NEWS
23.7.27. ChatGPT broke the Turing test — the race is on for new ways to assess AI (from Nature )
Large language models mimic human chatter, but scientists disagree on their ability to reason.
Spooky...
22.2.25. Omicron's structure could help explain its global takeover (from Nature)
Omicron has dozens of mutations not seen in the original SARS-CoV-2 strain ... No previous SARS-CoV-2 variant seems to have accumulated so many genetic changes.
Fifteen of Omicron's spike mutations are found in the protein's receptor binding domain (RBD), a region that binds to a receptor called ACE2 on a person's cell to gain entry. ...
... "Normally, when you have so many mutations all over, you expect that you will also have compromised the ability to bind the receptor," says ...
... although some of the mutations in Omicron's RBD hinder its ability to bind to ACE2, others strengthen it. For example, the K417N mutation disrupts a key salt bridge--a bond between oppositely charged bits of protein--that helps to link the spike proteins to ACE2. A combination of the other mutations, however, helps to form new salt bridges and hydrogen bonds that strengthen the link to ACE2. ...
21.12.27. The science news that shaped 2021: Nature's picks (from Nature)
1. Coronavirus variants threatened vaccine protection
2. Mars was the 'it' planetary destination
3. Muon milestone opened door to major changes in physics
4. Alzheimer's drug approval stirred up hornet [말벌] nest (... The drug's developer, ..., showed that the antibody drug can clear clumps of amyloid-β protein, which some scientists think is the root cause of Alzheimer's, from the brain. But the treatment didn't have a straightforward cognitive benefit in clinical trials. ...)
5. CRISPR edited genes directly inside the body
6. DeepMind's AI tool predicted slew of protein structures (... The algorithm, called AlphFold, ...)
7. To boost, or not to boost -- that was the COVID question
8. IPCC climate report warned nations that extreme weather might be here to say
9. Afghanistan's researchers grappled [to hold] with a new regime
10. Landmark climate summit ended with a pact -- and scepticism
21.11.19. Scientists report finding a second person to be ‘naturally’ cured of HIV, raising hopes for future treatments (from STAT)
빌드업 보소. One evening in March 2020, a doctor walked out of a hospital in the Argentine city of Esperanza cradling a styrofoam cooler. He handed it to a young man who’d been waiting outside for hours, who nestled it securely in his car and sped off. His destination, a biomedical research institute in Buenos Aires, was 300 miles away, and he only had until midnight to reach it. That day, while his sister was inside the hospital giving birth to her first child, Argentina’s president had ordered a national lockdown to prevent further spread of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, including strict controls on entering and leaving the nation’s capital. If the brother didn’t make it, the contents of the cooler — more than 500 million cells from his sister’s placenta — would be lost, along with any secrets they might be holding.
The woman was a scientific curiosity. Despite being diagnosed with HIV in 2013, she’d never shown any signs of illness. And traditional tests failed to turn up evidence that the virus was alive and replicating in her body. Only the presence of antibodies suggested she’d ever been infected. ...
21.09.07. India’s DNA COVID vaccine is a world first (from Nature)
India has given emergency use authorization to a COVID-19 vaccine that uses circular strands of DNA, called plasmids, to prime the immune system against SARS-CoV-2. ZyCoV-D, developed by Indian pharmaceutical firm Zydus Cadila, is the first DNA vaccine for humans to receive authorization anywhere in the world. It is also administered in an unusual way: it is pushed through the skin without a needle or an injection. Interim results showed that ZyCoV-D is 67% protective against symptomatic COVID-19, but no late-stage trial results have yet been published.
21.05.28. The International Society for Stem Cell Research relaxed the famous 14-day rule on culturing human embryos in its latest research guidelines. (from Nature)
... Allowing embryos to grow past 14 days, researchers say, could produce a better understanding of human development, and enable scientists to learn why some pregnancies fail, for instance. ...
21.04.23. Nasa's rover makes breathable oxygen on Mars (from BBC)
An instrument on Nasa's Perseverance rover on Mars has made oxygen from the planet's carbon dioxide atmosphere.
It made 5 grams of the gas - equivalent to what an astronaut at Mars would need to breathe for roughly 10 minutes. ...
Mars' atmosphere is dominated by carbon dioxide (CO₂) at a concentration of 96%. Oxygen is only 0.13%, compared with 21% in Earth's atmosphere. ...
21.03.07. No one knows when to end a conversation (from nature briefing (reference: PNAS))
People rarely know when to stop -- or continue -- talking in a conversation. Psychologists put 126 pairs of strangers together to talk and found that only 2% of conversations ended at the time both parties desired.
(from PNAS: At a moment in history when billions of people have been forced to curtail their normal social activities and to reimagine this one, a scientific understanding of conversation could hardly be timelier.)
21.02.27. Can COVID spread through frozen meat? (from Nature)
Studies from China suggest that the coronavirus can be transmitted on frozen surfaces — but scientists say that's unlikely to be how the pandemic started.
... The WHO team's call to investigate infected frozen meat has also been conflated [to fuse into one entity; merge] with suggestions from China that the virus can spread on frozen surfaces.
MISC
22.02.19. Cosmic latte
The average color of the universe ◼︎◼︎◼︎
22.01.03. CAPSTONE
최고[최후]의 업적; 절정, 극치. NASA에서는 Cislunar[지구와 달 사이의] Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment ... 이건 쫌...
21.02.27. ICBM
Intercontinental ballistic missile이기만 한 것이 아니다. 무려 IoT, Cloud, Big data, Mobile이기도 하다.