08-02-b-Sci-Tech Highlights Nominees

New 3D Bioprinter Uses Sound Waves to Build Soft Tissue – ExtremeTech
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Researchers in Australia have developed a new type of 3D bioprinter that uses sound waves to coax cells toward a desired output. Capable of producing fragile soft tissue and sturdier tissue such as bone, the technology could change the way researchers test and discvoer new drugs. It could even facilitate custom-built organs for transplant.

This isn’t the first 3D bioprinter to produce living tissue. Devices of all shapes, sizes, and constructions have been printing with bioinks and living cells for roughly two decades, including this flexible 3D bioprinter—which can add new tissue to internal organs—and this one made out of Lego. A transplant patient in South Korea even received the world’s first 3D printed windpipe earlier this year. But these devices print several cells at a time, and beyond the overall shape of the tissue being printed, there’s no way to position cells in the ultra-precise configurations needed to replicate naturally occuring tissue.

A new approach from the University of Melbourne’s Collins Biomicrosystems Lab allows researchers to print just one cell at a time, offering a more precise alternative to existing 3D bioprinters. It also uses sound waves to position these individual cells in exactly the right place, helping to reproduce the micro-structures that make up tissues throughout the body.

Spain’s Institute of Phototonic Sciences has created an ultra-thin nanocrystal solar cell made with a cheap, environmentally material that is more efficient and lasts longer than anything available today.

Scientists achieve record-breaking efficiency with smooth and improved solar tech — here’s how it could change the energy industry – MSN
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Researchers have developed ultra-thin nanocrystal solar cells with record efficiency while utilizing eco-friendly materials and new processes, advancing possibilities for the green tech sector.

By using a post-deposition in situ passivation strategy, the team at Spain’s Institute of Photonic Sciences has been able to smooth the way toward increased solar energy collection, as Interesting Engineering reported.

“Imagine a bumpy road that slows down cars. Surface passivation is like repaving the road, making it smoother so cars can move without getting stuck,” said Dr. Jae Taek Oh, first author of the study.

It’s all about removing surface defects that inhibit power conversion efficiency in order to facilitate the transport of electrical charge carriers across the ultra-thin solar film.

The nanocrystal ink is made from abundant and environmentally friendly colloidal silver bismuth sulfide, as IE explained. This has a high light absorption coefficient — making it ideal for optoelectronic applications — and can be fully dissolved in water.

“We show that, upon improved colloidal dispersibility and surface passivation, [these nanocrystals] yield thin films free from morphological defects with low trap-state density and balanced charge carrier mobilities,” per the original study.

“As a result, this process leads to ultrathin-film solar cells with a fill-factor of 72% and a power conversion efficiency in excess of 10%, setting a new record for eco-friendly, solution-processed ultrathin solar cells.”

More efficient solar cells of this type could help this renewable source become even more ubiquitous across the globe. Their slim size and flexibility make them ideal for a variety of applications where larger, more rigid solar panels wouldn’t work.

Renewable energy sources generate around 20% of all U.S. electricity, and they’re slowly helping us phase out dirty fuels that spew planet-heating gases into the atmosphere.

Microsoft Teams has announced plans to create a voice-cloning feature that will let you “speak” multiple languages IRL using the sound of your own voice. This means you can have a Teams meeting with people who speak multiple languages yet will hear everyone in their own native voices. This is almost a digital “speaking in tongues.”

Microsoft Teams To Translate Your Speech To Foreign Language In Real-Time During Calls With Voice Cloning Feature – ABP Live
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Microsoft said, “Imagine being able to sound just like you in a different language. The Interpreter agent in Teams provides real-time speech-to-speech translation during meetings.”

Microsoft has unveiled plans to introduce a voice-cloning feature in Teams that will allow users to replicate their voices for communication in multiple languages during meetings. Announced at Microsoft Ignite 2024, this innovative tool, called Interpreter in Teams, offers real-time speech-to-speech translation. Starting in early 2025, Teams users will have the ability to simulate their voices in up to nine languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish.

