Italian circus says escaped lion posed no risk

The lion that escaped from a circus near Rome posed no threat to the public, his handler insisted Sunday, as campaigners called for Italy to ban wild animals in entertainment.Residents of the seaside town of Ladispoli were told to stay indoors for more than five hours on Saturday evening while police, vets and circus staff tracked the lion, finally sedating and then capturing him.Extraordinary videos published by Italian media, apparently taken by locals, showed the fully-grown lion with a shaggy mane walking through dark and deserted residential streets, padding past parked cars.But Rony Vassallo, who is responsible for the animals in the Rony Roller Circus, said that while the thought of confronting a lion would make most people fearful, eight-year-old Kimba posed little danger.Residents of the seaside town of Ladispoli were told to stay indoors for more than five hours on Saturday evening while police, vets and circus staff tracked the lion."He met with people in an environment he wasn't used to... and nothing happened, he didn't even for a second have the instinct to attack a person," he told AFP at the circus site.He said his fear had been "that someone could have harm the animal, out of fear, or excess enthusiasm".Nearby, not far from the red and white striped main tent where preparations were under way for the afternoon show,...

Read More........→October 06, 2024

Counting on Fingers Really Helps Kids Improve Their Math Skills–By 40% New Study Shows

By Yan Krukau via Public Domain on PexelsSome teachers consider finger counting a signal that youngsters are struggling with math, while others associate its use as advanced numerical knowledge.Now, new research is the first to show that children’s performance in arithmetic can show a “huge” improvement through the teaching of a finger-counting method.Swiss and French teams explored whether finger counting can help primary-school-aged children to solve math problems. They said adults rarely use their fingers to calculate a small sum, because such behavior could be attributed to cognitive impairments or “pathological difficulties” in math.But young children under age 8 who use their fingers to solve such problems may be seen as intelligent, probably because they have already reached a level that allows them to understand that a quantity can be represented by different means.The research aimed to determine whether children who don’t count on their fingers can be trained to do so, and whether such training would result in enhanced arithmetic performance.The study, published in the journal Child Development, focused on 328 five- and six-year-old children at kindergarten, mainly living in France, and tested their abilities to solve simple addition problems.The kindergarteners were recruited through their teachers, who voluntarily took...

Read More........→September 23, 2024

New Carbon Fiber Batteries Could Form the Actual Framework of Cars and Airplanes

Artist impression of vehicle partly constructed with batteries made of carbon fibre composite stiff as aluminum – Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden / Henrik Sandsjö / SWNSCars and planes could soon be built from the world’s strongest batteries, thanks to a ground-breaking innovation from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.Researchers detailed the advance of so-called massless energy storage—and a structural battery that could cut the weight of a laptop by 50%, make mobile phones as thin as a credit card, or increase the driving range of an EV by up to 70 percent on a single charge.Structural batteries are materials that, in addition to storing energy, can carry loads. Stiff, strong carbon fibers could store electrical energy chemically and, in this way, the battery material can become part of the actual construction material of a product.And, when cars, planes, ships, or computers are built from a material that functions as both a battery and a load-bearing structure, the weight and energy consumption are radically reduced.“We have succeeded in creating a battery made of carbon fibre composite that is as stiff as aluminum and energy-dense enough to be used commercially,” says Chalmers researcher Richa Chaudhary, the first author of a paper recently published in Advanced Materials. “Just like a human skeleton,...

