A new study reveals that the human sense of smell is far more sensitive than previously thought, capable of distinguishing odors and their sequences within just 60 milliseconds. CNN reports: In a single sniff, the human sense of smell can distinguish odors within a fraction of a second, working at a level of sensitivity that is "on par" with how our brains perceive color, "refuting the widely held belief that olfaction is our slow sense," a new study finds. Humans also can discern between various sequences of odors -- distinguishing a sequence of "A" before "B" from sequence "B" before "A" -- when the interval between odorant A and odorant B is merely 60 milliseconds, according to the study, published Monday in the journal Nature Human Behavior. [...]

The new findings challenge previous research in which the timing it took to discriminate between odor sequences was around 1,200 milliseconds, Dr. Dmitry Rinberg, a professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology at NYU Langone Health in New York, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in Nature Human Behavior. "The timing of individual notes in music is essential for conveying meaning and beauty in a melody, and the human ear is very sensitive to this. However, temporal sensitivity is not limited to hearing: our sense of smell can also perceive small temporal changes in odor presentations," he wrote. "Similar to how timing affects the perception of notes in a melody, the timing of individual components in a complex odor mixture that reaches the nose may be crucial for our perception of the olfactory world."

The ability to tell apart odors within a single sniff might be an important way in which animals detect both what a smell is and where it might be in space, said Dr. Sandeep Robert Datta, a professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the new study. "The demonstration that humans can tell apart smells as they change within a sniff is a powerful demonstration that timing is important for smell across species, and therefore is a general principle underlying olfactory function. In addition, this study sheds important light on the mysterious mechanisms that support human odor perception," Datta wrote in an email. "The study of human olfaction has historically lagged that of vision and hearing, because as humans we think of ourselves as visual creatures that largely use speech to communicate," he said, adding that the new study helps "fill a critical gap in our understanding of how we as humans smell."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Neuroscience News: Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder -- also known as ADHD -- is typically thought of as a childhood condition. But more adults are realizing that their struggles with attention, focus and restlessness could in fact be undiagnosed ADHD, thanks in large part to trending social media videos racking up millions of views. A new national survey of 1,000 American adults commissioned by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine finds that 25% of adults now suspect they may have undiagnosed ADHD. But what worries mental health experts is that only 13% of survey respondents have shared their suspicions with their doctor. That's raising concerns about the consequences of self-diagnosis leading to incorrect treatment.

"Anxiety, depression and ADHD -- all these things can look a lot alike, but the wrong treatment can make things worse instead of helping that person feel better and improving their functioning," said psychologist Justin Barterian, PhD, clinical assistant professor in Ohio State's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health. An estimated 4.4% of people ages 18 to 44 have ADHD, and some people aren't diagnosed until they're older, Barterian said. "There's definitely more awareness of how it can continue to affect folks into adulthood and a lot of people who are realizing, once their kids have been diagnosed, that they fit these symptoms as well, given that it's a genetic disorder," Barterian said. The survey found that younger adults are more likely to believe they have undiagnosed ADHD than older generations, and they're also more likely to do something about it. Barterian said that should include seeing a medical professional, usually their primary care provider, to receive a referral to a mental health expert to be thoroughly evaluated, accurately diagnosed and effectively treated.

NASA's Europa Clipper mission lifted off successfully on Monday, marking the agency's first mission to Jupiter in over a decade. The $5.2 billion spacecraft aims to investigate whether Europa, Jupiter's fourth-largest moon, could harbor conditions suitable for life. A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 p.m. Eastern time, lifting the Europa Clipper spacecraft into orbit around Earth.

Europa Clipper, NASA's largest-ever interplanetary craft, weighs 12,500 pounds and boasts solar panels spanning 100 feet. Its nine scientific instruments will study Europa's surface and interior in unprecedented detail. After a 1.8 billion-mile journey, the spacecraft will reach Jupiter in April 2030. It will then conduct 49 flybys of Europa over four years, coming within 16 miles of the moon's surface.

Scientists believe Europa's subsurface ocean could contain twice as much water as Earth's oceans. The mission will measure ocean depth, analyze surface compounds, and map Europa's magnetic field to gather clues about its internal composition. Instruments will search for warm spots indicating thin ice, potential cryovolcanoes, and plumes of water vapor. The spacecraft will also attempt to identify carbon-based molecules that could serve as building blocks for life. "Europa is certainly the most likely place for life beyond Earth in our solar system," Robert Pappalardo, Europa Clipper project scientist, told the New York Times.

Early this morning SpaceX successfully launched its Starship rocket on its fifth test flight. But more importantly, CNBC points out, SpaceX "made a dramatic first catch of the rocket's more than 20-story tall booster."

