You may attribute your lingering fatigue to late nights, stress at work, or parenting a two-year-old. But a new study from Texas A&M University has linked people’s degree of energy or fatigue to the good or bad bacteria that inhabit your digestive tract. Researchers quizzed subjects about their diets and found that mental and physical...
Category: TRENDS IN HI-TECH SCIENCE
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RESEARCHERS OPEN THE DOOR TO THE BRAIN
Your brain lives in a bubble—specifically, a protective web of about 400 miles of special blood vessels that bar toxins, bacteria, and other alien invaders from passing from your blood to your crucial headspace. Without the barrier, we wouldn’t live long. But when your brain is sick, that’s a problem: the so-called blood-brain barrier also...
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LADIES, YOUR PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED. MAYBE.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a contraceptive pill for males that is 99 percent effective and works without side effects—in mice. Human trials are planned. Other attempts to create a male contraceptive drug have failed in clinical tests; a 2016 trial of an injectable version was halted after an array of side...
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PAPER MOTORCYCLES AND COFFEE SNEAKERS
Paper motorcycles and sneakers made from coffee grounds are adding more arcs to the circular economy. Cake, a Swedish maker of electric motorcycles, has partnered with PaperShell, a Swedish firm that turns cellulose fiber from wood and other plant material into a composite that can be molded into shapes that can replace plastic or some...
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WHY 4680 IS ELECTRIC VEHICLES’ MOST IMPORTANT NEW NUMBER
After reinventing the electric vehicle (EV) industry a decade ago, Tesla now is poised to begin commercial-scale production of its reinvented EV battery, the model 4680. What’s different about the 4680? Here’s what Tesla claims. First, instead of a series of flat plates or square blocks making up the usual battery array, the 4680 is...
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THE FUTURE OF WORK: 5G, HOLOGRAMS, THE METAVERSE. AND PEOPLE TOO.
Cristiano Amon paints the future of office work as an adventure in alternative universes. As CEO of Qualcomm, the $33-billion chip company that led the creation of 5G, Amon is working with gadget-builders to create that future. Recently, Washington Post reporter Danielle Abrill talked with Amon about how tomorrow’s workers will get their jobs done....
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MAKE IT RAIN
Brazil’s drought last year killed 23 percent of its coffee crop. Since 2000, droughts have impacted one person in every five on the planet and cost more than $125 billion in economic damage. About 60 percent of the continental U.S. is in a drought right now, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Lake...
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FIRST BURGERS WITHOUT COWS, NOW EGGS WITHOUT CHICKENS
Finnish start-up Onego Bio has found a way to produce egg albumen—the white of an egg, almost pure protein—through precision fermentation, a process similar to brewing beer. The company starts with Trichoderma reesei, a fungus discovered when it ate up soldiers’ tents and uniforms on the Solomon Islands during World War Two. Trichoderma has a...
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BIOWASTE BECOMES BIOFUEL. EUROPE, ARE YOU LISTENING?
Suddenly desperate to end dependency on Russian oil and gas, Europe is looking for alternatives. Europe, meet Virent, a Wisconsin-based subsidiary of Marathon Oil, the ninth-largest U.S. oil company. Virent has developed a process that uses plant waste—corn cobs, trash left over from processing sugarcane, and a variety of other organic matter—to make “drop-in” replacements...
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NEWLY DISCOVERED CELLS MAY DEFEND AGAINST AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES
Autoimmune diseases—celiac disease, lupus, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, and others—are on the rise, thanks to factors such as lifelong stress, poor diet, and lack of exercise. Mice are known to have a particular kind of T cell—a form of white blood cell that fights infection—that defends their bodies against autoimmune illnesses. Because of other similarities with...
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