Eric Niiler writes via Wired: The landscape of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is both familiar and strange. Like Earth, Titan has rivers, lakes, clouds, and falling raindrops, as well as mountains of ice and a thick atmosphere. But instead of water, Titan's chemical cycle is composed of liquid methane, an organic molecule made from one carbon and four hydrogen atoms. Researchers believe this swirling mixture of methane, combined with the moon's nitrogen-laden atmosphere, surface water ice, and maybe some energy from either a volcano or a meteor impact, might have been the perfect recipe to create some kind of simple life form. [...] Now, A researcher has recreated Titan's environment in a small glass cylinder and mixed organic chemicals under the same temperature and pressure conditions found on that moon. Organic molecules that are liquid on Earth -- such as methane and benzene -- become solid icy mineral crystals on Titan because it's so cold, sometimes down to -290 Fahrenheit, according to Tomce Runcevski, an assistant professor of chemistry at Southern Methodist University, and the principal investigator on a study presented this week at the American Chemical Society meeting.

In a series of experiments, Runcevski took tiny glass tubes, sucked the air out of them with a pump, and added water ice. Then, one at a time, he added nitrogen, methane, its chemical relative ethane, and other organic compounds. Each time, he varied the composition of the chemical mixture inside the glass cylinders to see what would happen. He next applied pressure -- equivalent to about 1.45 times Earth's atmosphere -- and reduced the temperature by surrounding the vials with extremely cold air. [...] Under that moon's atmospheric pressure and temperature, he found that two organic molecules abundant on Titan and toxic to humans here on Earth -- acetonitrile and propionitrile -- become a single crystalline form. On Titan, these two molecules are formed by the combination of nitrogen and methane, plus energy from the sun, Saturn's magnetic field, and cosmic rays. Acetonitrile and propionitrile start as a gas in the atmosphere, then condense into aerosols, and then rain down onto the moon's surface and become chunks of solid minerals in several forms.

It's the first time that these two chemicals have been combined into a crystal shape on Earth under the conditions present on Titan. Another important finding is that the outer facet of the crystal also has a slight electric charge, or polarity, on its surface. That surface charge can attract other molecules such as water -- which would be necessary to form the building blocks of carbon-based life. This new experiment doesn't prove that there's life on Titan, but it means that researchers can discover new things about its weird, frigid surface environment even before the NASA Dragonfly spacecraft lands there.

Unnervingly futuristic, these bulky, high-tech toothbrushes promise to scrub your choppers thoroughly in 20 seconds. WSJ: Dentists like Dr. Lana Rozenberg are overly familiar with two eternal fibs: that their clients floss regularly, and that they brush their teeth for at least two minutes twice a day. "Most people don't brush their teeth for two minutes," said the Manhattan-based industry veteran. "Thirty seconds is more like it," or under a second for each of their 32 teeth. But what if, in those 30 seconds, a device could reach the front, back and sides of every tooth at once? That's the proposition of new "whole mouth" toothbrushes, which rely on vibration and a preponderance of bristles packed inside a structure resembling a mouthguard to deliver an up-to-snuff scrubbing in as little as 20 seconds -- 10 each for top and bottom sets of teeth.

"It helps make things way faster, way easier and feels a little more guaranteed because you actually feel it on each one of your teeth," said Kristopher Paul, a medical-transportation driver in St. Petersburg, Fla., who has bit down on a 360 Sonic Brush Pro ($70) each morning for the past year. Mr. Paul, 36, also likes the tool's 15-minute whitening mode, which combines a blue LED light and whitening gel to fade bothersome coffee stains.

The U.S. intelligence community said Thursday that it was divided over the exact origin of Covid-19 in China. CNBC reports: "After examining all available intelligence reporting and other information, though, the IC remains divided on the most likely origin of Covid-19. All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident," the unclassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said. In May, President Joe Biden ordered a closer intelligence review of what he described as two likely scenarios of the origins of the Covid-19. "Here is their current position: 'while two elements in the IC leans toward the [human contact] scenario and one leans more toward the [lab leak scenario] -- each with low or moderate confidence -- the majority of elements do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other," Biden said. Developing...