Read More........→September 17, 2024

Eating Pomegranates Can Help Alzheimer’s Patients Alleviate Symptoms, Study Says

Photo by Sahand BabalA substance naturally occurring in pomegranates can improve memory and the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, a new study concluded.Forgetfulness, difficulty finding words, and confusion about time and place are some of the most common symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, and researchers at the University of Copenhagen have discovered that an ordinary fruit can help.Their study on mice with Alzheimer’s shows that urolithin A, which is a naturally occurring substance in pomegranates, can “alleviate memory problems and other consequences of dementia,” said Vilhelm Bohr, Affiliate Professor at the University’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine.This is good news for patients with dementia – a disease that is difficult to treat.“Even though the study was conducted on mouse models, the prospects are positive. So far, research has shown promising results for the substance.”Clinical trials on humans are currently being planned.Substance improves brain functionThe researchers previously discovered that a specific molecule, nicotinamide riboside (NAD supplement), plays a key role in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as it actively helps remove damaged mitochondria from the brain.“Many patients with neurodegenerative diseases experience mitochondrial dysfunction, also known as mitophagy....

Read More........→June 11, 2024

Extract energy from used nuclear fuel, says environmental group : Waste & Recycling - World Nuclear News

Report author Mark Lynas and RePlanet's Campaigns Coordinator Joel Scott-Halkes hug a canister of nuclear used fuel at the UK's Sizewell nuclear power plant (Image: RePlanet)If existing inventories of used nuclear fuel were recycled and repurposed as fuel for advanced fast reactors, it could generate zero-carbon electricity for Europe for up to 1000 years, according to international environmental campaign group RePlanet.In its new report - What a waste: How fast-fission power can provide clean energy from nuclear waste - RePlanet says Europe's nuclear power reactors "have a long history of safe use, and have provided prodigious quantities of clean electricity for decades". However, it notes that they use less than 1% of the actual energy potential in the natural uranium used to make their fuel and irradiated fuel assemblies removed from reactors are considered 'nuclear waste'."While this nuclear 'waste' is not a serious environmental or health threat - it occupies trivial volumes compared to waste produced by other industries, and does not harm anyone if properly shielded and safeguarded - it does provide a political challenge, and is among the most oft-cited reasons for continued opposition to carbon-free nuclear power," the report says.RePlanet says using this used fuel in a new generation of fast-neutron reactors would "eliminate...

Read More........→June 05, 2024

Incredible 60% of Europe’s Electricity Was Powered by Clean Energy in the First Two Months of 2024

Irish wind turbines – David de la Iglesia Villar, marked CC License.According to an energy think tank, Europe’s generation of 516.5 terawatt hours of renewable electricity in January and February satisfied 60% of overall power demand. The generation is a year-over-year gain of 12% from the same period in 2023, and was driven by strong year-on-year growth in hydro and wind, and a rebound in nuclear. Coinciding with this was a 12% year-over-year fall in the use of fossil fuels, with a 15% drop in energy from coal-fired power plants, the think tank Ember, reports. Contrary to the assumption that this is the work of solar farms and wind turbines, the two fastest growing sources across Europe, the strong performance was led by nuclear, which grew 4% y-o-y, and hydropower which at 17.2% of total continental power demand was the highest percentage share of hydroelectricity ever generated in Europe. Hydroelectricity use grew 23% y-o-y to 152 terawatt hours, led by Norway, France, Switzerland, and Portugal. This was six times the amount of Europe’s total solar power yield, which topped out at 24 TWh. Wind power generated an impressive 137.5 TWh of electricity during the first two months of 2024, up 14%. Several countries, like Ireland and Portugal, are recording single days or multi-day stretches in which a two-thirds majority or greater...

Read More........→April 16, 2024

Witness the Glory of the 2024 European Tree of the Year – Growing in Poland for 200 Years

