July 10, 2026

Sustainable Flourishing

Tools of Engagement – May 2026

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

Originally published May 1, 2026 for our monthly Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor.  Subscribe to get weekly issues.

RISE OF THE PROGRESSIVE NATION

In our March 27, 2026, MIA Quarterly, Paul Gordon Collier did a bellwether deepdive on the rise of the progressive nation from within the American nation.

In that analysis, Collier concluded, “We believe the GOP is no longer a viable alternative to the progressive nation, as it mostly exists within it. If we could compel Americans to act, we would encourage them to explore what American rule of law is for themselves and with their family, friends, and neighbors.

Identify Americans in your community and fellowship primarily with them.

We need conversations, public ones, that invite an exploration of American Rule of Law, of what makes us American, so we know what we are fighting for and what we are fighting against.

From this, we need American parties to emerge that are pledged to not offer policies that violate our American Rule of Law standards. That standard is to have state power bounded by the self-stewardship agency power of its citizens.

Most likely, there will be a left party that favors the weak over the strong and a right party that favors merit over social hierarchies. Yet BOTH will offer no threat to the individual’s capacity to be a self-stewarded individual.”

One step that could be taken is organizing meetups, physical and virtual meetups, with people in your community (real or virtual) to have conversations, presentations on American rule of law and how Americans might organize OUTSIDE of the GOP and DNC institutions altogether.

If you feel so inclined and equipped, here are some resources to help you learn how to create such events, virtually and in real life.

  1. How to Host Community Events – VIPTOGO
  2. How to Create an Event on Facebook: Public or Private – Wikkihow.com
  3. How to Organize a Convention: Step-By-Step Checklist Guide – Crowdultra.com
  4. The Essential Conference Planning Checklist – Eventbrite
  5. THE STATE OF THE AI STATE

In the April 17, 2026, issue of MIA, Paul Gordon Collier and Staff did a Deep Dive Report on the current state of rising AI States. In the Deep Dive, they wrote, “AI is here, and it will touch every part of your life. Whatever you do, if it involves repetition or thinking, AI will be replacing you or aiding you.

As we have said in our earlier AI report for our Futureq series, becoming adept at using AI as a tool to augment whatever you do to make a living, or whatever you hope to do to make a living, is not only advantageous, but it’s also essential. Your competition is already using these tools, and the best ones are the most adept at getting the tools to effectively do what they want them to do.”

While we will be working to keep you up to date on the emerging AI state, we always recommend you rely on multiple sources to steward your understanding of the world (more on this later).

Here are some top AI News websites, all of which have some degree of capture by corporate and/or state authority, but all of which are still useful for learning what’s really going on in AI development.

We ourselves monitor these sites.

We will start our list with our own website:

  1. Mindful Intelligence – AI Watch News Tag
  2. MIT Technology Review – AI Topic
  3. The Rundown AI – Main Site
  4. Wired – Artificial Intelligence Tag
  5. Venture Beat – AI Category
  6. Stanford HAI – News

HOW IRAN KILLED NATO

In our April 24, 2026, issue of MIA, our Military Affairs Correspondent, Michael Cessna, wrote a Deep Dive on the current state of the Iran War. In that Deep Dive, Cessna noted: “Even if Donald Trump commits political suicide by ending Operation Epic Fury prematurely, and unilaterally withdrawing U.S. combat forces from the Persian Gulf Theater, the regime in Tehran has been fatally compromised by combat operations to date.

“They have lost too many experienced leaders – those capable of holding down the tensions and rivalries between the various factions of their state – too many physical assets, as their air force, in addition to their navy, is now functionally non-existent.

“Even their oil production capacity has been so badly damaged, it is effectively a non-entity in contributing to Iranian state revenues…and that’s before addressing the looming water crisis.

Where Iran had been the major proxy supporter of terror groups throughout the Middle East, they can no longer do so: their internal currency is worthless, and with the current loss of oil revenue, they have no meaningful way to pay for their mercenaries imported from Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq.”

After all the Iranian people withstood, after the military has been essentially wiped out, the regime is still standing because they still have small-arms power while their citizens remain unarmed.

Learning how to make your own guns, for personal use, and following all local, state, and federal laws, could be a great way for you to enjoy the still-existent right to bear arms most Americans continue to enjoy, a right that the Iranian people sure wish they had.