Scientists at Northwestern University found that people became less sensitive to food odors based on the meal they had eaten just before. These findings show that just as smell regulates what we eat, what we eat -- in turn -- regulates our sense of smell. Phys.Org reports: The study found that participants who had just eaten a meal of either cinnamon buns or pizza were less likely to perceive "meal-matched" odors, but not non-matched odors. The findings were then corroborated with brain scans that showed brain activity in parts of the brain that process odors was altered in a similar way.

Feedback between food intake and the olfactory system may have an evolutionary benefit, said senior and corresponding study author Thorsten Kahnt, an assistant professor of neurology and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "If you think about our ancestors roaming the forest trying to find food, they find and eat berries and then aren't as sensitive to the smell of berries anymore," Kahnt said. "But maybe they're still sensitive to the smell of mushrooms, so it could theoretically help facilitate diversity in food and nutrient intake."

Kahnt said while we don't see the hunter-gatherer adaptation come out in day-to-day decision-making, the connection between our nose, what we seek out and what we can detect with our nose may still be very important. If the nose isn't working right, for example, the feedback loop may be disrupted, leading to problems with disordered eating and obesity. There may even be links to disrupted sleep, another tie to the olfactory system the Kahnt lab is researching. Kahnt said with a better understanding of the feedback loop between smell and food intake, he's hoping to take the project full circle back to sleep deprivation to see if lack of sleep may impair the loop in some way. He added that with brain imaging, there are more questions about how the adaptation may impact sensory and decision-making circuits in the brain. The study has been published in the journal PLOS Biology.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: An artery that temporarily runs down the center of our forearms while we're still in the womb isn't vanishing as often as it used to, according to researchers from Flinders University and the University of Adelaide in Australia. That means there are more adults than ever with what amounts to be an extra channel of vascular tissue flowing under their wrist. "Since the 18th century, anatomists have been studying the prevalence of this artery in adults and our study shows it's clearly increasing," Flinders University anatomist Teghan Lucas said in 2020. "The prevalence was around 10 percent in people born in the mid-1880s compared to 30 percent in those born in the late 20th century, so that's a significant increase in a fairly short period of time, when it comes to evolution."

To compare the prevalence of this persistent blood channel, Lucas and colleagues Maciej Henneberg and Jaliya Kumaratilake from the University of Adelaide examined 80 limbs from cadavers, all donated by Australians of European descent. The donors raged from 51 to 101 on passing, which means they were nearly all born in the first half of the 20th century. Noting down how often they found a chunky median artery capable of carrying a good supply of blood, the research team compared the figures with records dug out of a literature search, taking into account tallies that could over-represent the vessel's appearance. Their results were published in 2020 in the Journal of Anatomy. The fact the artery seems to be three times as common in adults today as it was more than a century ago is a startling find that suggests natural selection is favoring those who hold onto this extra bit of bloody supply.

Scientists from Osaka University have manufactured the world's first 3D-printed Wagyu beef by using stem cells isolated from Japanese cattle, according to a press release. The product looks like a realistic steak piece containing muscle, fat, and blood vessels. Interesting Engineering reports: Because of its high marble content, Wagyu (Japanese cow) beef is one of the most sought-after and expensive meats in the world. Marbling, or sashi in Jaoan, refers to the visible layers of intramuscular fat that give the beef its rich flavors and distinctive texture, and because most cultured meats produced thus far resemble mince composed of simple muscle fibers rather than the complex structure of real beef steaks, 3D printing Wagyu is an extremely difficult feat.

