Lifeboat Foundation

“Everyone thinks that [after] spinal injury, all you want to do is be able to walk again. But if you’re a tetraplegic or a quadriplegic, what matters most is working hands,” she said.

Reid received the device, called ARCex, as part of a 60-person clinical trial. She and the other participants completed two months of physical therapy, followed by two months of physical therapy combined with stimulation. The results, published today in Nature Medicine, show that the vast majority of participants benefited. By the end of the four-month trial, 72% experienced some improvement in both strength and function of their hands or arms when the stimulator was turned off. Ninety percent had improvement in at least one of those measures. And 87% reported an improvement in their quality of life.

This isn’t the first study to test whether noninvasive stimulation of the spine can help people who are paralyzed regain function in their upper body, but it’s important because a trial has never been done before in this number of rehabilitation centers or in this number of subjects, says Igor Lavrov, a neuroscientist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, who was not involved in the study. He points out, however, that the therapy seems to work best in people who have some ability to move below the site of their injury.

Getting places in space quickly has been the goal of propulsion research for a long time.

Rockets, our most common means of doing so, are great for providing lots of force but extraordinarily inefficient. Other options like electric propulsion and solar sailing are efficient but offer measly amounts of force, albeit for a long time.

Continue reading “Rise in Antimatter Research Could Push Us Closer to The Ultimate Space Engine” »

Germany’s BSI disrupts BADBOX malware targeting 30,000 devices, halting ad fraud, data theft, and proxy misuse.

Researchers have doubled the number of known dark comets, identifying two distinct types: larger ones in the outer solar system and smaller ones in the inner solar system.

This discovery raises new questions about their origins and their role in delivering life-sustaining materials to Earth.

Dark Comet Discoveries

Recent scientific efforts have advanced the development of a comprehensive primate evolutionary timetree, filling significant gaps in our understanding of primate biodiversity and evolutionary history.

The primate order includes not only humanity’s closest relatives—the seven great apes—but also more than 450 species of monkeys, lemurs, lorises, and galagos. This group is remarkably diverse, ranging from 400-pound gorillas to tiny mouse lemurs (Microcebus) that weigh just one ounce. Primates display some of the most fascinating behaviors in the animal kingdom: chimpanzees use sticks to ‘fish’ for termites in hollow logs, while orangutans fashion leaf gloves to handle prickly durian fruit.

Despite being among the most thoroughly studied animals on Earth, primates still lack a complete molecular phylogenetic tree—a comprehensive evolutionary map detailing when different species emerged and how they are related. A robust phylogenetic tree would use genetic data to trace the timing of species’ appearances and identify their closest evolutionary relatives. Currently, the largest molecular timetree for primates includes just over 200 species. Even the most extensive synthetic timetree, based on more than 4,000 published studies, covers only about 400 species, leaving roughly one-fifth of the primate evolutionary tree unresolved.

Physicist Christian Schneider has been awarded a prestigious Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for his groundbreaking research into two-dimensional materials and their optical properties. Schneider, a professor at the University of Oldenburg in Germany, will receive approximately two million euros in funding over the next five years to support his “Dual Twist” project.

This research focuses on a novel class of atomically thin materials and their remarkable properties, which hold significant promise for advancing optical technologies.

Together with his team, Schneider will develop experimental set-ups specially designed to study the unique properties of the materials under investigation using light, and pave the way for their application in novel quantum technologies. ERC Consolidator Grants aim to support excellent scientists conducting innovative research in Europe and help them to consolidate their scientific independence. Out of a total of 2,313 applications, the ERC has now selected 328 projects for funding, 67 of which are based in Germany.

Researchers at MIT have developed a design framework for controlling ultrasound wave propagation in microscale acoustic metamaterials, focusing on the precise positioning of microscale spheres within a lattice.

This approach enables tunable wave velocities and responses, and is applicable in fields like ultrasound imaging and mechanical computing.

Acoustic Metamaterials

22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q) raises schizophrenia risk through skull malformations linked to the Tbx1 gene, affecting cerebellar development. This highlights how non-brain factors like bone defects can influence neurological disorders.

The chromosomal disorder 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q) has emerged as one of the strongest risk factors for schizophrenia. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital identified malformed regions of the cerebellum in both laboratory models and patients with 22q, attributing these malformations to improper skull formation.

Additionally, the researchers linked the skull malformation to the loss of a single gene: Tbx1. This research highlights that neurological disorders can arise from sources outside the nervous system, such as defects in skull development. The findings were published in Nature Communications.

Can organisms generate their own self-sustaining ecosystems in space without a planet. Researchers say it’s at least plausible.