From the article: For many — those who are lactose intolerant, those who are vegan, those who (for whatever reasons) do not consume dairy milk — Ben & Jerry's has been a reliable stalwart when it comes to producing non-dairy desserts, most of which are primarily made with almond milk.

While the grocery store freezer shelves are now replete with non-dairy products (ice cream, sorbet, sherbet, frozen yogurt and the like), many customers remain loyal to Ben & Jerry's, especially as their non-dairy oeuvre seems to grow quite often.

Soon enough, though, there may be a new type of product on shelves with Ben & Jerry's emblazoned across its packaging.

As TIME reported last month, Unilever (a British company which lists Ben & Jerry's as one of their brands) is looking to produce dairy ice creams that actually utilize milk that isn't derived from cows whatsoever. This would mean that the ice creams and frozen desserts wouldn't be branded dairy-free, since they would contain this lab-created "milk," but they could potentially be consumed by those who might have lactose allergies or are personally or morally against consuming any sort of cow-derived dairy.

TIME notes that this would be developed in a "process called precision fermentation that uses substances like yeast and fungi to produce milk proteins in a vat." Andy Sztehlo who runs Unilever's ice cream research and development team, notes that the "product could be available in about a year," meaning that you might have your hands on some dairy-but-not-from-cows ice cream before you know it.

This process, often called "lab-grown milk," has been practiced by other companies, but no "major food companies" have produced any particular products with said milk, including any other ice cream brand.

From the article: Ethereum, the world's second-largest crypto asset by market cap, has drastically changed its energy usage, saving a country-size proportion of power consumption.

This radical update most likely reduced the power consumption of the crypto network by 99.84 percent to 9.99 percent, according to a paper published by peer-reviewed data-science journal Patterns on Tuesday.

"This perspective highlights how Ethereum, the second largest crypto asset by market capitalization, likely succeeded in significantly reducing its power demand through an event called The Merge," read the study.

"This event occurred on September 15, 2022, and consisted of Ethereum's proof-of-work mining mechanism being replaced with an alternative known as proof of stake."

The decrease in energy use might be enough to meet Austria's or Ireland's national electrical needs.

The success of The Merge may now serve as a roadmap to enable a switch from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake in Bitcoin and other crypto assets still utilizing Proof of Work, as per the study.

However, it would still be premature for the Ethereum community to declare a "complete victory" over the sustainability concerns facing crypto assets.

Blockchain was traditionally upheld and validated by a Proof of Work mechanism employed by various cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin.

A blockchain is a massive, dynamic database that records every transaction and underpins Ethereum, just like it does with all other cryptocurrencies.

In return, companies and volunteers who contributed their computers to the network's operation received new cryptocurrency coins. The likelihood of producing new coins increased as they performed more labor.

From the article: Starting next August, drivers of the most polluting vehicles will have to pay $15 per day to enter an Ultra-Low Emissions Zone expanded to include all of metropolitan London, the British capital’s mayor announced Friday.

“Cleaner air is coming to Outer London,” Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted. “Today I’m announcing that we’re expanding the #ULEZ London-wide in a move that will bring cleaner air to five million more Londoners.”

“Our city is being smothered by toxic air—and it’s hurting and killing Londoners, leading to asthma, dementia, and even cancer,” the mayor continued. “Air pollution particles have even been found in the livers and brains of unborn babies. We cannot stand idly by and allow this to continue.”

“Around 4,000 Londoners die prematurely each year because of long-term exposure to air pollution, with the greatest number of deaths in outer London boroughs,” Khan added. “That’s why this expansion is so important—we need to clean the air for everyone.”

London Public Health Director Kevin Fenton tweeted that “air pollution is the largest environmental risk to public health in the U.K… It affects everyone who lives and works in London, and its impacts are felt throughout the life-course from before birth to old age.”

This is nothing new. You’re not allowed to install any 3rd party software on government systems without admin rights.

From the article: There is growing evidence that clean energy supply chains throughout the world are linked with modern slavery, according to a new report from Australia’s Clean Energy Council. The report calls attention to Australia’s part in global efforts to stop the problem, despite the country’s relatively small role in the industry, according to a Clean Energy Council press release.