The researchers used two types of stem cells, bovine satellite cells and adipose-derived stem cells, insulated from Wagyu cows, according to the paper published in the journal Nature Communications. Then, they incubated and coaxed the cells into becoming the various cell types required to generate individual fibers for muscle, fat, and blood vessels. These were piled into a 3D stack to resemble the marbling of Wagyu. Then, the researchers adapted a technique inspired by the one used to produce Japanese Kintaro candy, an old traditional sweet formed in a long pipe and cut into slices. The stacks were sliced perpendicularly to form lab-grown beef slices, which allowed a great degree of customization within the complex meat structure. This was how they were able to mimic the famous texture of Wagyu. According to the researchers, the synthetic meat "looks more like the real thing" and the process can be used to create other complex structures.

NASA hopes that commercial space stations will orbit Earth once the International Space Station eventually retires, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said today at the 36th Space Symposium. Space.com reports: The space station, which was completed in 2011, could retire as soon as 2024. However, today, Nelson revealed that he expects the orbiting lab to last to 2030 and that NASA hopes it will be replaced by commercial labs in orbit. "We expect to expand the space station as a government project all the way to 2030. And we hope it will be followed by commercial stations," Nelson said during a "Heads of Agency" panel alongside other space leaders from around the world.

Now, while NASA hopes for commercial space stations to take over as the International Space Station nears the end of its tenure, China has already begun building its own space station. And, as NASA is prohibited from engaging in bilateral activities with China, this move by China is more competitive than collaborative. "Unfortunately, I believe we're in a space race with China," Nelson said during the panel. "I'm speaking on behalf of the United States, for China to be a partner. I'd like China to do with us as a military adversary, like Russia has done ... I would like to try to do that. But China is very secretive, and part of the civilian space program is that you've got to be transparent." Nelson pointed to Russia's longstanding history as a collaborator alongside NASA in space, despite ongoing political divides back on Earth.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. health regulators could approve a third COVID-19 shot for adults beginning at least six months after full vaccination, instead of the previously announced eight-month gap, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Approval of boosters for three COVID-19 shots being administered in the United States -- those manufactured by Pfizer and partner BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson -- is expected in mid-September, the report said, citing a person familiar with the plans.

Pfizer and BioNTech have already started the application process for the approval of its booster shot in people 16 and older, saying it spurs a more than three-fold increase in antibodies against the coronavirus. Earlier this week, U.S. regulators granted full approval to Pfizer's two-dose vaccine. Moderna said on Wednesday it has completed the real-time review needed for a full approval for its jab in people 18 and above. Earlier today, Johnson & Johnson announced that booster doses of its one-shot coronavirus vaccine generated a big spike in antibodies. "People who received a booster six to eight months after their initial J&J shots saw antibodies increase nine-fold higher than 28 days after the first shot," reports CNN, citing Johnson & Johnson.

Gen. James Dickinson, commander of U.S. Space Command, said that the warfighting force he leads has reached Initial Operational Capability and will need to double the size of its headquarters staff to achieve full operational capability. It also needs a permanent headquarters. Space News reports: U.S. Army Gen. James Dickinson, who was put in charge of Space Command a year ago, made the announcement Aug. 24 during a keynote speech at the 36th Space Symposium here. "We are a very different command today at IOC than we were at stand-up in 2019, having matured and grown into a warfighting force, prepared to address threats from competition to conflict in space, while also protecting and defending our interests in this vast and complex domain," he said. Dickinson said reaching initial operational capability is an important milestone for the two-year-old command. "It's an indication that we've moved out of our establishment phase."

The command is headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, and supported by two field organizations: a Combined Force Space Component Command at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California; and a Joint Task Force Space Defense at Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado. [...] It was temporarily stood up at Peterson Space Force Base pending a basing decision by the Department of the Air Force. Former Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett announced in January that the Air Force had selected Huntsville, Alabama, as the new location for Space Command headquarters. Colorado lawmakers have since pushed back, claiming the decision was politically motivated and that the Air Force initially had recommended keeping Space Command at Peterson. [...] Dickinson said the command needs to have a permanent headquarters location sooner rather than later so it can move forward with its organization and plans.

