Cars aren't the only conveyances being transformed by electricity. Along with electric motorcycles and snowmobiles, personal watercraft are floating better ways to coexist with nature and neighbors. This new breed of machines brings requisite thrills to the Great Outdoors, but without fouling the atmosphere or disturbing the peace with an internal-combustion racket. From a report: The latest comes from Florida-based Pelagion, whose founder and chief executive, engineer Jamie Schlinkmann, was inspired by childhood adventures on a watersports icon: A 1973 Kawasaki Jet Ski. Schlinkmann's machine, just the 213th ever built, is still one of his prized possessions. His company's Pelagion HydroBlade is an ingenious mash-up of classic stand-up Jet Skis and modern surfboard-style "eFoils." Those electric-powered boards had a real breakthrough in 2020 when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was spotted sailing over Hawaiian waters on one model. The metaverse may spring to mind the first time you see an eFoil, with its rider seeming to fly above the waves on a magic carpet. Naturally, there's no magic, only hydrodynamics. Hydrofoils work like an airplane wing, only underwater: An aerodynamic wing creates high and low pressure areas as it slices through water, generating lift with precious little drag. Add an electric motor and propeller to create thrust and you've got a hydrofoil that doesn't require surf waves, a kite, or tow boat to generate power.

There's only one problem: Powered or not, a hydrofoil takes some practice and patience to learn to ride in a standing position, especially for people with no surfing or wakeboarding experience, or so-so balance skills. To solve that, Schlinkmann's invention adds a boom-mounted canard and rudder ahead of the rider to keep the craft airborne and steady without a rider having to constantly expend energy and adjust body position. Add a trusty set of handlebars, says Schlinkmann, and the HydroBlade handles more like a vehicle with which most of us are familiar: a bicycle. Making the experience somewhat like riding a bike, he says, helps ease the intimidation factor and boost appeal for people of all ages and abilities. [...] The design began to take shape around 2020. Schlinkmann pulled the engine and other ICE guts from his old Jet Ski and studied how he could make it electric. He realized a conventional electric Jet Ski might only have a 15- or 20-minute runtime on a single charge, which wasn't good enough. But after riding a few eFoils, the idea came together. For the HydroBlade, a pair of permanent-magnet radial-flux motors drive dual propellers at a peak 16 kilowatts (21 horsepower). They're fed by two battery packs, with a combined 600 cylindrical 2170 NCM cells and a total 11 kilowatt-hours of energy -- about eight to 10 times the capacity onboard a typical eFoil. A separate 1.6-kW charger can refill batteries in about 4 hours.

It is no mystery that a good night's sleep and a lie-in can improve your day. But researchers are suggesting that, far from just being enjoyable, quality sleep may even add years to people's lives. From a report: Men who regularly sleep well could live almost five years longer than those who do not, while women could benefit by two years, research suggests. And they could also enjoy better health during their lives. Researchers found that young people who had better sleep habits were less likely to die early. But the researchers said their findings indicated quantity of sleep was not in itself enough to achieve the possible health benefits -- quality of sleep is also important. Good sleep was based on five different factors: ideal sleep duration of seven to eight hours a night; difficulty falling asleep no more than two times a week; trouble staying asleep no more than two times a week; not using any sleep medication; and feeling well rested after waking up at least five days a week. The findings suggested that about 8% of deaths from any cause could be attributed to poor sleep patterns. The researchers included data from 172,321 people with an average age of 50, 54% of whom were women, who participated in the National Health Interview Survey between 2013 and 2018. The survey looked at the health of the US population and included questions about sleep and sleep habits.

MIT engineers are hoping to help doctors tailor treatments to patients' specific heart form and function, with a custom robotic heart. MIT News reports: The team has developed a procedure to 3D print a soft and flexible replica of a patient's heart. They can then control the replica's action to mimic that patient's blood-pumping ability. The procedure involves first converting medical images of a patient's heart into a three-dimensional computer model, which the researchers can then 3D print using a polymer-based ink. The result is a soft, flexible shell in the exact shape of the patient's own heart. The team can also use this approach to print a patient's aorta -- the major artery that carries blood out of the heart to the rest of the body.