“Australia is on a trajectory to produce the vast majority of our electricity from solar, wind, hydro and batteries by 2030, but it’s important that this shift happens in a way that is fair and equitable,” said Clean Energy Council Policy Director of Energy Generation and Storage Dr. Nicholas Aberle in the press release. “As with many other modern products ubiquitous in everyday life, renewable energy technologies can have long supply chains that are linked at various points to modern slavery.”

Australia’s clean energy industry has encouraged governments and companies to take actions to put an end to modern slavery and forced labor, reported The Guardian.

The report, “Addressing Modern Slavery in the Clean Energy Sector,” has asked for increased local manufacturing and renewable energy production, including a “certificate of origin” program to contend with slave labor concerns in South America, China and Africa.

From the article: The wind energy project, developed by Spanish firm Acciona, will generate 1,000MW at peak production. It will more than double the existing 923MW wind farm by the state.

Both installations will power about 1.4 million households, Reuters reports. Tesla’s Megapack project will be located nearby at Kogan Creek Power Station. It will have a capacity of 200MWh.

Construction of the energy storage project will start in the fourth quarter of 2023. CE Energy will handle it. However, there has not been any information on when Acciona will start work on the wind farm. Australia has been a repeat customer of Tesla’s Megapacks. The country hosts four such installations already.

The largest is the 450 MWh Victorian Big Battery project. A second one, located in Bouldercombe, Queensland, will complete construction early next year. Australia is aiming for its energy to be 70 percent renewable by 2032. It is banking on massive batteries like Megapacks (dubbed “coal-killer”) to achieve the goal. They are replacements for coal-powered “peaker plants” that kick in to help balance loads at peak consumption periods.

From the article: An longitudinal study of people who participated in Vasloppet, the world’s largest long-distance ski-race, held in Sweden showed that those participating in the race have lower incidence of bipolar disorder compared to the general population.

However, when performance in the race was considered, high performance women had higher risk of bipolar disorder than slower skiing women. This association was not found in men. The study was published in the International Journal of Bipolar Disorders.

Bipolar disorder is a complicated diagnosis. Its key feature are mood swings ranging from severely depressed to overactive manic episodes. Around 2-4% of the population are estimated to suffer from it.

The disorder typically begins with one or several depressive episodes, but these are later followed with at least one episode of mania or hypomania. Mania is a condition in which a person displays an over-the-top level of activity or energy, mood or behavior. It is characterized by feelings of invincibility, lack of sleep, racing thoughts and ideas, rapid talking and having false beliefs or perceptions.

Recent studies have linked bipolar disorder to around 10-year shorter life expectancy, for both men and women. This has been attributed to poor cardiovascular health and an increased risk of suicide of persons suffering from bipolar depression. Because bipolar disorder affects how energetic a person feels, many researchers have wondered whether exercise could have some bearing on the likelihood of developing bipolar disorder.

A large study in Sweden found people with the lowest fitness levels to have a higher risk of bipolar disorder. But are there any associations with an active lifestyle in general?

“Previous studies suggested that the preventive potential of physical activity for mental health could be substantial,” said study author Martina Svensson, an assistant researcher at Tomas Deierborg’s Experimental Neuroinflammation Laboratory at Lund University. “We were both interested in investigating this at a larger level.”

From the article: The link between chronic pain and a loss of appetite may finally be understood – in mice at least.

Zhi Zhang at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei and his colleagues injected mice with bacteria that provoke chronic pain. Ten days later, these mice were eating less frequently and for shorter periods of time compared with control mice that had been injected with saline. When the first group of mice were later given pain medication, they ate normally, the researchers wrote in a paper published in Nature Metabolism.

To better understand the neuronal activity responsible for this change in behaviour, the researchers analysed the brains of the first group of mice while the animals were in chronic pain. They found substantial neuron signalling in the mice’s anterior cingulate cortex, a pain-processing region of the brain in the prefrontal cortex.

To determine whether that signalling was related to appetite loss, the researchers provoked chronic pain in another group of mice, with these animals going on to eat less. The team then administered a chemical that prevents neuronal signalling in the anterior cingulate cortex and the mice’s appetites improved.

