no treatments for people at that stage. The new classification would make this type of Alzheimer's one of the most common genetic disorders in the world, medical experts said.

"This reconceptualization that we're proposing affects not a small minority of people," said Dr. Juan Fortea, an author of the study and the director of the Sant Pau Memory Unit in Barcelona, Spain. "Sometimes we say that we don't know the cause of Alzheimer's disease," but, he said, this would mean that about 15 to 20 percent of cases "can be tracked back to a cause, and the cause is in the genes." The idea involves a gene variant called APOE4. Scientists have long known that inheriting one copy of the variant increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's, and that people with two copies, inherited from each parent, have vastly increased risk.

The new study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, analyzed data from over 500 people with two copies of APOE4, a significantly larger pool than in previous studies. The researchers found that almost all of those patients developed the biological pathology of Alzheimer's, and the authors say that two copies of APOE4 should now be considered a cause of Alzheimer's -- not simply a risk factor. The patients also developed Alzheimer's pathology relatively young, the study found. By age 55, over 95 percent had biological markers associated with the disease. By 65, almost all had abnormal levels of a protein called amyloid that forms plaques in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer's. And many started developing symptoms of cognitive decline at age 65, younger than most people without the APOE4 variant.

For the second time, the disgraced former CEO of Theranos has had her federal prison sentence shortened. In July, it was reduced by two years. Now, 40-year-old Holmes is scheduled for release on August 16, 2032 instead of December 29, 2032 -- a reduction of more than four months. The Guardian reports: People incarcerated in the U.S. can have their sentences shortened for good conduct and for completing rehabilitation programs, such as a substance abuse program. The latest reduction of Holmes's sentence still meets federal sentencing guidelines. Those guidelines mandate that people convicted of federal offenses must serve at least 85% of their sentence, regardless of reductions for good behavior.

In 2022, Holmes was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison after being convicted on four counts of defrauding investors. She was also ordered to pay $452m in restitution to those she defrauded, but a judge delayed those payments due to Holmes's "limited financial resources." Holmes's lawyers have already begun attempts to get her conviction overturned. Oral arguments for her appeal are set to begin on June 11 in a federal appeals court in San Francisco, California, NBC News reported.

"Out of an abundance of caution," Boeing says its historic Starliner launch has been postponed, citing an issue with the oxygen relief valve on the Atlas V rocket's upper stage. It was expected to launch tonight at 10:34 p.m. ET. TechCrunch reports: There are backup launch opportunities on May 7, 10 and 11. After years of delays and over $1 billion in cost overruns, the mission is set to be Boeing's first attempt to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Once the issue is resolved with the upper stage, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V will carry the CST-100 Starliner capsule to orbit along with the two onboard astronauts -- Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams -- from Florida's Cape Canaveral at 10:34 PM local time Monday evening. The mission also marks the first time ULA's Atlas will carry crew. The rocket boasts a success rate of 100% across 99 missions. (ULA is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.)

The astronauts would now dock at the station at the earliest on Thursday, where they would remain for at least eight days. The two astronauts will return to Earth in the capsule no earlier than May 16. If all goes to plan, Boeing will be able to finally certify its Starliner for human transportation and begin fulfilling the terms of its $4.2 billion NASA astronaut taxi contract. That contract, under the agency's Commercial Crew Program, was awarded in 2014. Elon Musk's SpaceX was also granted a contract under that program, for its Crew Dragon capsule, and has been transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since 2020.

Science Alert reports that a team of researchers found "that changes in glucose metabolism could help cancer grow by temporarily disabling a gene that protects us from tumors called BRCA2." The team first examined people who inherited one faulty copy of BRCA2. They found that cells from these people were more sensitive to methylglyoxal (MGO), which is produced when cells break down glucose for energy in the process of glycolysis. Glycolysis generates over 90 percent of the MGO in cells, which a pair of enzymes typically keep to minimal levels. In the event they can't keep up, high MGO levels can lead to the formation of harmful compounds that damage DNA and proteins. In conditions like diabetes, where MGO levels are elevated due to high blood sugar, these harmful compounds contribute to disease complications.