To mimic the heart's pumping action, the team has fabricated sleeves similar to blood pressure cuffs that wrap around a printed heart and aorta. The underside of each sleeve resembles precisely patterned bubble wrap. When the sleeve is connected to a pneumatic system, researchers can tune the outflowing air to rhythmically inflate the sleeve's bubbles and contract the heart, mimicking its pumping action. The researchers can also inflate a separate sleeve surrounding a printed aorta to constrict the vessel. This constriction, they say, can be tuned to mimic aortic stenosis -- a condition in which the aortic valve narrows, causing the heart to work harder to force blood through the body.

Doctors commonly treat aortic stenosis by surgically implanting a synthetic valve designed to widen the aorta's natural valve. In the future, the team says that doctors could potentially use their new procedure to first print a patient's heart and aorta, then implant a variety of valves into the printed model to see which design results in the best function and fit for that particular patient. The heart replicas could also be used by research labs and the medical device industry as realistic platforms for testing therapies for various types of heart disease. The report has been published in the journal Science Robotics.

According to research published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, zebra fur is thinly striped and sharply outlined to thwart horsefly attacks. "These characteristics specifically eliminate the outline of large monochrome dark patches that are attractive to horseflies at close distances," adds Phys.Org. "The team theorizes that the thin back stripes serve to minimize the size of local features on a zebra that are appealing to the biting flies." From the report: The team found that tabanid horseflies are attracted to large dark objects in their environment but less to dark broken patterns. All-gray coats were associated with by far the most landings, followed by coats with large black triangles placed in different positions, then small checkerboard patterns in no particular order. In another experiment, they found contrasting stripes attracted few flies whereas more homogeneous stripes were more attractive. [...]

The team found little evidence for other issues that they tested, namely polarization or optical illusions confusing accurate landings such as the so-called "wagon-wheel effect" or "the barber-pole effect." Now the team want to determine why natural selection has driven striping in equids -- the horse family -- but not other hoofed animals.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Amazon on Wednesday said it had closed its $3.9 billion deal for primary care provider One Medical. Amazon agreed last July to acquire One Medical to deepen its presence in health care, and "dramatically improve" the experience of getting medical care. Amazon has long had ambitions to expand into health care, buying online pharmacy PillPack in 2018 for $750 million, then launching its own virtual clinic for chronic conditions, and prescription perks for Prime members. The deal gives Amazon access to One Medical's more than 200 brick-and-mortar medical offices in 26 markets, and roughly 815,000 members.

The purchase was the first major deal announced since CEO Andy Jassy took the helm from founder Jeff Bezos in July 2021, and Jassy has indicated he sees health care as a major area of expansion. In a statement, he said health care is ripe for disruption, citing long appointment times and the complexities of primary care. "Customers want and deserve better, and that's what One Medical has been working and innovating on for more than a decade," Jassy said in a statement. "Together, we believe we can make the health care experience easier, faster, more personal, and more convenient for everyone." Amazon said it would discount One Medical memberships for U.S. users to $144 from $199 for the first year, regardless of whether they're a Prime subscriber.

According to Bloomberg, Apple's quest to bring blood glucose monitoring to the Apple Watch is now at a "proof-of-concept stage." The last remaining hurdle is for it to be made smaller. Engadget reports: The technology, which uses lasers to gauge glucose concentration under the skin, was previously tabletop sized but has reportedly advanced to the point where an iPhone-sized wearable prototype is in the works. The system would not only help people with diabetes monitor their conditions, but would ideally alert people who are prediabetic, the insiders say. They could then make changes that prevent Type 2 (adult onset) diabetes.

The project has supposedly been in development for a long time. It began in 2010, when an ailing Steve Jobs had his company buy blood glucose monitoring startup RareLight. Apple is said to have kept the effort secret by operating it as a seemingly isolated firm, Avolonte Health, but folded it into a previously unknown Exploratory Design Group (XDG). CEO Tim Cook, Apple Watch hardware lead Eugene Kim and other top leaders have been involved.