If they had arms in the first place there would be no need for U.S. and Israeli air strikes to topple the regime. If they had arms in the first place, most of the draconian laws would not been proposed, let alone been enforced.

Learning how to make guns in an emergency, to get to other guns, within the boundaries of all local, state, and federal laws, might be a more practical, and easier-to-learn skill you will hopefully never has to use. It is also a great way to introduce yourself to full home gunsmithing.

  1. RESOURCES FOR MAKING GUNS:
  1. RESOURCES FOR MAKING EMERGENCY GUNS:
  1. TRUMP’S DINNER THEATER

This month’s Deep Dive Report is on progressive violence as seen through the bellwether event, the White House Correspondents Dinner Shooting.

Our staff noted, “The President has chosen to call for the firing of Jimmy Kimmel over his “expecting widow” comments, while Trump’s FCC now moves to challenge ABC affiliate broadcast licenses. The move is clumsy and the justification for it is not clear, especially when it doesn’t target the whole broadcast industry.

IF ABC has violated broadcasting licensing standards, so has the rest of the industry.

In U.S. law, the standard is not what we know but what we can prove. We know Kimmel’s statement was intentionally broad enough that you can assume he’s inciting violence against the President but proving that in a court of law would be, well, extremely challenging.

The FCC move in and of itself would be great if it had already happened, and if it happened for every major broadcast corporation AFTER a study ACTUALLY showed violations of broadcast licensing had been occurring systematically for decades.

We think a serious study would most likely reveal this decades-long systemic pattern of violations to be true, but it would also expose both the GOP and DNC’s involvement in perpetuating this unofficial alliance between the government and corporate media, or rather, between political parties and corporate media.

This soft power appears to be a tool the President doesn’t want to completely forfeit, even if it means not vanquishing one of the two hearts of progressive power, the progressive corporate media control of socio-cultural production, signaling, and gatekeeping.

What this means is the average news reader will continue to find it difficult to understand the reality of power with a news industry filled with battling narrative war machines, the political party press.

Our site, mindfulintelligence.news, is not a comprehensive news aggregate site, but rather it is a bellwether aggregate and news analysis site. We have an American bias in our aggregation selection process, but that American bias compels us to give you samples of both major factions, the conservatives and republicans, in our aggregation.

It goes without saying we recommend our own site to get a sense of competing narratives that allow you to discern for yourself for your own self-stewarded understanding of the reality of power.

Here are a few pure news aggregators that focus on capturing more of the totality of major news coverage on a given day:

  1. AllSides
  2. Ground News
  3. Memorandum
  4. SmartNews

 

Final Thought – 26-05-01- Building Castle Life

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

Originally published May 1, 2026 for our monthly Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor.  Subscribe to get weekly issues.

By Paul Gordon Collier, Editor

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” – Edmund Burke

“The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired. One of the great ironies of life is this: He or she who serves almost always benefits more than he or she who is served.” – Gordon B. Hinckley

Our Hope Exit Castle project has become our Hope Estates project. We started this project off attempting to build a working model of an extended family household running a Castle, a building that combines private residence with public service space.

While that is still our goal, we now have another property that could eventually become a similar type of space (Castle Space) and two other properties that are too small to become Hope Exit Castles. They could become satellites for future Castle builds.

In purchasing our church, we came to learn of a growing movement to convert churches to living space. What we did not see was any great effort to both preserve the church’s capacity to service the community through its space alone and create private space for the castle’s stewardship family.

Optimally, the extended family would have no less than 5 members and no more than 10. Ours might start around 6 or 7.

Churches remain a potential future opportunity for Hope Exit Castle plants, including in the communities where our small properties are located. What we learn through our Riqueday Castle project in Canton, PA will help us with future potential church to castle conversions.

Apartment buildings could also become future Hope Exit Castles. Our Harrisburg project will prepare us for such future potential Apartment building to castle conversions.

Hope Exit Castles are not exits from the controlling world, but rather exits from dependence on the controlling world. Yet they are also servants to the victims of that same controlling world. They are still connected to the controlling world through service to those it forgets.

Among our readers we are certain there are those who have perhaps more resources than we do to attempt something similar. If you decide to start, write to us at MIAMAILROOM@gmail.com, subject Hope Exit Castle. If you have already begun, or have built a successful model, write to us as well with the same subject, Hope Exit Castle.