This feature aims to enhance multilingual collaboration and bridge communication gaps in virtual meetings.

 

An anonymous UK official told Eurasia Times that British war games pitting their carrier task force groups against China’s long-range ballistic missiles called “aircraft killers” show “the carriers get sunk” most of the time. The key to their threat lies both in their new class of long-range ballistic missiles and its use of Over the Horizon (OTHR) sites, a cold-war technology that gives it the ability to locate and target carriers well off their shores.

China’s Anti-Ship Missiles ‘Sink’ British $7.8B Aircraft Carriers In Wargames; Are Flattops Getting Obsolete? – Eurasiatimes.com
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Wargames have shown that the constant technological evolution has made aircraft carriers vulnerable to modern missiles.

An official familiar with the wargames has been quoted in the media that “the carriers get sunk” in most of the iterations.

China’s long-range ballistic missiles, which have earned the sobriquet “aircraft carrier killers,” have challenged the naval power projection of Western countries, and the UK is no exception.

Royal Navy strategists are seized with the huge progress in the Chinese anti-ship missile arsenal. The missile technology has made it capable of locating and tracking Britain’s naval fleet.

China has also been reviving Cold War-era technology by building large Over the Horizon Radar (OTHR) sites, which can be used to locate the sites of its adversary’s fleet from a great distance. Two types of OTHR can be deployed: a skywave and a surface wave. Both systems were used during the Cold War era but lost their importance to modern-day radars.

The OTHR is set to make a comeback as it can address the range limitations of current radars. OTHRs’ range can extend into thousands of miles as they consist of an extensive array of antennae spread out over an area, with the transmission and receiving equipment placed geographically away from each other.

China’s latest missile in the arsenal is the DF-17, which is equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle. The missile is fast and long-range, with a high-precision strike capability, leaving enemies with little time to react. The hypersonic glide vehicles have higher maneuverability and lower altitudes, making them harder to track and predict their flight path.

During the wargames, the Royal Navy’s ‘ability to survive’ is ‘stretched to the limit,’ with a scenario eventually arising whereby a carrier would be sunk.

Researchers from the Schools of Pharmacy and Chemical Engineering at the University of Nottingham have developed a “biocooperative” material that can be made with a patient’s blood, making it a customized implant that can be used for multiple therapeutic purposes.

Co-author of the study, Dr. Cosimo Ligorio from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham, said “The possibility to easily and safely turn people’s blood into highly regenerative implants is really exciting. Blood is practically free and can be easily obtained from patients in relatively high volumes. Our aim is to establish a toolkit that could be easily accessed and used within a clinical setting to rapidly and safely transform patients’ blood into rich, accessible, and tunable regenerative implants.”

Scientists transform blood into regenerative materials, paving the way for personalized, 3D-printed implants– phys.org
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Scientists have created a new ‘biocooperative’ material based on blood, which has been shown to successfully repair bones, paving the way for personalized regenerative blood products that could be used as effective therapies to treat injury and disease.

Researchers from the Schools of Pharmacy and Chemical Engineering at the University of Nottingham have used peptide molecules that can guide key processes taking place during the natural healing of tissues to create living materials that enhance tissue regeneration. The research is published in Advanced Materials.

Most of our body tissues have evolved to regenerate ruptures or fractures with remarkable efficacy, as long as these are small in size. This healing process is highly complex. The initial stages rely on liquid blood forming the solid regenerative hematoma (RH), a rich and living microenvironment comprising key cells, macromolecules, and factors that orchestrate regeneration.

The team developed a self-assembling methodology where synthetic peptides are mixed with whole blood taken from the patient to create a material that harnesses key molecules, cells, and mechanisms of the natural healing process. In this way, it was possible to engineer regenerative materials capable of not only mimicking the natural RH, but also enhancing its structural and functional properties.