Any real-world product is likely years away, according to Bloomberg. The industry also doesn't have a great track record of bringing no-prick monitors to market. In 2018, Alphabet's health subsidiary Verily scrapped plans for a smart contact lens that would have tracked glucose using tears. Even major brands with vast resources aren't guaranteed success, in other words, and it's not clear how accurate Apple's solution would be.

Images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal that China's Zhurong rover remains stationary on the Red Planet as China remains silent on the status of its spacecraft. SpaceNews reports: The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured images of the rover on March 11, 2022, a second on Sept. 8, 2022 and finally Feb. 7, 2023. The images were published Feb. 21 by the HiRISE Operations Center The images show that the solar-powered Zhurong -- which landed in May 2021 -- has not moved since at least September 2022. It had entered a planned hibernation state in May 2022 to ride out the low solar radiation levels of winter in Mars's Utopia Planitia region.

Zhurong was expected to autonomously resume activities around December, around the time of Spring solstice in the northern hemisphere, when temperatures and light levels reached levels allowing the rover's battery and solar arrays to generate sufficient electrical power. However Chinese space authorities have not provided an update on the status of the rover. The South China Morning Post reported Jan. 7, citing sources that do not wish to be named, that the mission team was yet to receive a signal from Zhurong.

The progression of the HiRISE images suggest that Zhurong may have accumulated a covering of Martian dust on its surface. This could impact the function of both its solar arrays and the pair of "windows" which allow a chemical called n-undecane to store heat energy during the day and release it during the night. Zhurong does not carry a radioisotope heater unit -- which are used by the country's Yutu lunar rovers -- instead using systems including n-undecane for heating and a coating of aerogel for insulation.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As part of the state's biennial budget process, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called on the state legislature to provide $350 million to create and fund a Texas Space Commission for the next two years. "With companies seeking to expand space travel in coming years, continued development of the space industry in the state will ensure Texas remains at the forefront not only in the United States, but the entire world," Abbott stated in his budget document for the 88th Legislature. "Further investment will cement Texas as the preeminent location for innovation and development in this rapidly growing industry. Due to increased competition from other states and internationally, further planning and coordination is needed to keep Texas at the cutting edge." Texas has a historic budget surplus this year due to oil prices, inflation, and other factors driving economic growth. The state is projected to have $188.2 billion available in general revenue for funding the business of the state over the 2024-2025 period, a surplus of $32.7 billion over spending during the previous two years.

In their initial drafts, both the House and the Senate budget bills for this legislative session include the full $350 million in funding for a space commission. The initiative is being led by the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Texas Rep. Greg Bonnen, whose district just south of Houston is adjacent to NASA's Johnson Space Center. A source said the bill "has all of the support it needs to pass" from leaders in both the House and Senate. Bonnen's office did not specify what the Texas Space Commission will address, including how the money would be spent. A second source in the Texas Legislature told Ars that details about the commission's funding priorities were expected to be worked out later in the legislative session, which ends on May 29.

However, the framework for the proposed space commission appears to have been prepared by a Houston-based workforce-development organization called TexSpace, which published an annual report in December calling for the creation of such a commission. According to this document, the commission would "focus on policy and arranging statewide strategy by monitoring local, state, and federal policies and opportunities and establishing an economic ecosystem for Texas' space enterprises." It would include 15 members, including those appointed by political officials, as well as an appointee each from SpaceX and Blue Origin. [...] The commission will likely seek to ensure that SpaceX and Blue Origin continue to grow their presence in the state and to nurture other, smaller startups. "Compared to the Texas proposal, Space Florida has a modest annual budget of $12.5 million," notes Ars.