Either my brother or I will write you back. We will hope to regularly communicate with you, to learn from you while you learn from us. Whatever is relevant to our readers that you’d freely share, we will share with them.

While we are looking primarily to convert what is to what might be, churches and apartment buildings to castles, we are also hoping to live long enough to break ground on our first experimental community of 10k people, where every space is designed and built from scratch.

The primary impediment to sustaining extended family structures is the capacity to provide for yourselves through your own actions a sustainably flourishing standard of living and the training that makes such an outcome possible.

Outside of very large cities, the capacity of a community to provide sustainably flourishing vocations to whole extended families decreases the smaller it gets. Even a city of 100,000 will have a hard time keeping extended families together for a few reasons.

One major reason is that the highest skilled will gravitate towards the few most wealthy corporations that can pay them. Generally, those positions are in cities like New York, NY, not Allentown, PA, and certainly not in Canton, PA.

We believe we have the technology, ESPECIALLY with AI, to create communities that can design, plan, create, and serve 80% of its FLOURISHING wants and needs and 95% of its essential needs with a population of 10,000 people.

If a community can do that, it can provide the kind of high-skilled vocation high-skilled people would need to feel fulfilled, at compensations that allow them and their immediate families to live flourishing lives.

The community would be 2-3 square miles, populated by extended family homes (15-20 people each), which would in turn have the capacity to meet 1/3 of its flourishing wants and needs and 80% of its essential needs.

We will share more ideas about this concept in our upcoming special publication, Hope Exit, scheduled to be released with our Quarterly issue on July 10, 2026. This is part of your subscription.

Back on solid ground, three of our four properties have updates to report. In our current home, we recently had a crisis with a broken lawn mower and broken washer. We have been able to replace our broken lawn mower with one that works a lot better than the last. As I am the one who mows, this has been a godsend for me.

Our broken washer has also been replaced, and that washer is significantly better than our last one. My wife primarily does our wash, while my daughter (who is going to college) does her own. For my wife and daughter, the washer does 3 times the amount in one load than the old one did, and in a little less time, with significantly less noise (our washer was very loud towards the end).

In both instances, brokenness led to more flourishing outcomes in the end, though the extra cost, in and of itself, is not sustainable. In our case, we can meet this need, thankfully.

The Riqueday Castle has had plastering done to patch up some holes. We’ve identified a leak in the roof that is affecting one of our window wells in the sanctuary. We are in the process of considering contractors for a bid on a new roof, and contractors for a new bathroom and laundry hookup.

Mowing season is back in action, so our unofficial caretaker, Anthony, is on the job once again.

We have been saving towards our property taxes (we have 3 that come to a total of around $7K) and are about ready to pay one of them (the $4K one) soon. We will be opening up a bank account in the name of Riqueday Castle; with myself, my wife, and my brother being the authorized users.

After we do this, we will start paying our Castle bills through that account. We can also then have a shared account to throw money in so we can build it up for needed future investments.

We have a mystery in our electric bill that saw a bit of an unexpected spike (not significant, but not unnoticeable either). So far, we haven’t figured out what the culprit is. We will see if it continues with the next bill.

We have procured donated furniture which I have not yet seen. Brother Bill and Anthony will be taking the furniture to the Castle where we will all decide what goes where, though a few pieces are specifically for Bill’s future living quarters.

In Harrisburg, Bill, Anthony, and one of Bill’s close friends, cleaned up the third-floor apartment. Anthony painted the front room. Bill ordered furniture for the apartment which has yet to be assembled. Bill has also ordered a new toilet to be installed in the bathroom.

After the apartment is livable, Bill will be able to make more trips to DC where more opportunities for clients are. I will go with him on some occasions, but not often. We are seeking more business to raise more funds for our Hope Estate project. If you need website marketing, design, or building, or reputation protection, or research, ping us at MIAMAILROOM@gmail.com, subject Business Query.

Had we not chosen to embark on this project, both my brother and I were in comfortable circumstances. The level of business we had was more than sufficient to sustain us at this comfortable level. Yet I would not trade that comfort (which I do sometimes miss) for the opportunity I have to contribute to human understanding through my success or failure.

Can we redesign our very home life to accommodate extended family living that serves the community as well? It is better for me to fail than to have lived in comfort never having tried to answer that question for myself when I had the resources to do so.