credit – Marcin KopijIn this year’s edition of the European Tree of the Year contest, the leafy crown was bestowed upon a common beech in the botanical gardens of the University of Wroclaw.Thought to be 200 years old, The Heart of the Garden is the third Polish tree in a row to win, following up on the Oak Fabrykant with its outrageous 60-foot-long digit in 2023, and the 400-year-old Oak Dunin outside the Białowieża Primeval Forest, in 2022.“Its majestic appearance impresses us with its unusually shaped and thick trunk, widely spread branches, and purple-colored leaves that shine beautifully in the sun,” the contest organizers wrote.Known in the UK as a “copper beech” all beech trees seem to have the genetic potential to be purple, though exactly what causes it to happen is unknown. The naturally occurring mutation appears spontaneously, without human interference, and is most commonly seen in either saplings or old trees.The Heart of the Garden is certainly old, and what a wonderful confluence of character that it should have been grown as the centerpiece in the arboretum, and be 200 years old, and have a copper beech mutation.The Fagus genus took silver as well, with The Weeping Beech of Bayeux, in France. Popular for its immense weeping canopy and massive twisted branches probably related to whatever genetic mutation is responsible...

Read More........→April 01, 2024

Scientists Discover Potential HIV Cure that Eliminates Disease from Cells Using CRISPR-Cas Gene Editing

HIV-1 virus particles under electron micrograph with H9 T-cells (in blue) – Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious DiseasesA new study has unveiled a likely future cure for HIV which uses molecular scissors to ‘cut out’ HIV DNA from infected cells. To cut out this virus, the team used CRISPR-Cas gene editing technology—a groundbreaking method that allows for precise alterations to a patient’s genome, for which its inventors won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020. One of the significant challenges in HIV treatment is the virus’s ability to integrate its genome into the host’s DNA, making it extremely difficult to eliminate—but the CRISPR-Cas tool provides a new means to isolate and target HIV DNA. Because HIV can infect different types of cells and tissues in the body, each with its own unique environment and characteristics, the researchers are searching for a way to target HIV in all of these situations. In this study, which is to be presented ahead of this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, the authors used CRISPR-Cas and two guide RNAs against “conserved” HIV sequences. They focused on parts of the virus genome that stay the same across all known HIV strains and infected T cells. Their experiments showed outstanding antiviral performance, managing to completely inactivate...

Read More........→March 26, 2024

Bobi, known as the oldest dog in the world, dies aged 31

Bobi, who was this year ordained the oldest dog in the world by Guinness World Records, has died at the ripe old age of 31, Portuguese media reported Monday."We have better memories of a long life where he was happy and, above all, where he made a lot of people happy, especially his family," Bobi's owner Leonel Costa told local media from the little village in central Portugal where he lives.A purebreed Rafeiro, a Portuguese livestock guard dog whose normal life expectancy is between 12 and 14, Bobi was not supposed to make it beyond puppyhood.He was born on May 11, 1992, along with three other pups in a wood storage shed owned by the Costa family in the village of Conqueiros.Because the family owned so many animals, the father decided they could not keep the newborn puppies and the parents took them from the shed the next day, while the mother dog Gira was out, said Leonel Costa, who was eight years old at the time.But they didn't realise they had left one puppy behind, and that puppy became Bobi."He died at the age of 31 years and 165 days," according to the Guinness World Records.After he was declared the world's oldest dog in February, media and curious onlookers from around the world paid Bobi a visit. Bobi, known as the oldest dog in the world, dies aged...

Read More........→March 18, 2024

Walking robot tested in Finnish repository : Corporate

The ANYmal robot walks through Onkalo's underground tunnels (Image: Tapani Karjanlahti / Posiva)A four-legged robot designed for autonomous operation in challenging environments has been put through its paces at a depth of more than 400 metres in the tunnels of the Onkalo underground used nuclear fuel repository near Olkiluoto, Finland.A research team led by the Swiss robotics company ANYbotics visited Olkiluoto in June to test the functionality of its ANYmal robot in underground facilities. The test was organised by Euratom - the European Atomic Energy Community - together with Finnish radioactive waste management company Posiva Oy.‍The ANYmal robot has been under development for many years. The roots of the ANYbotics company go back to the Swiss Institute of Technology, EHT. A group of researchers from the educational institution built the first four-legged robot back in 2009, and ANYbotics was founded for the commercialisation of this technology in 2016.The ANYmal robot uses laser sensors and cameras to observe the environment and can locate its own position very precisely. By combining observation data with location data - such as a map or area scan data - it can plan its navigation route independently when necessary.Posiva said Onkalo offered a unique framework for the robot to move, noting that there are tunnels in other parts...