Nasa is delaying a spacewalk at the International Space Station because of a medical issue involving one of its astronauts. From a report: Officials announced the postponement on Monday, less than 24 hours before Mark Vande Hei was supposed to float outside. Vande Hei was dealing with "a minor medical issue," officials said. It was not an emergency, they noted, but did not provide any further details. Vande Hei, 54, a retired army colonel, has been at the space station since April and is expected to remain there until next spring for a one-year mission. This is his second station stay.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist, written by Matthew Sparkes: Ant colonies can descend several meters underground, house millions of insects and last for decades, despite being made without the benefit of machinery and reinforcing material. The secrets of these impressive architectural structures are being revealed by three-dimensional X-ray imaging and computer simulations, and could be used to develop robotic mining machines. Jose Andrade at the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues set up miniature ant colonies in a container holding 500 milliliters of soil and 15 western harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex occidentalis). The position of every ant and every grain of soil was then captured by high-resolution X-ray scans every 10 minutes for 20 hours. The X-ray results gave researchers exact details about the shape of each tunnel and which grains were being removed to create it. The team then created a computer model using those scans to understand the forces acting upon the tunnels. The size, shape and orientation of every grain was recreated in the model and the direction and size of force on each grain could be calculated, including gravity, friction and cohesion caused by humidity. The model was accurate to the 0.07 millimeter resolution of the scanner.

The results suggest that forces within the soil tend to wrap around the tunnel axis as ants excavate, forming what the team call "arches" in the soil that have a greater diameter than the tunnel itself. This reduces the load acting on the soil particles within the arches, where the ants are constructing their tunnel. As a result, the ants can easily remove these particles to extend the tunnel without causing cave-ins. The arches also make the tunnel stronger and more durable. "We had naively thought that ants perhaps were playing Jenga, that they were tapping, maybe they were wiggling grains, maybe they were even grabbing the grains of least resistance," says Andrade. He says it is now clear that the ants appear to know nothing about forces and show no signs of decision-making, but instead follow a very simple behavioral algorithm that has evolved over time.

The ants tend to dig relatively straight tunnels that descend at the angle of repose -- the slope at which a granular material naturally forms mounds -- which was around 40 degrees in this case. They also pick exactly the right grains to remove to create a protective arch above. "In a remarkable way -- in a rather, you know, serendipitous way -- they've stumbled upon a technique for digging that is in line with the laws of physics, but incredibly efficient," says Andrade. The team believes that if the behavioral algorithm can be further analyzed and ultimately replicated, then it may find application in automated mining robots, either here on Earth or on other planetary bodies where the already risky business of mining would be even more dangerous for humans. The findings have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Michelle Starr writes via ScienceAlert: Gravity is the weird, mysterious glue that binds the Universe together, but that's not the limit of its charms. We can also leverage the way it warps space-time to see distant objects that would be otherwise much more difficult to make out. This is called gravitational lensing, an effect predicted by Einstein, and it's beautifully illustrated in a new release from the Hubble Space Telescope. In the center in the image is a shiny, near-perfect ring with what appear to be four bright spots threaded along it, looping around two more points with a golden glow. This is called an Einstein ring, and those bright dots are not six galaxies, but three: the two in the middle of the ring, and one quasar behind it, its light distorted and magnified as it passes through the gravitational field of the two foreground galaxies. Because the mass of the two foreground galaxies is so high, this causes a gravitational curvature of space-time around the pair. Any light that then travels through this space-time follows this curvature and enters our telescopes smeared and distorted -- but also magnified. [...]