I say this to appeal to you, the reader, who might have such resources, to consider trying something similar yourself. If you choose to start, or if you’ve already started, or if you’re well into doing what we’re calling “Castle living,” let us know at MIAMAILROOM@gmail.com. It could be the start of a fruitful conversation for all.

China develops a new fuel cell that turns coal directly into electricity without burning |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

pgnewser April 28, 2026 0

News Source
EXCERPT:

Chinese researchers have unveiled a groundbreaking ‘Zero-Carbon-Emission Direct Coal Fuel Cell’ (ZC-DCFC) that fundamentally transforms coal-based energy. Led by Xie Heping at Shenzhen University, this innovation bypasses traditional combustion – the process responsible for massive carbon emissions and energy loss in conventional power plants. By utilising electrochemical oxidation, the system converts coal’s chemical energy directly into electricity, as noted in the Energy Reviews journal.

This closed-loop technology not only prevents the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere but also captures it in situ, converting it into valuable chemical feedstocks like synthesis gas or sodium bicarbonate. This development challenges long-standing assumptions about the environmental impact of coal, potentially providing a cleaner pathway for utilising vast fossil fuel reserves.

Into the Omniverse: Manufacturing’s Simulation-First Era Has Arrived– blogs.nvidia.com

pgnewser April 28, 2026 0

News Source
EXCERPT:

Manufacturing’s traditional design-build-test cycle rested on a single assumption: Real-world testing was the only reliable test environment. 

That assumption is now shifting. 

Today, high-fidelity simulation produces synthetic training data accurate enough for production-grade AI. This is enabling perception systems, reasoning models and agentic workflows to excel in live factory environments.

OpenUSD has emerged as the connective standard that makes this practical, and the manufacturers building on it are already experiencing measurable results. 

Scientists discover how to freeze transplant organs without cracking them– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser April 28, 2026 0

News Source
EXCERPT:

Cryopreservation, the process of preserving biological tissue by cooling it to extremely low temperatures, often sounds like something out of science fiction. In reality, scientists have been studying and refining this technique for nearly a century. Progress remained slow for decades, but that began to change in 2023, when researchers at the University of Minnesota successfully transplanted a cryopreserved kidney into another rat. That milestone demonstrated that frozen organs could one day be used in human transplants.

Despite that progress, preserving larger organs remains a major hurdle. One of the biggest problems is cracking, which can occur when tissues are cooled too quickly. These fractures can damage the organ and make it unusable, making crack prevention a critical goal for advancing organ preservation and transplantation.

A team at Texas A&M University, led by Dr. Matthew Powell-Palm from the J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering, has introduced a new approach aimed at addressing this issue. Their research outlines a method that could reduce the likelihood of cracking during cryopreservation.

Dirt-Powered Batteries

pgnewser April 21, 2026 1

Researchers from Northwestern University have invented a fuel cell that is powered by microbes found in soil. Northwestern alumnus Bill Yen, who led the work, said of their proof-of-concept, “We need to find alternatives that can provide low amounts of energy to power a decentralized network of devices… we looked to soil microbial fuel cells, which use special microbes to break down soil and use that low amount of energy to power sensors. As long as there is organic carbon in the soil for the microbes to break down, the fuel cell can potentially last forever.”

Scientists develop dirt-powered fuel cell that could replace batteries– www.sciencedaily.com
News Source
EXCERPT:

Researchers led by Northwestern University have developed a fuel cell that generates electricity using microbes naturally found in soil. The device, roughly the size of a paperback book, produces small amounts of power by capturing energy released as these microorganisms break down organic material in dirt.

This soil-powered system is designed to run underground sensors used in precision agriculture and environmental monitoring. It offers a potential alternative to traditional batteries, which contain toxic and flammable materials, rely on complex global supply chains, and contribute to growing electronic waste.

Theoretical models of supernova chemistry overhauled after X-ray data from Perseus Cluster reveal key discrepancies– phys.org

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

News Source
EXCERPT:
The Perseus Cluster is a massive galaxy cluster located in the constellation Perseus. It is one of the largest structures in the observable universe, comprising more than a thousand galaxies—equivalent to roughly a thousand trillion times the mass of the sun. Hot gases within the cluster, known as the intracluster medium (ICM), emit powerful X-rays detectable by telescopes. These gases are produced by billions of supernova explosions, and their chemical composition reveals how typical supernovae have exploded throughout cosmic history.