The prefrontal cortex isn’t generally associated with appetite control. To better understand how neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex may influence appetite, the team injected various traceable substances into these neurons in a third group of mice that were similarly made to feel pain.

They found that these neurons’ signals led to the lateral hypothalamic area, the brain’s “feeding centre”.

From the article: A new study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior reveals the relationship between jealousy, the gender of both the partner and their rival, and the type of infidelity (sexual vs. emotional). The study included a large group of individuals identifying as heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual.

The research found that individuals were consistently most jealous of rivals that were of their own gender, except in the case of bisexual women. Bisexual women were most jealous when their female partners were involved with men. The research team states, “jealousy was influenced by sex and sexual orientation of the individuals, sex of the partners, and also by sex of the rivals: same-sex rivals were perceived as most threatening.”

Prior research on the origins of jealousy had found that jealousy was often highest when there was a “reproductive risk.” In other words, if the partner was at risk of becoming pregnant, the jealousy was more intense than what would be found in other scenarios.

Heterosexual men have been shown to be the only group more concerned about sexual affairs than emotional ones. It appears that in heterosexual relationships, from the male perspective, the reproductive risk their partner takes if they are sexually unfaithful triggers feelings of jealousy.

Study author Jaroslava Varella Valentova and colleagues sought to explore the complexities of diverse romantic pairs, the various potential rivals, and the different types of infidelity (sexual or emotional). As stated by the research team, the goals were to investigate “the possible effects of sex and sexual orientation of the individual, and sex of the partner and rival on reported sexual versus emotional jealousy.”

From the article: An online survey of Italian men found that body image self-consciousness contributes to sexual distress. In other words, being aware of how one’s body looks like during physical intimacy with one’s partner contributes to feelings of frustration, anxiety and worry regarding sexual activity. The study was published in the journal Sexual and Relationship Therapy.

Sexual health contributes to one’s overall quality of life. Pleasant sexual activities are an important component of the overall well-being of a person. Due to this, sexual dysfunction or the lack of sexual satisfaction creates a potentially negative impact on the quality of life.

Studies of sexual health done on women have shown the importance of body image self-consciousness for sexual functioning. In extreme cases, negative body image self-consciousness can impair sexual functioning, but positive body image self-consciousness has been shown to contribute to better sexual functioning in both women and men.

Previous studies have found that body image dissatisfaction tends to be greater in women than in men. However, men are also affected by body dissatisfaction and the social imposed standards of masculinity and muscularity.

From the article: A recent study published in Psychology Research and Behavior Management attempts to determine the relationship between parental Dark Triad traits, emotional reactivity, and their children’s Dark Triad and emotional reactivity. The research team sought to discover if the Dark Triad and emotional reactivity of the parent’s generation can transmit these personality traits and behaviors to their offspring.

Their results indicate that Dark Triad traits and emotional reactivity are transmitted intergenerationally. In addition, the children had much higher levels of Dark Triad traits and reactive emotions. Finally, the more emotionally reactive the parents were, and the greater the Dark Triad in children, the more likely parental Dark Triad personality traits would have a negative effect on their children’s emotional reactivity.

The Dark Triad refers to three related personality traits: Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism. Machiavellianism as a personality trait includes an absence of a robust moral code and manipulation for personal gain. Behaviors that make up psychopathy include impulsivity as well as lacking remorse and empathy. Finally, seeking attention and selfishness are indicative of narcissism.

Like the Dark Triad, emotional reactivity comprises individual measurable elements. These include emotional sensitivity, emotional persistence, and emotional intensity. Those with high degrees of emotional sensitivity are likely to experience mood changes in response to minimal environmental changes. Those with high emotional persistence struggle to shake off bad emotions, and emotional intensity is the difference between feeling mildly inconvenienced and rage.

From the article: “Dissociating” has become an internet buzzword, but what does it mean and how common is it really? A study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research suggests that this mental disconnect may be very common among people with depressive symptoms.