These materials can be easily assembled, manipulated, and even 3D printed while maintaining normal functions of the natural RH, such as normal platelet behavior, generation of growth factors, and recruitment of relevant cells important for healing. With this method, the team has shown the capacity to successfully repair bone in animal models using the animal’s own blood.

China has upgraded a number of its submarines to be able to do something they couldn’t before, track American carriers because now they are no longer detectable by American sonar surveillance. U.S. Defense “experts” claim that even if the subs can track the carriers, they couldn’t execute an effective attack on them. However, the subs can provide intel to assets that CAN strike the carriers.

China’s Submarines Can Track (And Sink) Navy Aircraft Carriers – The National Interest Online
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While China’s naval capabilities do not yet match the U.S., its ability to track American carriers, as seen in incidents near Japan in 2015, is a growing concern.

-In the past, Chinese submarines were noisy and easy to detect, but recent investments have modernized its fleet, potentially making it more capable of tracking U.S. vessels.

-Despite this, U.S. carriers are highly protected by multiple defensive layers, including advanced Virginia-class submarines and anti-submarine sensors. Even if a Chinese submarine were to shadow a carrier, executing an attack remains unlikely due to the carrier’s robust defensive architecture…

Back in 2015, a Chinese submarine closely tracked an American aircraft carrier near the coast of Japan. The Chinese Kilo-class fast attack sub shadowed USS Ronald Reagan for more than 12 hours in what was considered to be “more than a brief encounter,” according to officials.

Beijing claimed that the American vessel was sailing in Chinese waters. The incident was reminiscent of an encounter in 2006, when a Song-class submarine surfaced undetected within torpedo range of the Kitty Hawk carrier.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has sent Taiwanese chip maker TSMC a letter informing it that the United States will begin imposing export restrictions on complex chips that use a process technology of 7 nanometers or more. This is in response to a self-report from the company after one of their chips was found in a CCP-connected (and banned) company Huawei.

US orders Taiwanese company to stop selling AI chips to China – Reuters
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According to the source, the US Department of Commerce sent a letter to TSMC. The letter states that it will impose export restrictions on certain complex chips with a process technology of 7 nanometers or more destined for China, which are used in artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators and graphics processing units (GPUs).

The US order, which is reported for the first time, comes just weeks after TSMC notified the Department of Commerce that one of its chips was found in a Huawei AI processor. The research firm Tech Insight reportedly took apart the product, found the TSMC chip and an apparent export control violation.

Reuters writes that Huawei is on the US list of trade restrictions, which requires suppliers to obtain licenses to supply any goods or technologies of the company. In this regard, any license that could help Huawei’s AI efforts is likely to be rejected.

According to a Reuters source, as a result of receiving the letter, TSMC informed affected customers that it would stop supplying chips starting Monday. The US Department of Commerce declined to comment.

A new type of agriculture called “electro-agriculture” could free humans from the vagaries of climate and enable them to grow reliable plant products under all conditions, including in the middle of the night. The method so far is a theory that appears on the Cell Press Journal Joule.

Essentially, a chemical reaction would be created through solar-powered electricity that would convert the CO2 in the air to something a plant can simply “eat” without photosynthesis. The plants will be genetically engineered to be able to do this.

Biological engineer Robert Jinkerson of University of California, Riverside, a corresponding author of the article, spoke of the potential, stating, “If we don’t need to grow plants with sunlight anymore, then we can decouple agriculture from the environment and grow food in indoor, controlled environments. I think that we need to move agriculture into the next phase of technology and producing it in a controlled way that is decoupled from nature has to be the next step. The whole point of this new process to try to boost the efficiency of photosynthesis. Right now, we are at about 4% efficiency…”

With ‘electro-agriculture,’ plants can produce food in the dark and with 94% less land, bioengineers say– www.sciencedaily.com
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Photosynthesis, the chemical reaction that enables almost all life on Earth, is extremely inefficient at capturing energy — only around 1% of light energy that a plant absorbs is converted into chemical energy within the plant. In a perspective paper publishing October 23 in the Cell Press journal Joule, bioengineers propose a radical new method of food production that they call “electro-agriculture.” The method essentially replaces photosynthesis with a solar-powered chemical reaction that more efficiently converts CO2 into an organic molecule that plants would be genetically engineered to “eat.” The researchers estimate that if all food in the US were produced using electro-agriculture, it would reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture by 94%. The method could also be used to grow food in space.