Reverse Aging Showing Early Signs of Success

pgnewser April 16, 2026 0

Shinya Yamanaka, a stem-cell biologist then at Kyoto University in Japan, led a team of scientists to successfully test a 2006 reverse aging discovery. Now, major companies are prepared to bring the testing to the next level after other researchers have shown more evidence to support the 2006 claim. Billions are now being flooded into the emerging technology.

Blurb:

This method to reverse cellular aging is about to be tested in humans – scientificamerican.com

Yuancheng Ryan Lu could barely breathe while he waited for his labmate to adjust the microscope focus.

On the slide in front of them were the results of Lu’s latest attempt to turn back time for ageing retinal nerve cells. If it worked, the method he was using could help to restore eyesight to older adults with glaucoma, an age-related condition that damages the optic nerve. And perhaps some day it could be used to rejuvenate organs such as the kidneys or liver — maybe even the brain.

Lu had spent three years trying different approaches — and had failed. But this time looked different. Lu had introduced three genes into mouse eyes that should revert cells to a younger developmental state. And there under the microscope he thought he could see signs of new growth. Now, he was asking his labmate to confirm his suspicions. “I was so nervous,” says Lu, now a geneticist at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Graphene just defied a fundamental law of physics– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser April 16, 2026 0

News Source
EXCERPT:

For decades, physicists have been trying to answer a fundamental question: can electrons move like a perfectly smooth, frictionless fluid governed by a universal quantum value? Detecting this unusual behavior has proven extremely challenging. In real materials, tiny imperfections such as atomic defects and impurities tend to disrupt these delicate quantum effects, making them nearly impossible to observe.

Now, researchers at the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), working with collaborators from the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan, have finally identified this elusive quantum fluid in graphene. This material consists of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a flat sheet. Their findings, reported in Nature Physics, open a new path for studying quantum phenomena and position graphene as a powerful platform for exploring effects that were previously out of reach in laboratory settings.

“It is amazing that there is so much to do on just a single layer of graphene even after 20 years of discovery,” says Arindam Ghosh, Professor at the Department of Physics, IISc, and one of the corresponding authors of the study.

New material may help aluminium batteries last longer, cost less– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

pgnewser April 15, 2026 0

New material may help aluminium batteries last longer, cost less– timesofindia.indiatimes.com
News Source
EXCERPT:

… A research team led by Kavita Pandey of the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS), a Department of Science and Technology (DST) institute in Bengaluru, working in collaboration with researchers from Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence in Greater Noida, has developed a new composite material that makes aluminium batteries more stable and longer-lasting.

“Aluminium batteries have attracted attention because aluminium is widely available, inexpensive, and can store more charge per atom than lithium. But there has been a major hurdle: the materials inside these batteries tend to break down quickly. Over repeated charging, they crack or dissolve into the liquid inside the battery, causing it to lose power,” DST pointed out…

The result is a composite that acts like a support structure, holding the battery material together while also helping electricity and ions move more smoothly.This seemingly simple change made a measurable difference. Tests showed that the new material reduced the amount of vanadium dissolving into the battery liquid by more than four times compared to the original material.

As a result, the battery retained more than 73% of its capacity after 100 charge cycles, and around 59% even after 500 cycles. In comparison, conventional versions degrade much faster. In practical terms, that means a battery that lasts longer and performs more reliably…

 

Physicists just witnessed pinpricks of darkness moving faster than the speed of light ‪—‬ without breaking the laws of relativity– www.livescience.com

pgnewser April 14, 2026 0

News Source
EXCERPT:
For the first time, researchers have detected empty voids moving faster than the speed of light — and they blazed past that cosmic speed limit without breaking the laws of relativity.

A recent study shows the voids’ acceleration. Researchers used recent advances in ultrafast electron microscopy to measure voids in phonon-polariton waves zooming around inside a thin flake of boron nitride. Phonon-polaritons are quasiparticles formed from photons (quantized light) coupled with tiny vibrations, and they act like light and sound waves combined.