Watch the footage here. It's pretty exciting... The achievement marks a major milestone toward SpaceX's goal of making Starship a fully reusable rocket system... The rocket's "Super Heavy" booster returned to land on the arms of the company's launch tower nearly seven minutes after launch.

"Are you kidding me?" SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on the company's webcast. "What we just saw, that looked like magic," Huot added...

Starship separated and continued on to space, traveling halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean as intended to complete the test. There were no people on board the fifth Starship flight. The company's leadership has said SpaceX expects to fly hundreds of Starship missions before the rocket launches with any crew...

With the booster catch, SpaceX has surpassed the fourth test flight's milestones... The company sees the ambitious catch approach as critical to its goal of making the rocket fully reusable. "SpaceX engineers have spent years preparing and months testing for the booster catch attempt, with technicians pouring tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximize our chances for success," the company wrote on its website.

NASA confirmed that it's working with international partners and standards organizations to create a Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) for future lunar exploration. This time standard will account for relativity and be scalable for other celestial bodies, supporting long-term missions like Artemis and commercial space activities. From the report: The lunar time will be determined by a weighted average of atomic clocks at the Moon, similar to how scientists calculate Earth's globally recognized Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Exactly where at the Moon is still to be determined, since current analysis indicates that atomic clocks placed at the Moon's surface will appear to 'tick' faster by microseconds per day. A microsecond is one millionth of a second. NASA and its partners are currently researching which mathematical models will be best for establishing a lunar time.

To put these numbers into perspective, a hummingbird's wings flap about 50 times per second. Each flap is about .02 seconds, or 20,000 microseconds. So, while 56 microseconds may seem miniscule, when discussing distances in space, tiny bits of time add up. "For something traveling at the speed of light, 56 microseconds is enough time to travel the distance of approximately 168 football fields," said Cheryl Gramling, lead on lunar position, navigation, timing, and standards at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "If someone is orbiting the Moon, an observer on Earth who isn't compensating for the effects of relativity over a day would think that the orbiting astronaut is approximately 168 football fields away from where the astronaut really is."

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are leading efforts to curb the sale of compounded GLP-1 medications. Lilly has issued hundreds of cease-and-desist letters to entities selling compounded tirzepatide, following the end of its FDA-declared shortage. Novo Nordisk, whose semaglutide drugs remain in shortage, is taking a different approach. The company published a peer-reviewed study in Pharmaceutical Research, highlighting quality concerns in compounded semaglutide samples, including lower-than-claimed strength and banned ingredients. These actions signal a broader industry pushback against compounders who entered the market during drug shortages. Wired adds: With mounting evidence that GLP-1s like tirzepatide are an effective treatment for other ailments beyond obesity and diabetes -- including addiction and Parkinson's disease -- demand is only expected to increase. It remains to be seen whether the pharmaceutical companies will be able to keep pace with the demand or if the meds will go back into shortage and compounders will be able to bound back into the market.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: Imagine three people huddled in a circle so when one speaks, only one other hears. Scientists have created a device that works like that, ensuring sound waves ripple in one direction only. The device, developed by scientists at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, is made up of a disk-shaped cavity with three equally-spaced ports that can each send or receive sound. In an inactive state, sound transmitted from port 1 is audible to ports 2 and 3 at equal volumes. Sound waves bounce back to port 1 as an echo as well. When the system is running, however, only port 2 hears port 1's sounds.

The trick is to blow swirling air into the cavity at a specific speed and intensity, which allows the sound waves to synchronize in a repeating pattern. That not only guides the sound waves in a single direction, but gives more energy to those oscillations so they don't dissipate. It's kind of like a roundabout for sound. The scientists say their technique may inform the design of future communications technologies. New metamaterials could be made to manipulate not just sound waves but potentially electromagnetic waves too. "This concept of loss-compensated non-reciprocal wave propagation is, in our view, an important result that can also be transferred to other systems," says senior researcher Nicolas Noiray. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.

The oldest human on record, Jeanne Calment of France, lived to the age of 122. What are the odds that the rest of us get there, too? Not high, barring a transformative medical breakthrough, according to research published this week in the journal Nature Aging. From a report: The study looked at data on life expectancy at birth collected between 1990 and 2019 from some of the places where people typically live the longest: Australia, France, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Data from the United States was also included, though the country's life expectancy is lower.

The researchers found that while average life expectancies increased during that time in all of the locations, the rates at which they rose slowed down. The one exception was Hong Kong, where life expectancy did not decelerate. The data suggests that after decades of life expectancy marching upward thanks to medical and technological advancements, humans could be closing in on the limits of what's possible for average life span. "We're basically suggesting that as long as we live now is about as long as we're going to live," said S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois Chicago, who led the study. He predicted maximum life expectancy will end up around 87 years -- approximately 84 for men, and 90 for women -- an average age that several countries are already close to achieving.