Dissociation is a word used to describe a mental detachment or separation. It is a popular word on social media now, and it can be used to describe normal forgetfulness, daydreaming, or absent-mindedness. It also has a pathological definition, which can include amnesia, hearing voices, flashbacks, derealization, depersonalization, identity fragmentation and more.

These symptoms can be associated with experiencing trauma or significant stress. Depression, which many people suffer from and can be very difficult to treat, can encompass these pathological dissociative symptoms as well. This study sought to explore the relationships between dissociative symptoms, depression, trauma, and other potential mediating factors.

Hong Wang Fung and colleagues utilized 410 adult participants with self-reported clinically significant levels of depressive symptoms. Participants were recruited online and completed their survey on the web. Measures included questionnaires regarding sociodemographic information, depression symptoms, dissociative symptoms, trauma experiences, interpersonal stress, family support, and perceived benefits of psychiatric medication.

From the article: A brain region known as the amygdala could play a key role in predicting symptom improvement following ketamine therapy in patients with treatment-resistant anxious depression, according to new research published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

“Since the antidepressant effects of ketamine in patients with anxious depression remain unclear, it is necessary to investigate the potential biomarkers predicting the antidepressant efficacy of ketamine in patients with anxious depression,” said study author Bin Zhang of the Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University.

“Previous studies have pointed out that functional connectivity differences in the amygdala are linked to depression improvement after ketamine treatment in depressed patients, but their role in anxious depression patients is uncertain. Therefore, we investigated the correlation between depression improvement after ketamine treatment and amygdala functional connectivity in anxious depression patients.”

For their study, the researchers examined neuroimaging data from 31 patients with anxious depression and 18 patients with non-anxious depression.

The researchers only included participants who had a diagnosis of major depression without comorbid psychotic symptoms, had a score greater than 17 on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, had previously failed to improve after at least two antidepressant treatments, had completed fMRI brain scans, and had undergone six ketamine infusions.

From the article: For all the progress our society has made, we’re still nothing without agriculture. But agriculture has also changed a lot: increasingly, an array of sensors equipped with relatively simple hardware and smart software are being used to make agriculture more efficient and sustainable — and given that agriculture is one of the main contributors to habitat destruction and climate change, this would definitely come in handy.

But unexpected help may come from the internet. The internet you’re using to read this now can be used for a number of different things, including connecting sensors and other objects.

The so-called Internet of Things (IoT) means that you no longer need to go out into a field to inspect it and take samples for analysis — you can leave the sensors in place and they communicate using wireless protocols. These technologies have advanced tremendously in recent years, becoming not only more precise and robust, but also cheaper — a key demand for agriculture.

It works like this: you plant a bunch of sensors to measure things like soil moisture, fertilizer content, and other parameters of interest. You connect the irrigation systems to the sensors and only irrigate when it’s necessary, and where it’s necessary. You can use the same approach for estimating soil nutrient levels and identifying pests, making the entire process as efficient as possible.

The results are, with today’s technology, striking: studies show that between 20% to 72% of water usage can be reduced with this approach, saving money and valuable environmental resources. There’s no doubt that the method has a lot of potential and can be used in most places in the world — although it’s noteworthy that some of the bread baskets of the world still lack access to reliable, high-speed internet.

From the article: A new study found promising results for a combined physical fitness and cognitive intervention designed to enhance neuroplasticity in older adults. Using a motion-capture video game, the intervention appeared to remediate age-related declines in attention. The findings were published in the journal npj Aging.

With age, cognitive abilities naturally decline. But there is some evidence that this decline can be slowed with training. For example, cognitive interventions that leverage neuroplasticity have shown potential in improving the cognitive abilities of older adults. Additionally, physical fitness interventions have been found to improve older adults’ cognitive abilities as well as their physical health. This pattern of findings suggests that an intervention that combines both cognition and fitness may offer the most cognitive benefits.

“My background is actually in Kinesiology, and I’ve always been excited to do a cognitive training study that involved exercise in a targeted fashion,” said study author Joaquin A. Anguera, the director of Neuroscape‘s Clinical Division and an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco. “Some people want to do cognitive training while moving rather than sitting down, and that really spoke to me as a possibility for real benefits given anecdotal stories about games like ‘Dance Dance Revolution.'”