Stanford scientists discover “natural Ozempic” without side effects– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser April 13, 2026 0

Blurb:

Scientists at Stanford Medicine have identified a naturally occurring molecule that appears to mimic some of the weight loss effects of semaglutide, the drug widely known as Ozempic. In animal studies, the molecule reduced appetite and body weight while avoiding several common side effects such as nausea, constipation, and muscle loss.

The molecule, called BRP, works through a different but related biological pathway and activates distinct groups of neurons in the brain. This suggests it may offer a more precise way to control appetite and metabolism.

Light-Powered Recharge in Seconds

pgnewser April 10, 2026 0

A quantum battery prototype has been built that can allegedly recharge itself with light alone. It is an organic battery as well. The battery prototype was built by CSIRO, RMIT and the University of Melbourne.

Blurb:

Scientists build a quantum battery that charges using light in seconds – Times of India

The CSIRO, RMIT and the University of Melbourne have successfully built a quantum battery prototype from theory into practice, meaning both energy and physics sciences have now made this transition to energy technology. Whereas traditional electrochemical cells rely on chemical reactions for their energy storage, this organic battery uses principles of quantum mechanics, specifically superposition and light-matter interactions, for the same purpose.

Superextensive charging (when a battery can charge faster as it increases in size) is one of the key characteristics that define this development; therefore, the quantum battery will, in turn, overcome the degradation factor typically seen in conventional batteries as they increase in size.

This room temperature prototype will potentially allow near-instantaneous charging and long-distance wireless power transfer using lasers.

This new chip survives 1300°F (700°C) and could change AI forever– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser April 8, 2026 0

Blurb:

Modern electronics power everything from smartphones to satellites, but they all share a major limitation. Heat. Once temperatures climb above roughly 200 degrees Celsius, most devices begin to break down. For decades, this thermal barrier has been one of the toughest challenges in engineering.

Researchers at the University of Southern California now believe they have found a way past that limit.

Scientists demonstrate underground wireless communication, even through stony bedrock– www.digitaltrends.com

pgnewser March 23, 2026 0

Blurb:

The communication uses magnetic field underground communication source technology, and is the world’s first successful attempt at it. Instead of relying on conventional radio waves, which get absorbed almost instantly by rock and soil, ETRI’s system uses low-frequency magnetic fields.

The setup includes a 1-meter-diameter transmitting antenna on the surface and a small, handheld-sized receiving sensor underground operating at around 15 kHz. That’s enough bandwidth to support a data rate of 2 to 4 kbps, which is sufficient for clear, two-way voice communication.

The team successfully tested bidirectional communication between the ground level and the fifth underground layer of a limestone mine, an environment where existing wireless technology cannot reach.

Previous research had only managed a few tens of meters. ETRI pushed that to 100 meters, and the technology is designed to go further.

Pennsylvania woman lives in massive $40K church– nypost.com

pgnewser March 11, 2026 0

Blurb:

She’s living holy.

Today’s house prices are so high that one Pennsylvania woman purchased a massive church for cheap and is encouraging others to do the same.

Priscilla Houliston has established herself on social media with informative videos about life in a historic church in the Keystone State.

It might sound unconventional, but given the current economic environment, Houliston might be onto something.

Plastic from milk? Scientists create eco-friendly plastic that decomposes in just 13 weeks |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

pgnewser March 10, 2026 0

Blurb:

Today, the world is fighting against pollution. Many kinds of NGOs in the whole world are working tirelessly to minimise the problem of pollution. Data from the Global Environmental Organisation Index (2024), highlighted by the Varanasi Diocese Community Network, tells that over 120,000+ officially registered environmental NGOs are worldwide. Plastic pollution is one of the major issues currently that is rapidly growing, and to tackle this, researchers from Flinders University in South Australia have taken a step ahead to solve the problem. They have worked on creating a material (plastic) that can be decomposed under normal soil conditions.

Engineers make magnets behave like graphene– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser March 10, 2026 0

Blurb:

Two dimensional materials have drawn intense interest because their electronic and magnetic properties could power future technologies. Scientists have traditionally treated these two behaviors as separate. Engineers at Illinois Grainger Engineering have now shown that they are connected by the same underlying mathematics.

In a study published in Physical Review X, researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign demonstrated how specially designed two dimensional magnetic systems can follow the same equations that describe mobile electrons in graphene. This mathematical connection could influence the design of radiofrequency devices and also provide researchers with a powerful new way to analyze and engineer these materials.