The researchers discovered that MGO can temporarily disable the tumor-suppressing functions of the BRCA2 protein, resulting in mutations linked to cancer development...

As the BRCA2 allele isn't permanently inactivated, functional forms of the protein it produces can later return to normal levels. But cells repeatedly exposed to MGO may continue to accumulate cancer-causing mutations whenever existing BRCA2 protein production fails. Overall, this suggests that changes in glucose metabolism can disrupt BRCA2 function via MGO, contributing to the development and progression of cancer...

This new information may lead to strategies for cancer prevention or early detection. "Methylglyoxal can be easily detected by a blood test for HbA1C, which could potentially be used as a marker," Venkitaraman says. "Furthermore, high methylglyoxal levels can usually be controlled with medicines and a good diet, creating avenues for proactive measures against the initiation of cancer."
Their research has been published in Cell.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Guardian: Newly deciphered passages from a papyrus scroll that was buried beneath layers of volcanic ash after the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have shed light on the final hours of Plato, a key figure in the history of western philosophy. In a groundbreaking discovery, the ancient scroll was found to contain a previously unknown narrative detailing how the Greek philosopher spent his last evening, describing how he listened to music played on a flute by a Thracian slave girl. Despite battling a fever and being on the brink of death, Plato — who was known as a disciple of Socrates and a mentor to Aristotle, and who died in Athens around 348BC — retained enough lucidity to critique the musician for her lack of rhythm, the account suggests....

In a presentation of the research findings at the National Library of Naples, Prof Graziano Ranocchia, of the University of Pisa, who spearheaded the team responsible for unearthing the carbonised scroll, described the discovery as an "extraordinary outcome that enriches our understanding of ancient history". He said: "Thanks to the most advanced imaging diagnostic techniques, we are finally able to read and decipher new sections of texts that previously seemed inaccessible... For the first time, we have been able to read sequences of hidden letters from the papyri that were enfolded within multiple layers, stuck to each other over the centuries, through an unrolling process using a mechanical technique that disrupted whole fragments of text."

"A leap in our ability to see the chemistry of matter in three-dimensions at the nanoscale was achieved, allowing scientists to understand how nanomaterials are chemically arranged," writes Slashdot reader Hovden: Traditionally, seeing matter at the smallest sizes requires too many high-energy electrons for 3D chemical imaging. The high beam exposure destroys the specimen before an experiment is completed. Even larger doses are required to achieve high resolution.

Thus, chemical mapping in 3D has been unachievable except at lower resolution with the most radiation-hard materials.

High-resolution 3D chemical imaging is now achievable near or below one-nanometer resolution. A team from Dow Chemical and the University of Michigan used a newly introduced method, called multi-modal data fusion, high-resolution chemical tomography, that provides 99% less dose by linking information encoded within both elastic and inelastic scattered signals. The researchers showed sub-nanometer 3D resolution of chemistry is measurable for a broad class of geometrically and compositionally complex materials.
"Here are the pretty pictures," adds long-time Slashdot reader thoper.

Phys.org also has this quote from Robert Hovden, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan and corresponding author on the study published in Nature Communications. "Seeing invisible worlds, far smaller than the wavelengths of light, is absolutely critical to understanding the matter we are engineering at the nanoscale, not just in 2D but in 3D as well."

An anonymous reader shared this report from the New York Times: American officials are trying to increase international pressure on Russia not to deploy an antisatellite nuclear weapon in space, and have obtained information that undermines Moscow's explanation that the device it is developing is for peaceful scientific purposes, a senior State Department official said on Friday...

On Friday, Mallory Stewart, the assistant secretary of state for arms control, said that while the United States had been aware of Russia's pursuit of such a device for years, "only recently have we been able to make a more precise assessment of their progress." Ms. Stewart, speaking at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the orbit the Russian satellite would occupy is in a high-radiation region not used by other satellites, information that undercuts Russia's defense that it is not developing a weapon.