"Florida leaders made the brilliant decision to invest in the commercial space industry years ago, and that investment has paid off," Anna Alexopoulos Farrar, a vice president of communications for Space Florida, told Ars. "Space Florida alone had a $5.9 billion economic impact on the state over the past 15 years, and we project a $1.1 billion impact every year starting this year. It's not surprising that other states want to emulate our proven model, and we welcome the challenge from our friends in Texas -- competition yields the best outcomes for both businesses and taxpayers."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Two Republican lawmakers in Idaho have introduced a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for anyone in the state to administer mRNA-based vaccines -- namely the lifesaving and remarkably safe COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. If passed as written, it would also preemptively ban the use of countless other mRNA vaccines that are now in development, such as shots for RSV, a variety of cancers, HIV, flu, Nipah virus, and cystic fibrosis, among others. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Tammy Nichols of Middleton and Rep. Judy Boyle of Midvale, both staunch conservatives who say they stand for freedom and the right to life. But their bill, HB 154, proposes that "a person may not provide or administer a vaccine developed using messenger ribonucleic acid [mRNA] technology for use in an individual or any other mammal in this state." If passed into law, anyone administering lifesaving mRNA-based vaccines would be guilty of a misdemeanor, which could result in jail time and/or a fine.

While presenting the bill to the House Health & Welfare Committee last week, Nichols said their anti-mRNA stance stems from the fact that the COVID-19 vaccines were initially allowed under emergency use authorizations (EUAs) from the Food and Drug Administration, not the agency's full regulatory approval. "We have issues that this was fast-tracked," she told fellow lawmakers, according to reporting from local news outlet KXLY.com. [...] "They ultimately were approved under the ordinary approval process and did ultimately, you know, survive the scrutiny of being subjected to all the normal tests," Rep. Ilana Rubel, a democrat from Boise, said. Nichols seemed unswayed by the point, however, with KTVB7 reporting that she responded that the FDA's approval "may not have been done like we thought it should've been done."

To date, more than 269 million people in the US have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine, and over 700 million doses of mRNA-based vaccines have gone into American arms, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency keeps close tabs on safety through various national surveillance systems. Although the shots do carry some risk (as is the case for any medical intervention), they have proven remarkably safe amid widespread use of hundreds of millions of doses in the US and worldwide. A study released late last year found that COVID-19 vaccination in the US alone averted more than 18 million additional hospitalizations and more than 3 million additional deaths from the pandemic coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. The National Human Genome Research Institute notes that mRNA "is a type of single-stranded RNA involved in protein synthesis. mRNA is made from a DNA template during the process of transcription. The role of mRNA is to carry protein information from the DNA in a cell's nucleus to the cell's cytoplasm (watery interior), where the protein-making machinery reads the mRNA sequence and translates each three-base codon into its corresponding amino acid in a growing protein chain."

mRNA-based vaccines made their public debut amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but researchers have been "working toward these vaccines for decades beforehand," adds Ars.

Researchers are announcing that a 53-year-old man in Germany has been cured of HIV. From a report: Referred to as "the Dusseldorf patient" to protect his privacy, researchers said he is the fifth confirmed case of an HIV cure. Although the details of his successful treatment were first announced at a conference in 2019, researchers could not confirm he had been officially cured at that time. Today, researchers announced the Dusseldorf patient still has no detectable virus in his body, even after stopping his HIV medication four years ago. "It's really cure, and not just, you know, long term remission," said Dr. Bjorn-Erik Ole Jensen, who presented details of the case in a new publication in "Nature Medicine."

"This obviously positive symbol makes hope, but there's a lot of work to do," Jensen said. For most people, HIV is a lifelong infection, and the virus is never fully eradicated. Thanks to modern medication, people with HIV can live long and healthy lives. The Dusseldorf patient joins a small group of people who have been cured under extreme circumstances after a stem cell transplant, typically only performed in cancer patients who don't have any other options. A stem cell transplant is a high-risk procedure that effectively replaces a person's immune system. The primary goal is to cure someone's cancer, but the procedure has also led to an HIV cure in a handful of cases.

The Guardian reports: Scientists have pinpointed pieces of DNA which, they say, act like Bond villains in the way they help cancers spread. These microscopic agents have also been shown to be responsible for helping tumours gain resistance to anti-cancer drugs. The discovery of these bits of genetic material — known as extrachromosomal DNA or ecDNA — could revolutionise the treatments of some of the most aggressive tumours that affect people today, add the researchers....