In a rare disclosure, the U.S. Space Force announced that its secretive X-37B spaceplane will execute a series of maneuvers before returning back to Earth. SpaceNews reports: The reusable spacecraft, which has been in orbit since December 28, 2023, will perform aerobraking maneuvers to alter its trajectory around Earth, the Space Force said Oct. 10. This technique involves making multiple passes through the planet's upper atmosphere, using atmospheric drag to modify the vehicle's orbit while conserving fuel. These maneuvers also are intended to showcase responsible space operations, the Space Force said. The aerobraking enables the spaceplane to change orbits and comply with space debris mitigation rules by safely discarding the service module.

The X-37B, manufactured by Boeing, is jointly operated by the U.S. Space Force and the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. Since its launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the spaceplane has been conducting radiation effect experiments and testing space domain awareness technologies in a highly elliptical orbit. [...] After completing its aerobraking maneuvers, the X-37B will resume its testing and experimentation objectives. Once these are accomplished, the vehicle will de-orbit and return to Earth, utilizing its autonomous landing system to touch down horizontally like a conventional aircraft. The Space Force has not disclosed the expected duration of the current mission.

Any breach of what climate scientists agree is the safer limit on global warming would result in "irreversible consequences" for the planet, said a major academic study published on Wednesday. From a eport: Even temporarily exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius before bringing temperatures back down -- a scenario known as an "overshoot" -- could cause sea level rises and other disastrous repercussions that might last millenia. This "does away with the notion that overshoot delivers a similar climate outcome" to a future where more was done earlier to curb global warming, said Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, who led the study co-authored by 30 scientists.

The findings, three years in the making, are urgent, as the goal of capping global temperature rises at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is slipping out of reach. Emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases must nearly halve by 2030 if the world is to reach 1.5C -- the more ambitious target enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

An anonymous reader writes: A massive storm has been raging on Jupiter for centuries, and, for the most part, has appeared very serious. A new series of detailed images, however, revealed that the famous red cyclone can get a little squiggly, bulging into different shapes and sizes over a short period of time.

Astronomers used the Hubble space telescope to look at Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS) from December 2023 to March 2024, and they observed the massive storm changing dimensions over the 90-day period. The reason behind this unexpected shapeshifting is unknown, but it revealed that the famous red storm is not as stable as it seemed. The results of the Hubble observations are detailed in a study published Wednesday in The Planetary Science Journal.

Using Hubble's observations, the team of astronomers behind the new study measured the Great Red Spot's size, shape, brightness, color, and vorticity over one full oscillation cycle. The combined images act like a time-lapse of the storm's changing behavior, revealing its famous red eye varying in size, while its core gets brighter when the Great Red Spot is at its largest during the 90-day cycle.

The rapid increases in life expectancy seen in the 20th century have slowed significantly, according to a new analysis published in the journal Nature. The Guardian reports: According to the study, children born recently in regions with the oldest people are far from likely to become centenarians. At best, the researchers predict 15% of females and 5% of males in the oldest-living areas will reach 100 this century. "If you're planning for retirement, it's probably not a good idea to assume you're going to make it to 100," said Jay Olshansky, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "You'd probably have to work for at least 10 years longer than you'd think. And you want to enjoy the last phase of your life, you don't necessarily want to spend it working to save for time you're not going to experience."

Advances in public health and medicine sparked a longevity revolution in the 20th century. In the previous 2,000 years, life expectancy crept up, on average, one year every century or two. In the 20th century, average life expectancy rocketed, with people gaining an extra three years every decade. For the latest study, Olshansky delved into national statistics from the US and nine regions with the highest life expectancies, focusing on 1990 to 2019, before the Covid pandemic struck. The data from Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Australia, France, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain showed that rises in life expectancy had slowed dramatically. In the US, life expectancy fell [T]he researchers describe how on average, life expectancy in the longest-living regions rose only 6.5 years between 1990 and 2019. They predict that girls born recently in the regions have only a 5.3% chance of reaching 100 years old, while boys have a 1.8% chance.

"In the modern era we have, through public health and medicine, manufactured decades of life that otherwise would not exist," Olshansky said. "These gains must slow down. The longevity game we're playing today is different to the longevity game we played a century ago when we were saving infants and children and women of child-bearing age and the gains in life expectancy were large. Now the gains are small because we're saving people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s." Olshansky said it would take radical new treatments that slow ageing, the greatest risk factor for many diseases, to achieve another longevity revolution. Research in the field is afoot with a dozen or so drugs shown to increase the lifespan of mice.

