Some patterns of electrical activity generated by the brain during sleep are inherited, according to a study of teenage twins published in JNeurosci. Pinpointing the relative contributions of biology and experience to sleep neurophysiology could inform therapies for numerous psychiatric disorders in which alterations in brain activity during sleep can be detected.
From the perspective of critics, there are many reasons to be concerned about the rise of artificial intelligence.
Billionaire inventor Elon Musk — perhaps the world’s most vocal AI antagonist — has warned that the technology could become “an immortal dictator from which we would never escape.”
Several years before his death, Stephen Hawking, the renowned theoretical physicist, said artificial intelligence could bypass biological evolution, leaving humans unable to compete.
The quest to find new ways to harness solar power has taken a step forward after researchers successfully split water into hydrogen and oxygen by altering the photosynthetic machinery in plants.
Photosynthesis is the process plants use to convert sunlight into energy. Oxygen is produced as by-product of photosynthesis when the water absorbed by plants is ‘split’. It is one of the most important reactions on the planet because it is the source of nearly all of the world’s oxygen. Hydrogen which is produced when the water is split could potentially be a green and unlimited source of renewable energy.
A new study, led by academics at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, used semi-artificial photosynthesis to explore new ways to produce and store solar energy. They used natural sunlight to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen using a mixture of biological components and manmade technologies.
Seed oil components of an ornamental flower could provide a direct pathway for designing a new class of environmentally friendly lubricants. Researchers at the School of Science at IUPUI identified the compound in the seed oil that is produced in a manner unlike any other fatty acid. The study was published today online in the journal Nature Plants.
The Orychophragmus violaceus plant is a purple flower native to China; it’s commonly referred to as the February orchid. While collaborating on the O. violaceus plant’s biology and genetic makeup, researchers at Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan, China, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln encountered a bit of a mystery: All plant seeds contain oils as energy reserves for later growth, but researchers noticed the February orchid seed oils were unusual.
They called upon IUPUI bioorganic chemist Robert Minto, who specializes in identifying natural products and unknown compounds.