This, as it turns out, is a really useful tool for probing both the far and near reaches of the Universe. Anything with enough mass can act as a gravitational lens. That can mean one or two galaxies, as we see here, or even huge galaxy clusters, which produce a wonderful mess of smears of light from the many objects behind them. Astronomers peering into deep space can reconstruct these smears and replicated images to see in much finer detail the distant galaxies thus lensed. But that's not all gravitational lensing can do. The strength of a lens depends on the curvature of the gravitational field, which is directly related to the mass it's curving around. So gravitational lenses can allow us to weigh galaxies and galaxy clusters, which in turn can then help us find and map dark matter -- the mysterious, invisible source of mass that generates additional gravity that can't be explained by the stuff in the Universe we can actually detect. [...] You can download a wallpaper-sized version of the [...] image on ESA's website.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Researchers have developed a mathematical model that can predict the optimum exercise regime for building muscle. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used methods of theoretical biophysics to construct the model, which can tell how much a specific amount of exertion will cause a muscle to grow and how long it will take. The model could form the basis of a software product, where users could optimize their exercise regimes by entering a few details of their individual physiology. The results, reported in the Biophysical Journal, suggest that there is an optimal weight at which to do resistance training for each person and each muscle growth target. Muscles can only be near their maximal load for a very short time, and it is the load integrated over time which activates the cell signaling pathway that leads to synthesis of new muscle proteins. But below a certain value, the load is insufficient to cause much signaling, and exercise time would have to increase exponentially to compensate. The value of this critical load is likely to depend on the particular physiology of the individual.

In 2018, the Cambridge researchers started a project on how the proteins in muscle filaments change under force. They found that main muscle constituents, actin and myosin, lack binding sites for signaling molecules, so it had to be the third-most abundant muscle component -- titin -- that was responsible for signaling the changes in applied force. Whenever part of a molecule is under tension for a sufficiently long time, it toggles into a different state, exposing a previously hidden region. If this region can then bind to a small molecule involved in cell signaling, it activates that molecule, generating a chemical signal chain. Titin is a giant protein, a large part of which is extended when a muscle is stretched, but a small part of the molecule is also under tension during muscle contraction. This part of titin contains the so-called titin kinase domain, which is the one that generates the chemical signal that affects muscle growth. The molecule will be more likely to open if it is under more force, or when kept under the same force for longer. Both conditions will increase the number of activated signaling molecules. These molecules then induce the synthesis of more messenger RNA, leading to production of new muscle proteins, and the cross-section of the muscle cell increases.

This realization led to the current work. [The researchers] set out to constrict a mathematical model that could give quantitative predictions on muscle growth. They started with a simple model that kept track of titin molecules opening under force and starting the signaling cascade. They used microscopy data to determine the force-dependent probability that a titin kinase unit would open or close under force and activate a signaling molecule. They then made the model more complex by including additional information, such as metabolic energy exchange, as well as repetition length and recovery. The model was validated using past long-term studies on muscle hypertrophy. "Our model offers a physiological basis for the idea that muscle growth mainly occurs at 70% of the maximum load, which is the idea behind resistance training," said [one of the paper's authors]. "Below that, the opening rate of titin kinase drops precipitously and precludes mechanosensitive signaling from taking place. Above that, rapid exhaustion prevents a good outcome, which our model has quantitatively predicted." [...] The model also addresses the problem of muscle atrophy, which occurs during long periods of bed rest or for astronauts in microgravity, showing both how long can a muscle afford to remain inactive before starting to deteriorate, and what the optimal recovery regime could be.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Mercury News, written by Harriet Blair Rowan: In a significant twist that could reshape our understanding of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, death records now indicate the first COVID-related deaths in California and across the country occurred in January 2020, weeks earlier than originally thought and before officials knew the virus was circulating here. A half dozen death certificates from that month in six different states -- California, Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Oklahoma and Wisconsin -- have been quietly amended to list COVID-19 as a contributing factor, suggesting the virus's deadly path quickly reached far beyond coastal regions that were the country's early known hotspots. Up until now, the Feb. 6, 2020, death of San Jose's Patricia Dowd had been considered the country's first coronavirus fatality, although where and how she was infected remains unknown.

Even less is known about what are now believed to be the country's earliest victims of the pandemic. The Bay Area News Group discovered evidence of them in provisional coronavirus death counts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) -- widely considered the definitive source for death data in the United States -- and confirmed the information through interviews with state and federal public health officials. But amid privacy concerns and fierce debate over pandemic policies, the names, precise locations and circumstances behind these deaths have not been publicly revealed. That is frustrating to some experts.