Cutting calorie intake can lead to a leaner body -- and a longer life, an effect often chalked up to the weight loss and metabolic changes caused by consuming less food. Now, one of the biggest studies of dietary restrictions ever conducted in laboratory animals challenges the conventional wisdom about how dietary restriction boosts longevity. From a report: The study, involving nearly 1,000 mice fed low-calorie diets or subjected to regular bouts of fasting, found that such regimens do indeed cause weight loss and related metabolic changes. But other factors -- including immune health, genetics and physiological indicators of resiliency -- seem to better explain the link between cutting calories and increased lifespan. "The metabolic changes are important," says Gary Churchill, a mouse geneticist at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, who co-led the study. "But they don't lead to lifespan extension."

To outside investigators, the results drive home the intricate and individualized nature of the body's reaction to caloric restriction. "It's revelatory about the complexity of this intervention," says James Nelson, a biogerontologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. The study was published today in Nature by Churchill and his co-authors, including scientists at Calico Life Sciences in South San Francisco, California, the anti-ageing focused biotech company that funded the study. Scientists have long known that caloric restriction, a regimen of long-term limits on food intake, lengthens lifespan in laboratory animals. Some studies have shown that intermittent fasting, which involves short bouts of food deprivation, can also increase longevity.

Three scientists won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for their groundbreaking work in predicting and designing protein structures, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced in Stockholm. David Baker of the University of Washington shares the prize with Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of Google DeepMind. Baker pioneered the creation of novel proteins, while Hassabis and Jumper developed AlphaFold, an AI model that predicts protein structures from amino acid sequences.

The laureates will split the 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) award for their contributions to computational protein design and structure prediction. Baker's team has produced proteins with applications in medicine and materials science since his initial breakthrough in 2003. Hassabis and Jumper's AlphaFold, announced in 2020, has predicted structures for nearly all 200 million known proteins. "We glimpsed at the beginning that it might be possible to create a whole new world of proteins that address a lot of the problems faced by humans in the 21st century," Baker said at a press briefing.

"Now it's becoming possible," Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel chemistry committee, called the discoveries "spectacular," noting they fulfilled a 50-year-old dream of predicting protein structures from amino acid sequences. The breakthroughs have wide-ranging implications, from understanding antibiotic resistance to developing enzymes that decompose plastic. Over 2 million researchers worldwide have already utilized AlphaFold in various applications.

Researchers at BitEnergy AI, Inc. have developed Linear-Complexity Multiplication (L-Mul), a technique that reduces AI model power consumption by up to 95% by replacing energy-intensive floating-point multiplications with simpler integer additions. This method promises significant energy savings without compromising accuracy, but it requires specialized hardware to fully realize its benefits. Decrypt reports: L-Mul tackles the AI energy problem head-on by reimagining how AI models handle calculations. Instead of complex floating-point multiplications, L-Mul approximates these operations using integer additions. So, for example, instead of multiplying 123.45 by 67.89, L-Mul breaks it down into smaller, easier steps using addition. This makes the calculations faster and uses less energy, while still maintaining accuracy. The results seem promising. "Applying the L-Mul operation in tensor processing hardware can potentially reduce 95% energy cost by element wise floating point tensor multiplications and 80% energy cost of dot products," the researchers claim. Without getting overly complicated, what that means is simply this: If a model used this technique, it would require 95% less energy to think, and 80% less energy to come up with new ideas, according to this research.

The algorithm's impact extends beyond energy savings. L-Mul outperforms current 8-bit standards in some cases, achieving higher precision while using significantly less bit-level computation. Tests across natural language processing, vision tasks, and symbolic reasoning showed an average performance drop of just 0.07% -- a negligible tradeoff for the potential energy savings. Transformer-based models, the backbone of large language models like GPT, could benefit greatly from L-Mul. The algorithm seamlessly integrates into the attention mechanism, a computationally intensive part of these models. Tests on popular models such as Llama, Mistral, and Gemma even revealed some accuracy gain on certain vision tasks.

At an operational level, L-Mul's advantages become even clearer. The research shows that multiplying two float8 numbers (the way AI models would operate today) requires 325 operations, while L-Mul uses only 157 -- less than half. "To summarize the error and complexity analysis, L-Mul is both more efficient and more accurate than fp8 multiplication," the study concludes. But nothing is perfect and this technique has a major achilles heel: It requires a special type of hardware, so the current hardware isn't optimized to take full advantage of it. Plans for specialized hardware that natively supports L-Mul calculations may be already in motion. "To unlock the full potential of our proposed method, we will implement the L-Mul and L-Matmul kernel algorithms on hardware level and develop programming APIs for high-level model design," the researchers say.