“It’s not at all obvious that there is an analogy between 2D electronics and 2D magnetic behaviors, and we’re still amazed at how well this analogy works,” said Bobby Kaman, the study’s lead author. “2D electronics are very well studied thanks to the discovery of graphene, and now we’ve shown that a not-so-well-studied class of materials obeys the same fundamental physics.”

DNA Could Help Shrink AI Databases Massively

pgnewser March 6, 2026 0

Researchers at the University of Missouri claim to have solved the problem of converting computer data into DNA and then switching back to computer data. If the process can be perfected, the size of databases required for AI Machines like Grok could be 10-100 times smaller than they currently are.

Blurb:

Team turns DNA into a rewritable hard drive – futurity.org




Researchers are developing a rewritable DNA hard drive.

Around the world, scientists are exploring an unexpected solution to the growing data crisis: storing digital information in synthetic DNA. The idea is simple but powerful—DNA is one of the most compact, durable information systems on Earth.

But one issue has held the field back. Once data is written into DNA, it can’t be changed.

Now, researchers at the University of Missouri are helping solve that problem by transforming DNA from a one-time medium into a rewritable digital hard drive.

“DNA is incredible—it stores life’s blueprint in a tiny, stable package,” Li-Qun “Andrew” Gu, a professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at Mizzou’s College of Engineering, says.

“We wanted to see if we could store and rewrite information at the molecular level faster, simpler, and more efficiently than ever before.”

Why DNA?

Today’s computers store information as a series of zeros and ones. DNA-based data storage goes a step further by turning those bits into sequences of letters—A, C, G, and T—the same building blocks that make up DNA.

To store digital files in DNA, scientists translate the zeros and ones that make up photos, videos, and other data into sequences of those four chemical letters. Machines then build synthetic strands carrying that exact pattern.

DNA’s advantages are striking. It can hold huge amounts of information in tiny volumes—theoretically, all the world’s data could fit into something the size of a shoebox. When kept dry and cool, it remains stable for thousands of years. And storing data this way requires far less energy than running massive data centers.

Until now, however, DNA storage has been permanent. Once the data is encoded, it can’t be updated or reused—a major limitation for anything beyond long-term archiving.

That’s where Gu’s team comes in. They’ve developed a method that allows data stored in DNA to be erased and overwritten repeatedly. This rewritability is essential for any storage system meant for regular, everyday use.

Their method allows DNA to function less like a static archive and more like a modern hard drive—one with extraordinary storage density and longevity.

Retrieving the information requires reading the DNA sequence. The Mizzou team is developing a compact electronic device paired with a molecular-scale detector called a nanopore sensor. As the DNA passes through the sensor, it creates subtle electrical changes that software translates back into zeros and ones and, ultimately, the original data file.

Mizzou’s system is faster, simpler, and more environmentally friendly than existing methods. In the long term, Gu hopes to shrink the device into something about the size of a USB thumb drive.

High-capacity and ultra-secure

DNA stores information in three dimensions rather than on a flat computer chip, giving it unparalleled storage density. And because it exists as a physical molecule rather than a constantly connected electronic system, it offers additional protection against hackers.

“Think of it like a super-secure safe deposit box for your digital life,” Gu says. “DNA storage could protect everything from personal memories and important documents to scientific data and corporate archives—without the added cybersecurity concerns.”

While many research groups are advancing DNA storage, Mizzou’s work moves the field closer to a practical, rewritable system—a key milestone in making DNA a long-term replacement for some of today’s energy-hungry storage technologies.

The study appears in PNAS Nexus.

Source: University of Missouri

from www.futurity.org

A 3D-Printed Elephant Inside a Living Cell Signals a Bioengineering Breakthrough– www.discovermagazine.com

pgnewser February 25, 2026 0

Blurb:

 

Developments in bioengineering keep moving the needle between reality and science fiction. From genetic editing with the CRISPR-Cas system and growing functioning organoids in petri dishes to brain cells on microchips — scientists continue to surprise us with cutting-edge inventions.

Now, for the first time, researchers from the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia, established a method to 3D print microscopic structures inside living human cells. To demonstrate the detail and versatility of the technology, they printed a tiny elephant, alongside other microscopic geometric objects and barcodes for cell labeling, into the interior of a cell.