The existence of January 2020 deaths would dramatically revise the timeline of COVID's arrival in the United States. China first announced a mysterious viral pneumonia in late December 2019, and reported the first death from the illness on Jan. 9, 2020. The U.S. originally recorded its first case in mid-January when a traveler tested positive after returning from Wuhan, China. The first deaths reported in the United States, in late February, were also tied to travel. In its current death count, which reflects the six newly-discovered fatalities, the NCHS now lists the country's first COVID death during the week of Jan. 5-11 -- the first full week of 2020. The agency is in the final stages of preparing its 2020 annual mortality report, a review and analysis of all deaths in the United States last year.

The Covid-19 vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech was granted a full approval by U.S. regulators, a move that is expected to help bolster the immunization drive amid a surge in infections caused by the delta variant. From a report: The Food and Drug Administration said in a statement on Monday that it had cleared the vaccine for the prevention of Covid-19 in individuals 16 years of age and older. It will be marketed under the name Comirnaty. The vaccine continues to be available to people age 12 to 15 under an emergency-use authorization, the agency said. The approval is expected to boost confidence in the shot and is likely to open the door to more vaccine mandates among employers and businesses. It is also likely to solidify its future as a blockbuster for its makers.

"According to addiction expert Dr Anna Lembke, our smartphones are making us dopamine junkies," reports the Guardian, "with each swipe, like and tweet feeding our habit..." As the chief of Stanford University's dual diagnosis addiction clinic (which caters to people with more than one disorder), Lembke has spent the past 25-plus years treating patients addicted to everything from heroin, gambling and sex to video games, Botox and ice baths... Her new book, Dopamine Nation, emphasises that we are now all addicts to a degree. She calls the smartphone the "modern-day hypodermic needle": we turn to it for quick hits, seeking attention, validation and distraction with each swipe, like and tweet. Since the turn of the millennium, behavioural (as opposed to substance) addictions have soared. Every spare second is an opportunity to be stimulated... "We're seeing a huge explosion in the numbers of people struggling with minor addictions," says Lembke.

That has consequences. Although we have endless founts of fun at our fingertips, "the data shows we're less and less happy," she says. Global depression rates have been climbing significantly in the past 30 years and, according to a World Happiness Report, people in high-income countries have become more unhappy over the past decade or so. We've forgotten how to be alone with our thoughts. We're forever "interrupting ourselves", as Lembke puts it, for a quick digital hit, meaning we rarely concentrate on taxing tasks for long or get into a creative flow. For many, the pandemic has exacerbated dependence on social media and other digital vices, as well as alcohol and drugs.

Addiction is a spectrum disorder: it's not as simple as being an addict or not being an addict. It's deemed worthy of clinical care when it "significantly interferes" with someone's life and ability to function, but when it comes to minor digital attachments, the effect is pernicious. "It gets into philosophical questions: how is the time I'm spending on my phone in subtle ways affecting my ability to be a good parent, spouse or friend?" says Lembke. "I do believe there is a cost — one that I don't think we fully recognise because it's hard to [see it] when you're in it...."

"It's very different from how life used to be, when we had to tolerate a lot more distress," says Lembke. "We're losing our capacity to delay gratification, solve problems and deal with frustration and pain in its many different forms."
The solution, according to the article, is dopamine fasts — "the longer, the better...to reset our brain's pathways and gain perspective on how our dependency affects us," eventually attaining the lost art of moderation.

In the U.S. healthcare system, "hospitals are charging patients wildly different amounts for the same basic services," reports the New York Times — citing an investigation into medical care costs at 60 major hospitals.

This year the U.S. government ordered hospitals to publish complete lists of the prices they negotiate with private insurers, "and it provides numerous examples of major health insurers — some of the world's largest companies, with billions in annual profits — negotiating surprisingly unfavorable rates for their customers." In fact America's government-run Medicare health insurance for senior citizens is negotiating much lower rates than the privately-insured patients are getting, the Times points out — sometimes paying just 10% of what the major health plans are paying.