Read More........→October 30, 2023

How consciousness may rely on brain cells acting collectively – new psychedelics research on rats

Psychedelics can help uncover consciousness. agsandrew/Shutterstock Pär Halje, Lund UniversityPsychedelics are known for inducing altered states of consciousness in humans by fundamentally changing our normal pattern of sensory perception, thought and emotion. Research into the therapeutic potential of psychedelics has increased significantly in the last decade. While this research is important, I have always been more intrigued by the idea that psychedelics can be used as a tool to study the neural basis of human consciousness in laboratory animals. We ultimately share the same basic neural hardware with other mammals, and possibly some basic aspects of consciousness, too. So by examining what happens in the brain when there’s a psychedelically induced change in conscious experience, we can perhaps glean insights into what consciousness is in the first place.We still don’t know a lot about how the networks of cells in the brain enable conscious experience. The dominating view is that consciousness somehow emerges as a collective phenomenon when the dispersed information processing of individual neurons (brain cells) is integrated as the cells interact.But the mechanism by which this is supposed to happen remains unclear. Now our study on rats, published in Communications Biology, suggests that psychedelics radically change the...

Read More........→August 23, 2023

European Space Agency's Euclid telescope launches from Florida, US

An artist's impression of Euclid. Image: ESA.Yesterday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid space telescope aboard, launched at 11:12 AM EDT (1512 UTC) from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida, US. Euclid was to study dark matter, dark energy, and the expansion of the universe. Costing €1.4 billion, Euclid was to spend about a month traveling around 1,500,000 kilometers (932,057 mi) to the Lagrange point L2 between the Earth and the Sun, the area of the James Webb Space Telescope. There, it would observe about a third of the sky beyond the Milky Way for six years. NASA designed and built Euclid's Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, and NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, with a tentative launch date of May 2027, was to provide more refined data scientists could use to correct Euclid's. IPAC senior research scientist Yun Wang stated Euclid and Roman would "add up to much more than the sum of their parts [...] Combining their observations will give astronomers a better sense of what's actually going on in the universe." Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Euclid was scheduled for launch from French Guiana on a Russian Soyuz rocket in March 2023. Source: https://en.wikinews.org, available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Lice...

Read More........→August 08, 2023

1st baby pangolin in Europe born in Prague zoo, doing well

A baby Chinese pangolin is being weighed at the Prague Zoo, Czech Republic, Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023. A female baby of Chinese pangolin has been born in the Prague zoo on Feb 2, 2023, as the first birth of the critically endangered animal on the European continent, and was doing well, the park said. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)PRAGUE (AP) — A Chinese pangolin has been born in the Prague zoo, the first birth of the critically endangered animal in captivity in Europe, and is doing well after initial troubles, the park said on Thursday.For the first few days after the baby female was born on Feb 2, park keepers were worried because it was losing weight.The reason was found to be that the mother, Run Hou Tang, didn’t have enough milk. Following consultations with experts from Taiwan, a program of artificial feeding with milk from a cat was introduced and the mother was stimulated to produce more of her own.That turned things around with the zoo now expressing cautious optimism about the pup, which still has no name but has been nicknamed “Little Cone” because it resembles a spruce cone.Prague received the rare animals from Taiwan last year, becoming only the second European zoo to keep the species.Guo Bao, the male pangolin, and Run Hou Tang both came from the Taipei zoo, the leading breeder of the mammals that are hunted heavily for...