The researchers designed a randomized, placebo-controlled study to test whether the BBT intervention could improve older adults’ attention and physical fitness. First, they recruited a sample of 49 healthy older adults with an average age of 68 and randomly assigned them to one of two groups. One group (24 people) participated in the Body-Brain Trainer, an 8-week on-site intervention assisted by a trainer. The other group (25 people) was an active, expectancy-matched control group that participated in the Mind-Body Trainer, a 6-week at-home training assisted by three iOS apps.

From the article: The European Space Agency (ESA) is set to approve a three-year study to determine whether sending huge solar farms into space could effectively meet the world's energy demands, a report from the BBC reveals.

A space-based solar power plant would be launched into a geostationary orbit, meaning it would orbit in a fixed location over the Earth that would be hit by the Sun 24/7.

So, if all goes to plan, the technology could one day harvest massive amounts of energy from space — enough to power millions of homes.

The ESA's space-based solar power initiative is called Solaris, and it is one of several similar projects worldwide, including ongoing research by China's Xidian University, which has built a 75-meter-tall (246-feet-tall) steel tower to test the technology for a ground receiving station, and Caltech's Space Solar Power Project.

Research ministers at the ESA's triennial council are expected to meet today, Tuesday, November 22, to discuss the ESA'S idea. They will also consider several other proposals before deciding the budget for the next phase of the space agency's space technology development plans.

In an interview with the BBC, ESA director general Josef Aschbacher said, "we do need to convert into carbon neutral economies and therefore change the way we produce energy and especially reduce the fossil fuel part of our energy production. If you can do it from space, and I'm saying if we could, because we are not there yet, this would be absolutely fantastic because it would solve a lot of problems."

From the article: The European Space Agency (ESA) is set to approve a three-year study to determine whether sending huge solar farms into space could effectively meet the world's energy demands, a report from the BBC reveals.

A space-based solar power plant would be launched into a geostationary orbit, meaning it would orbit in a fixed location over the Earth that would be hit by the Sun 24/7.

So, if all goes to plan, the technology could one day harvest massive amounts of energy from space — enough to power millions of homes.

The ESA's space-based solar power initiative is called Solaris, and it is one of several similar projects worldwide, including ongoing research by China's Xidian University, which has built a 75-meter-tall (246-feet-tall) steel tower to test the technology for a ground receiving station, and Caltech's Space Solar Power Project.

Research ministers at the ESA's triennial council are expected to meet today, Tuesday, November 22, to discuss the ESA'S idea. They will also consider several other proposals before deciding the budget for the next phase of the space agency's space technology development plans.

In an interview with the BBC, ESA director general Josef Aschbacher said, "we do need to convert into carbon neutral economies and therefore change the way we produce energy and especially reduce the fossil fuel part of our energy production. If you can do it from space, and I'm saying if we could, because we are not there yet, this would be absolutely fantastic because it would solve a lot of problems."

From the article: Two neuroimaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography showed that people with similar personalities tend to have similar brain responses when viewing naturalistic stimuli. This effect was stronger than that of similarity in gender, ethnicity, or political affiliation. The study was published in Nature Scientific Reports.

Each person perceives the surrounding world in her/his own specific way. One person might be inspired by looking at a piece of art, another would not even notice it. One person might enjoy participating in an activity, another would see it as a hassle.

Researchers have explored the roots of these alignments at the neurological level and found that shared experiences, close relationships, but also gender and cognitive styles affect whether two persons experiences would be aligned or not. People also tend to synchronize their brain activities during social interactions. It happens passively when the neural activity is evoked by a common stimulus (something triggering our senses). But is this passive neural synchronization related to personality traits?

“Given the growing polarization in our world nowadays, being able to understand how to see the world from someone else’s perspective seems like a critical thing. Our interest was in understanding what enables such alignment across various levels: from behavioral and psychological to the systemic and neural,” said study authors Sandra Matz of Columbia Business School and Moran Cerf of Northwestern University.