Made up of tiny loops of DNA, these genetic villains survive outside the chromosomes which are our cells' main repositories of genetic material.... "We have found that ecDNA act as cancer-causing genes that have somehow separated themselves from a person's chromosomes and have started to behave in ways that circumvent the normal rules of genetics," said Stanford university geneticist Howard Chang. "They behave like villains in a Bond film. At first, in a film, you see different explosions, killings and disasters occurring and you don't know why they are happening or who is responsible. Then, at some point, you finally meet the villain who is revealed to be the agent of all this mayhem."
They also seem to resemble the Bond henchman who re-appears at the end of the movie. Professor Paul Mischel of California's Stanford University says that when treating the most aggressive cancers, "The vulnerable gene had quickly disappeared when threatened by cancer drugs and was hidden in ecDNA. Then it reappeared once it was safe for it to start causing damage again."

Mischel calls the discovery "a gamechanger," identifying the culprit "responsible for a large number of the more advanced, most serious cancers affecting people today. If we can block their activities, we can block the spread of these cancers."

And that hope was echoed by Dr Mariam Jamal-Hanjani of University College London Cancer Institute "The crucial point is that once we have found the cause of the problem then it becomes possible to develop and try out all sorts of drugs and therapies to tackle that." * "The discovery of how these bits of DNA behave inside our bodies is a gamechanger," said Professor Paul Mischel of California's Stanford university, one of the leaders of the programme. "We believe they are responsible for a large number of the more advanced, most serious cancers affecting people today. If we can block their activities, we can block the spread of these cancers."

HealthDay reports: If you spend hours a day scrolling on your smartphone or tablet, you might get "tech neck."

"Humans are upright creatures, and our bodies aren't designed to look down for long periods of time, which puts extra pressure on the cervical spine," said Dr. Kavita Trivedi, associate medical director of the Spine Center at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Americans spend about five hours a day on their cellphones and more on laptops and computers, Trivedi noted in a university news release. As a result, people can experience muscle stiffness, joint inflammation, pinched nerves, arthritis, and even bone spurs or herniated discs. ...

"The good news is that most patients with tech neck don't require surgery, and we have a wide range of therapies that can be very effective," Trivedi said. "There's no need to live with pain if it can be treated."

Protect yourself from future neck pain by holding your phone at eye level as much as possible, she advised.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for submitting the article.

"Astronomers spotted an unexpected trail in the gas surrounding a dwarf galaxy while using the Hubble Space Telescope...." writes Hot Hardware. "The light emitting from the trail traveled more than 7.5 billion years to reach Earth and is thought to be traveling at a breakneck speed of 1,600km/s (3.5 million mph).

Science Alert says it could be "the smoking gun pointing to a runaway supermassive black hole."

More from Universe Today: Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) lurk in the center of large galaxies like ours. From their commanding position in the galaxy's heart, they feed on gas, dust, stars, and anything else that strays too close, growing more massive as time passes. But in rare circumstances, an SMBH can be forced out of its position and hurtle through space as a rogue SMBH.

In a new paper, researchers from Canada, Australia, and the USA present evidence of a rogue SMBH that's tearing through space and interacting with the circumgalactic medium (CGM.) Along the way, the giant is creating shock waves and triggering star formation.... The paper hasn't been peer-reviewed yet....

In their paper, the authors explain how an SMBH can be cast out of its host galaxy. It always starts when galaxies merge. That leads to the formation of a binary SMBH at the center of the merger remnant. The binary SMBH can be very long-lived, surviving for as long as one billion years before merging. If during that time, a third SMBH reaches the galactic center, then a three-body interaction can give one of the SMBHs a velocity boost, and it can be driven from the galaxy.
Hot Hardware adds that "This is not the first time a supermassive black hole has been found ejected from the center of its host galaxy. However, this is the first time one has been detected speeding across intergalactic space and believed to be inactive."

And RockDoctor (Slashdot reader #15,477) explains that "After the collision and ejection from the galaxy core, the passage of the black hole through the galaxy and it's surrounding material produced a burst of star formation along that line, which we now see as a faint linear streak of light....

"Those who like doom-laden prophecies will be upset to hear that, because we can see this moving across the plane of the sky, it is never going to come any where near us."