“If we don’t need to grow plants with sunlight anymore, then we can decouple agriculture from the environment and grow food in indoor, controlled environments,” says corresponding author and biological engineer Robert Jinkerson of University of California, Riverside. “I think that we need to move agriculture into the next phase of technology, and producing it in a controlled way that is decoupled from nature has to be the next step.”

Electro-agriculture would mean replacing agricultural fields with multi-story buildings. Solar panels on or near the buildings would absorb the sun’s radiation, and this energy would power a chemical reaction between CO2 and water to produce acetate — a molecule similar to acetic acid, the main component in vinegar. The acetate would then be used to feed plants that are grown hydroponically. The method could also be used to grow other food-producing organisms, since acetate is naturally used by mushrooms, yeast, and algae.

“The whole point of this new process to try to boost the efficiency of photosynthesis,” says senior author Feng Jiao, an electrochemist at Washington University in St. Louis. “Right now, we are at about 4% efficiency, which is already four times higher than for photosynthesis, and because everything is more efficient with this method, the CO2 footprint associated with the production of the food becomes much smaller.”

To genetically engineer acetate-eating plants, the researchers are taking advantage of a metabolic pathway that germinating plants use to break down food stored in their seeds. This pathway is switched off once plants become capable of photosynthesis, but switching it back on would enable them to use acetate as a source of energy and carbon.

“We’re trying to turn this pathway back on in adult plants and reawaken their native ability to utilize acetate,” says Jinkerson. “It’s analogous to lactose intolerance in humans — as babies we can digest lactose in milk, but for many people that pathway is turned off when they grow up. It’s kind of the same idea, only for plants.”

An article in The National Interest has highlighted a potential critical fail in America’s war strategy, especially as it relates to her number one threat, China. The article highlights the development of one American Ford Class Aircraft Carrier, $13 billion, contrasted with a Chinese Frigate armed with hypersonic missiles, operating at a fraction of the cost of an aircraft carrier.

The world is building cheap systems to destroy carriers while America continues to direct more of its resources to these increasingly legacy platforms. The game-changer is the hypersonic missile, though, as of yet, no country has demonstrated reliable accuracy with these missiles, it is only a matter of time before that part is mastered as well, and then America’s massive military advantage, its aircraft carriers, will be over.

The Navy Is Freaked: The Age of Big Warships Is Just About Done – nationalinterest.org
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What You Need to Know: The dominance of large surface warships, especially aircraft carriers, is increasingly threatened by advanced anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems developed by adversaries like China. Hypersonic missiles and other sophisticated weapons, such as China’s Dong-Feng 26B, pose a significant risk to these expensive platforms.

-The U.S. Navy’s reliance on carriers is becoming a liability in potential conflicts, as seen in Russia’s losses during the Ukraine War.

-To counter A2/AD threats, the U.S. must expand its submarine fleet, develop unmanned drones, and invest in hypersonic weapons. However, the Navy continues to prioritize legacy systems like carriers over future-proof solutions.

For centuries, navies around the world have taken pride in their large surface warships. The dominance of these warships persisted even after the advent of submarines. In fact, during the Second World War, when submarines became a primary weapons platform for navies, the aircraft carrier stole all the headlines.

Today, however, things are changing…

The rise of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) means that the large surface warship’s days as the primary form of power projection in a naval fleet are coming to an end.