"In many cases, insured patients are getting prices that are higher than they would if they pretended to have no coverage at all..." Until now, consumers had no way to know before they got the bill what prices they and their insurers would be paying. Some insurance companies have refused to provide the information when asked by patients and the employers that hired the companies to provide coverage. This secrecy has allowed hospitals to tell patients that they are getting "steep" discounts, while still charging them many times what a public program like Medicare is willing to pay. And it has left insurers with little incentive to negotiate well.

The peculiar economics of health insurance also help keep prices high. Customers judge insurance plans based on whether their preferred doctors and hospitals are covered, making it hard for an insurer to walk away from a bad deal. The insurer also may not have a strong motivation to, given that the more that is spent on care, the more an insurance company can earn. Federal regulations limit insurers' profits to a percentage of the amount they spend on care. And in some plans involving large employers, insurers are not even using their own money. The employers pay the medical bills, and give insurers a cut of the costs in exchange for administering the plan.

"In the long-running TV show Doctor Who, aliens known as time lords derived their power from the captured heart of a black hole, which provided energy for their planet and time travel technology," writes Science magazine.

"The idea has merit, according to a new study."

Slashdot reader sciencehabit quotes their report: Researchers have shown that highly advanced alien civilizations could theoretically build megastructures called Dyson spheres around black holes to harness their energy, which can be 100,000 times that of our Sun. The work could even give us a way to detect the existence of these extraterrestrial societies...

Black holes are typically thought of as consumers rather than producers of energy. Yet their huge gravitational fields can generate power through several theoretical processes. These include the radiation emitted from the accumulation of gas around the hole, the spinning "accretion" disk of matter slowly falling toward the event horizon, the relativistic jets of matter and energy that shoot out along the hole's axis of rotation, and Hawking radiation—a theoretical way that black holes can lose mass, releasing energy in the process.

From their calculations, researchers concluded that the accretion disk, surrounding gas, and jets of black holes can all serve as viable energy sources. In fact, the energy from the accretion disk alone of a stellar black hole of 20 solar masses could provide the same amount of power as Dyson spheres around 100,000 stars, the team will report next month in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Were a supermassive black hole harnessed, the energy it could provide might be 1 million times larger still.

If such technology is at work, there may be a way to spot it. According to the researchers, the waste heat signal from a so-called "hot" Dyson sphere—one somehow capable of surviving temperatures in excess of 3000 kelvin, above the melting point of known metals—around a stellar mass black hole in the Milky Way would be detectible at ultraviolet wavelengths. Such signals might be found in the data from various telescopes, including NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

CNET reports: Using the same mRNA technology that broke the mold with effective COVID-19 vaccines, Moderna has developed two vaccines for HIV. The first phase of testing for both could begin as early as Thursday, according to a post on the National Institutes of Health website for clinical trials. Phase 1 of the vaccine trial will test the vaccines' safety, as well as measure immunity and antibody responses. If the vaccines prove to be safe, they'll need to go through additional testing for researchers to determine how effective they are...

There were 37.7 million people living with HIV globally in 2020, according to United Nations data.
"There's a pressing need for new ways to prevent infection from viruses like HIV and influenza that conventional vaccines have struggled to address and to treat rare genetic diseases and cancers that kill millions each year," writes a reporter at Axios. "Vaccines and therapies based on messenger RNA hold promise as a solution."

"A new island has been discovered near Iwo Jima," reports long-time Slashdot reader thephydes, "located around 1,200 kilometers [746 miles] south of Tokyo, after a submarine volcano began erupting late last week, the Japan Coast Guard said Monday." Japan Times reports: The new island is C-shaped with a diameter of approximately 1 kilometer [0.6 miles]. It was discovered after the volcano some 50 km south of Iwo Jima, part of the Ogasawara Islands in the Pacific Ocean, started erupting on Friday...

New islands have been confirmed in the area in 1904, 1914 and 1986, with all of them having submerged due to erosion by waves and currents. The one found in 1986 sank after about two months, according to the coast guard.