Stanford University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne was formerly executive vice president for research and chief scientific officer at biotech giant Genentech, according to his page on Wikipedia. "In 2022, Stanford University opened an investigation into allegations of Tessier-Lavigne's involvement in fabricating results in articles published between 2001 and 2008."

But Friday Stanford's student newspaper published even more allegations: In 2009, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, then a top executive at the biotechnology company Genentech, was the primary author of a scientific paper published in the prestigious journal Nature that claimed to have found the potential cause for brain degeneration in Alzheimer's patients. "Because of this research," read Genentech's annual letter to shareholders, "we are working to develop both antibodies and small molecules that may attack Alzheimer's from a novel entry point and help the millions of people who currently suffer from this devastating disease."

But after several unsuccessful attempts to reproduce the research, the paper became the subject of an internal review by Genentech's Research Review Committee (RRC), according to four high-level Genentech employees at the time... The scientists, one of whom was an executive who sat on the review committee and all of whom were informed of the review's findings at the time due to their stature at the company, said that the inquiry discovered falsification of data in the research, and that Tessier-Lavigne kept the finding from becoming public.

Tessier-Lavigne denies both allegations. Genentech said in a statement that "as part of our diligence related to these allegations, we reviewed the records from that November 2011 RRC meeting and saw no allegations of fraud or wrongdoing." The company acknowledged that "given that these events happened many years ago ... our current records may not be complete."

After the review, which began in 2011, Genentech canceled research based on the paper's findings. Till Maurer, a senior scientist at the company from 2009-2018 who said he was assigned to develop drugs based on the 2009 paper, told The Daily that his superior informed him that, in Maurer's words, "the project is being canceled and it's because they found falsified data...."

According to the executive who was part of the committee that reviewed the paper, the inquiry was thorough and left little room for doubt. Laboratory technicians and assistants were interviewed while scientists independent of the lab attempted to verify the findings of the study. "None of [the research review committee members] believed that these data were true by the time people had attempted to reproduce it," the executive said. He said that the understanding of the research committee was that the paper's supposed finding of N-APP's role in Alzheimer's had been "faked," and used "made up" figures as evidence.

The CBC reports: You may have seen stories over the past week or so with headlines like, "Part of the sun breaks free and forms a strange vortex, baffling scientists," or "Unbelievable moment a piece of the sun BREAKS OFF baffles scientists" or even "NASA captures piece of sun breaking off, baffles scientists." It all started with a harmless, informative tweet. Tamitha Skov, a space weather forecaster and science communicator, just broke away from the main filament... Implications for understanding the sun's atmospheric dynamics above 55 degrees here cannot be overstated!"

But are scientists actually baffled? Tamitha Skov laughs. "No," she said....

The eight-hour event started off with a solar prominence (also known as a solar filament), that began to rise up near the north pole of the sun, which is seen at the top in satellite images. Prominences are made up of plasma, a hot gas of electrically charged hydrogen and helium. They are common on the sun, but it was the location of this one — at the sun's north pole — that was of particular interest to heliophysicists. "What ended up happening was something that started off as a very normal, average, what we call a polar crown filament. It became this kind of tweeted her excitement that "material from a northern prominence big tower, like a big volcano that was beginning to rise up near the very northern pole," Skov explained. The prominence was near the top of the north pole, above 60 degrees latitude where it got caught in an electromagnetic wind. "And it began to yank and pull at some of the material in that prominence," Skov said.

"So it was rising like a hot air balloon, so to speak, up in the air. And as it cooled, instead of just cooling back down and falling, or perhaps erupting, like a normal polar crown filament, part of it got ripped off in this wind. And as it shredded off into this wind, we got to watch it cool down, swirl in a vortex. And that is a very rare, if not, fundamentally new observation."
It looks like the material ultimately just returns to the surface of the sun -- albeit providing clues about the sun's polar winds and the specifics of its magnetic activity cycle.

Skov also says that the sun's magnetic polar fields "flip" during its 22-year solar cycle, which increases the odds of non-charged particles traveling to the poles, according to the article. "So scientists weren't baffled, since they already had some knowledge about this type of activity. But they were thrilled to be able to witness it."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader aduxorth for sharing the news.