Science & Technology

Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality?

After more than 4,000 years — almost since the dawn of recorded time, when Utnapishtim told Gilgamesh that the secret to immortality lay in a coral found on the ocean floor — man finally discovered eternal life in 1988. He found it, in fact, on the ocean floor. The discovery was made unwittingly by Christian Sommer, a German marine-biology student in his early 20s. He was spending the summer in Rapallo, a small city on the Italian Riviera, where exactly one century earlier Friedrich Nietzsche conceived “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”: “Everything goes, everything comes back; eternally rolls the wheel of being. Everything dies, everything blossoms again. . . .”

Sommer was conducting research on hydrozoans, small invertebrates that, depending on their stage in the life cycle, resemble either a jellyfish or a soft coral. Every morning, Sommer went snorkeling in the turquoise water off the cliffs of Portofino. He scanned the ocean floor for hydrozoans, gathering them with plankton nets. Among the hundreds of organisms he collected was a tiny, relatively obscure species known to biologists as Turritopsis dohrnii. Today it is more commonly known as the immortal jellyfish.

Sommer kept his hydrozoans in petri dishes and observed their reproduction habits. After several days he noticed that his Turritopsis dohrnii was behaving in a very peculiar manner, for which he could hypothesize no earthly explanation. Plainly speaking, it refused to die. It appeared to age in reverse, growing younger and younger until it reached its earliest stage of development, at which point it began its life cycle anew.

Sommer was baffled by this development but didn’t immediately grasp its significance. (It was nearly a decade before the word “immortal” was first used to describe the species.) But several biologists in Genoa, fascinated by Sommer’s finding, continued to study the species, and in 1996 they published a paper called “Reversing the Life Cycle.” The scientists described how the species — at any stage of its development — could transform itself back to a polyp, the organism’s earliest stage of life, “thus escaping death and achieving potential immortality.” This finding appeared to debunk the most fundamental law of the natural world — you are born, and then you die…

[continues in the New York Times]

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Science & Technology

Watch YouTubers Build a Functional Half-Scale Cybertruck, Because Why Not?

Cybertruck Mini?

Tinkerers behind YouTube account “The Hacksmith” are building a half-scale model of Tesla’s recently announced Cybertruck — and yeah, it’ll be able to be driven, just like the real thing.

You won’t be able to drive this on the road though — no way it’s passing any kind of real inspection. But it will fit into your garage and weigh far, far less than 10,000 pounds.

The electric pickup revealed earlier this year has become quite the sensation in large part thanks to a brutalist design, featuring crude angles. It almost looks like something out of an early Tomb Raider video game.

Cyber-Golf Cart

So far, the Hacksmith team has assembled the body, made out of bent and plasma-cut pieces of 1/8 inch stainless steel. The pieces are held together by welds.

Parts for the drivetrain were taken from a decommissioned golf cart, including steering and suspension. The team is planning to install two powerful electric motors at each axle.

You can follow the progress of the Cybertruck model over the next few weeks over at the team’s YouTube channel.

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Science & Technology

This is the world’s first commercial flying car

The world’s first commercial flying car is already on sale. It is equipped with two retractable propellers and rear wings.

The vehicle was presented during the Miami Art Week 2019 by the Dutch company PAL-V International. It is called Liberty, and its price is around 600,000 dollars.

It has Dutch engineering and Italian design, it is already in active production and has at least 70 anticipated.

“As soon as Nicolas Cugnot invented the car and the Wright brothers made their first successful flight, people began to dream of combining the two in a flying car.”

‘It turned out to be more complicated than initially estimated: a complex puzzle. However, once resolved, it would create maximum freedom in mobility’, said the executive director of the company, Robert Dingemanse.

PAL-V Flying car "width =" 780 "height =" 390 " — Credit: pal-v.com

When will it be available?

The first units are expected to reach their owners in 2021. However, it must be borne in mind that to handle it, it is necessary to have not only the driver’s license, but also the pilot’s license.

The new car has two versions, the Pioneer and the sports version. Robert Dingemanse explained that the Pioneer version differs from Liberty by its a complete carbon package. He also revealed that only 90 flying cars will be manufactured in this version.

Features of the flying car

Flying car "width =" 1100 "height =" 619 "srcset =" — PAL-V Pioneer. Credit: pal-v.com

Inside of the flying car "width =" 1104 "height =" 736 "srcset =" — Interior of the flying car. Credit: pal-v.com

The PAL-V, a three-wheeled vehicle that can carry up to two passengers and 20 kilos of cargo, is basically a hybrid between a car and a helicopter.

According to the company website, the PAL-V has a four-cylinder engine and is capable of flying at an altitude of up to 3,500 meters. The vehicle, which is made with carbon fiber, titanium and aluminum and weighs only 664 kilograms, uses gasoline for cars and can reach maximum speeds of 180 km / h in the air and 160 km / h on land.

It also has both a ground and air system similar to that of a motorcycle in which the pilot-driver tilts the machine with a control lever.

It also stands out that the PAL-V converts from car to gyrocopter in just 10 minutes and can accelerate from 0 to 100 km / h in less than 9 seconds.

Science & Technology

Health authorities have confirmed a case of a rare type of smallpox in a UK patient

Skin rashes caused by ape pox. Credit: CDC's Public Health Image Library (Public domain)

A patient in England has been diagnosed with a rare case of monkeypox, as reported by Public Health England (PHE).

The rare viral infection is similar to smallpox, and though it is milder, it can be fatal.

It has been reported that the individual was in Nigeria and that he would have contracted the disease there. Later, upon returning to the United Kingdom, he stayed in the southwest of England where the disease occurred.

Upon symptoms, he was transferred to the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust , a center specializing in infectious diseases in London.

The health authorities have taken the necessary measures to prevent the virus from spreading to other people.

Vaccination against smallpox to people in Africa. (Public domain)

The PHE said in a statement:

As a precaution, PHE experts are working closely with NHS colleagues to implement rapid infection control procedures, including contact with people who may have been in close contact with the individual to provide health information and advice. ”

But experts are not very worried about contagion, because monkeypox does not spread easily among people and the risk of affecting the population is quite low, said Dr. Meera Chand , PHE consulting microbiologist.

This transmission electron micrograph (TEM) represents a series of smallpox virus virions. Credit: CDC / Dr. Fred Murphy; Sylvia Whitfield / Wikimedia Commons

Although the infection usually occurs mildly and people get better without treatment; Some individuals may develop very serious symptoms, with a percentage of 1 to 10 percent of patients dying from the disease during outbreaks, according to the World Health Organization .

The symptoms presented are similar to those of smallpox but milder. First, fever, headaches, muscle aches, back pain, swollen lymph nodes, chills and exhaustion. Subsequently rashes may appear on the skin , starting on the face and spreading throughout the rest of the body.

This is not the first time a patient has been infected with smallpox in the United Kingdom. In 2018, there were three cases after a person was diagnosed with the disease. The individual had also returned from Nigeria.

Source: Gov.uk / IFL Science