Read More........→February 24, 2023

World's first 100% hydrogen-powered train now runs in Germany

Alstom, global leader in smart and sustainable mobility, on Wednesday announced the launch of the world’s first hydrogen powered train, the Coradia iLint, setting another historical milestone. The train has started plying on the world’s premiere 100 per cent hydrogen train route in Bremervörde, Lower Saxony, Germany, for passenger service. This regional train only emits steam and condensed water while operating with a low level of noise. Altom has developed 14 vehicles with fuel cell propulsion for Landesnahverkehrsgesellschaft Niedersachsen (LNVG). LNVG had started looking for alternatives to diesel trains in 2012, providing the momentum for the development of the trains in Germany. Other project partners for this world debut are the Elbe-Weser railways and transport company (evb) and the gas and engineering company Linde. “Emission free mobility is one of the most important goals for ensuring a sustainable future and Alstom has a clear ambition to become the world leader in alternative propulsion systems for rail. The world’s first hydrogen train, the Coradia iLint, demonstrates our clear commitment to green mobility combined with state-of-the-art technology. We are very proud to bring this technology into series operation as part of a world premiere, together with our great partners,” said Henri Poupart-Lafarge, CEO and chairman...

Read More........→February 17, 2023

Strong activation of anti-bacterial cells of immune system linked to severe COVID-19: Study

SEP 29, 2020 LONDON: A type of the immune system's T cells known to fight against bacterial infections is strongly activated in people with moderate to severe COVID-19, according to a study which provides a better understanding of how the body responds to the novel coronavirus infection. Researchers, including those from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, noted that this component of the immune system called MAIT cells make up about one to five percent of T cells in the blood of healthy people, and are primarily important for controlling bacteria, but can also be recruited to fight some viral infections. They explained that T cells are a type of white blood cells that are specialised in recognizing infected cells, and are an essential part of the immune system. In the current study, published in the journal Science Immunology, the scientists assessed the role played by MAIT cells in COVID-19 disease. They examined the presence and character of MAIT cells in blood samples from 24 patients admitted to Karolinska University Hospital with moderate to severe COVID-19 disease, and compared these with blood samples from 14 healthy controls and 45 individuals who had recovered from COVID-19. Four of the patients died in the hospital, the study noted. "To find potential treatments against COVID-19, it is important to understand in detail...

Read More........→September 29, 2020

Solar probe reveals sun's tiny 'campfires' in closest-ever photos

A solar probe built by the European Space Agency and NASA has delivered the closest photos ever taken of the sun's surface, revealing a landscape rife with thousands of tiny solar flares that scientists dubbed ‘campfires’ and offering clues about the extreme heat of the outermost part of its atmosphere. ‘When the first images came in, my first thought was, 'This is not possible - it can't be that good,'‘ David Berghmans, principal investigator for the Solar Orbiter spacecraft's ultraviolet imager at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, told reporters on Thursday. The spacecraft, launched from Florida in February, snapped the images in late May using the probe's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager as it orbited nearly 48 million miles (77 million km) from the sun's surface, or roughly halfway between the sun and Earth. The ‘campfires’ are believed to be tiny explosions, called nanoflares, and could explain why the sun's outer shield, the corona, is 300 times hotter than the star's surface. Scientists are awaiting more data from the spacecraft's other instruments to know for sure. ‘We've never been closer to the sun with a camera, and this is just the beginning of the long epic journey of Solar Orbiter,’ said Daniel Müller, ESA's Solar Orbiter project scientist. Scientists typically have relied upon Earth-based telescopes for...

Read More........→July 16, 2020

5 Million Year Old Underwater 'Lost City' Was Not Built By Men Say Scientists

Credit: University of Athens The ancient underwater remains of a long lost Greek city were in fact created by a naturally occurring phenomenon - according to joint research from the University of East Anglia (UK) and the University of Athens (Greece). When underwater divers discovered what looked like paved floors, courtyards and colonnades, they thought they had found the ruins of a long-forgotten civilization that perished when tidal waves hit the shores of the Greek holiday island Zakynthos. But new research published reveals that the site was created by a natural geological phenomenon that took place in the Pliocene era - up to five million years ago. The ancient underwater remains of a long lost Greek city were in fact created by a naturally occurring phenomenon -- according to joint research from the University of East Anglia and the University of Athens (Greece). Lead author Prof Julian Andrews, from UEA's School of Environmental Sciences, said: "The site was discovered by snorkelers and first thought to be an ancient city port, lost to the sea. There were what superficially looked like circular column bases, and paved floors. But mysteriously no other signs of life - such as pottery." The bizarre discovery, found close to Alikanas Bay, was carefully examined in situ by the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of...