Consider that the Ford-class aircraft carrier, America’s newest, costs $13 billion per unit, plus hundreds of millions of dollars per year to maintain. The more numerous Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, while older than the Ford-class, are also very expensive.

An aircraft carrier is a large, highly complex warship. Its purpose is to maneuver a floating airbase near the territory of an enemy in order to threaten that rival with precise and consistent airstrikes.

Yet for a fraction of the cost, China’s Dong-Feng 26B missile can either sink an aircraft carrier outright or simply destroy its flight deck, rendering the carrier useless in battle.

The carrier is the primary means of American power projection. Its absence or limitation leaves a critical gap in U.S. military capabilities. That is a strategic gap that a rival like China can easily exploit.

It’s not just aircraft carriers that are vulnerable to China’s growing anti-ship capabilities. Other surface warships are also targets.

The Chinese military has developed a growing coterie of hypersonic weapons capabilities that it is planning to launch against incoming U.S. warships. Whatever defenses those warships have against conventional anti-ship missiles, there are no known countermeasures on U.S. warships to protect against these hypersonic systems.

Elon Musk’s X is back up in Brazil, but it comes with a hefty cost, both in terms of money and the precedent the win for Brazil sets for other nations looking to shake Musk down to assure the platform bends the knees to approved government censors.

The counter to the cave-in narrative is that Musk measured the cost of the dangerous precedent versus cutting off 21.5 million Brazilians from at least being able to enjoy more “free speech” expressions than they otherwise would be allowed to have without X as an option.

X is Back to Brazil After Paying Hefty Fines – 21.5 Million Users Again Connected to the World | The Gateway Pundit– www.thegatewaypundit.com
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The social media platform X is back in Brazil, after 40 days – that felt like an eternity for users – blocked in the South American country.

There are of course those who will cry that Elon Musk ‘gave in’, ‘backed down’ or in some way reneged his fight for free speech, but there is a good argument for the importance of keeping X’s sixth largest market with 21.5 million users.

And for Brazilians who use the platform, the decision is being widely celebrated.

Brazil’s tyrannical Supreme Court finally cleared X to resume service in the country Tuesday after the social media platform complied with court rulings.

CNN reported:

“Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who had been locked in a months-long feud with Musk, gave X the green light to resume operations in Latin America’s largest country effective immediately.”

Justice Moraes said X had met all the necessary requirements and could start operating again in the country.

The platform had been suspended in Brazil since late August for not complying with court orders related to ‘hate speech moderation’ [a.k.a. censorship) and failing to name a legal representative in the country.

“Musk, who had denounced the orders as censorship and called Moraes a ‘dictator’, started to reverse his position in recent weeks, with his social media network blocking accounts flagged by the court, tapping a local representative and paying pending fines.”

Read: DEVELOPING: Social Media Platform X Changes Its IP, Circumvents Blockade and Now Brazilian Users Are Having Access Again – Authorities Are Scrambling To React

Moraes stipulated that Brazil’s telecommunications regulator Anatel should allow X to come back online within 24 hours – which it did.

“Through its Global Affairs account, X said it was proud to return to Brazil, adding that it ‘will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law’ in the countries where it operates.”

X’s suspension was brought about by an individual ruling by Moraes, later unanimously backed by a five-member panel of the Supreme Court and its chief justice.

“Justices flagged at the time, however, that they would be open to reconsidering the suspension if X complied with rulings. The social media company initially said it would not abide by them because they were ‘illegal’.

Brazil is X’s sixth-biggest market globally and as of April had about 21.5 million users, according to data platform Statista. During the suspension, many users migrated to rival platforms such as Bluesky and Threads, owned by Meta.”

X had legal representation in Brazil until mid-August, when it decided to close its offices – because of a threat of imprisonment – due to the orders from Moraes, which it dubbed ‘censorship orders’, failing to name someone to assume legal responsibilities for the firm locally.

Read more:

Brazil’s Commie President Lula Backs Ban on X, Says He Won’t ‘Put Up’ With Elon Musk