Read More........→June 10, 2016

A New Reality Materializing: Humans Can Be the New Supercomputer

Illustration: Colourbox Today, people of all backgrounds can contribute to solving serious scientific problems by playing computer games. A Danish research group has extended the limits of quantum physics calculations and simultaneously blurred the boundaries between man and mac. The Danish research team, CODER, has found out, that the human brain can beat the calculating powers of a computer, when it comes to solving quantum-problems. The saying of philosopher René Descartes of what makes humans unique is beginning to sound hollow. 'I think -- therefore soon I am obsolete' seems more appropriate. When a computer routinely beats us at chess and we can barely navigate without the help of a GPS, have we outlived our place in the world? Not quite. Welcome to the front line of research in cognitive skills, quantum computers and gaming. Today there is an on-going battle between man and machine. While genuine machine consciousness is still years into the future, we are beginning to see computers make choices that previously demanded a human's input. Recently, the world held its breath as Google's algorithm AlphaGo beat a professional player in the game Go--an achievement demonstrating the explosive speed of development in machine capabilities. A screenshot of one of the many games that are available. In this case the task is to...

Read More........→April 14, 2016

Graphene shown to safely interface with neurons in the brain

Researchers in Europe have demonstrated that graphene can be successfully interfaced with neurons, while maintaining the integrity of these vital nerve cells. It is believed this could lead to greatly improved brain implants. A new study published in the journal ACS Nano demonstrates how it is possible to interface graphene with neurons, whilst maintaining the integrity of these vital nerve cells. The research was part of the EU's Graphene Flagship – a €1 billion project that aims to bring graphene from laboratories into commercial applications within 10 years. The study involved a collaboration between nanotechnologists, chemists, biophysicists and neurobiologists from the University of Trieste in Italy, the University Castilla-La Mancha in Spain and the Cambridge Graphene Centre in the UK. Prof. Laura Ballerini, lead neuroscientist in the study: "For the first time, we interfaced graphene to neurons directly, without any peptide coating used in the past to favour neuronal adhesion. We then tested the ability of neurons to generate electrical signals known to represent brain activities and found that the neurons retained unaltered their neuronal signalling properties. This is the first functional study of neuronal synaptic activity using uncoated, graphene-based materials." Using electron microscopy and immuno-fluorescence...

Read More........→February 11, 2016

Earth had enough oxygen before animals appeared

@https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmgill/7320173118/cc-by-sa-2.0 Washington: It's a known fact that oxygen is crucial for the existence of animals on Earth, but did you know that an increase in oxygen level did not apparently lead to the evolution of the first animals. A new research conducted by the University of Southern Denmark showed that 1.4 billion years ago there was enough oxygen for animals and yet over 800 million years went by before the first animals appeared on Earth. Animals evolved by about 600 million years ago, which was late in Earth's history. The late evolution of animals and the fact that oxygen is central for animal respiration, has led to the widely promoted idea that animal evolution corresponded with a late a rise in atmospheric oxygen concentrations. Researchers Emma Hammarlund and Don Canfield said that their study indicates that sufficient oxygen in itself does not seem to be enough for animals to rise. Their analyses revealed that a deep ocean 1.4 billion years ago contained at least 4 per cent of modern oxygen concentrations. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. — ANI. Source: http://www.tribuneindia.co...

Read More........→January 23, 2016