From the article: In two daily diary studies on couples and undergraduate students, researchers found that feeling appreciated buffered the negative link between avoidant attachment style and prosocial behavior towards their partners. People who are uncomfortable with intimacy were more willing to do things they do not like for the benefit of their partner if they felt appreciated. The study was published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

At a young age, individuals learn to avoid intimacy when their close others are untrustworthy, unreliable and unwilling to meet their needs. They develop an avoidant attachment style. Later in life, avoidantly attached persons do not expect others to be prosocial towards them i.e., to take care of their needs. This often makes them, in turn, less willing to themselves act in a prosocial way towards others.

Prosociality, proneness to behavior that will benefit others, is a key ingredient of caring relationships. This is particularly the case when done with the intention of enhancing partner’s well-being and not in order to promote self-interests. On the other hand, when avoidantly attached individuals do things they dislike for the benefit of the partner, they usually do so to avoid personal costs such as partner’s anger and frustration, rather than to make partner feel happy and loved.

Can feeling appreciated change that? Previous studies have shown that the behavior of avoidant individuals in a romantic relationship can be improved if their perception that their partner does not care about their needs is challenged.

From the article: Facebook parent company Meta has pulled the public demo for its “scientific knowledge” AI model after academics showed it was generating fake and misleading information while filtering out entire categories of research.

Released earlier this week, the company described Galactica as an AI language model that “can store, combine and reason about scientific knowledge”—summarizing research papers, solving equations, and doing a range of other useful sciencey tasks. But scientists and academics quickly discovered that the AI system’s summaries were generating a shocking amount of misinformation, including citing real authors for research papers that don’t exist.

“In all cases, it was wrong or biased but sounded right and authoritative,” Michael Black, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, wrote in a thread on Twitter after using the tool. “I think it's dangerous.”

From the article: Psychopathy might be linked to pyromania. According to a new study published in Frontiers in Psychology, people with certain “dark” personality traits show a heightened interest in fire. The study examined a cluster of antisocial characteristics known as the Dark Tetrad.

There are four personality traits that make up the Dark Tetrad. They are narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism. Individuals who exhibit these traits tend to be manipulative, callous, and selfish. They often lack empathy and have a disregard for other people’s feelings. What’s more, they tend to be aggressive and take pleasure in causing pain.

Not surprisingly, people with Dark Tetrad personality traits are more likely to engage in criminal behavior. This led Caroline Wehner and her colleagues at Medical School Hamburg and Humboldt University of Berlin to wonder whether these traits were associated with the fascination with fire and the intentional act of setting a fire.

“Fire has always played an important role in humanity, either as a source of warmth and light, a means for cooking in traditional societies, or as a marker for social events and a source for entertainment in Western countries,” Wehner and her colleagues wrote.

“However, tragic cases like the recent wildfires in California and Greece or the Notre-Dame fire in 2019 also bring the destructive potential of fire to the public consciousness. When used deliberately or by accident fire causes severe damages to both humans and property… Due to this destructive potential, it is necessary to explore fire setting behavior and investigate which factors lead an individual to it.”

For their study, the researchers examined a sample of 222 psychology and medical students from German universities. The participants were presented with various fire-related situations (such as “Watching a house burn down” and “Watching a bonfire outdoors”) and were asked to rate how they would feel in each situation on a 7-point scale, which ranged from “most upsetting/absolutely horrible” (1) through “OK. doesn’t bother me” (4) to “very exciting. lovely, very nice” (7). The participants were also asked whether they had ever set a fire outside of socially accepted situations.

From the article: Participants of a web-based physical activity intervention saw improvements in their depression, anxiety, and stress levels, according to findings published in the journal Mental Health And Physical Activity. Interestingly, these mental health benefits seem to have occurred without notable improvements in physical activity.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that physical exercise can improve mental health, many adults do not meet current physical activity recommendations — the World Health Organization recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week. Evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic further decreased exercise levels among the public.

To encourage people to increase their movement, tech-based physical activity interventions have been developed. These interventions help support people in increasing their activity levels using online methods like smartphone apps, activity trackers, and social networks. Though these interventions are promising, it is unclear whether they offer mental health benefits.

“Web-based interventions have the potential to reach large populations cost-effectively,” explained study author Corneel Vandelanotte (@CorneelVDL), a research professor and Future Fellow at the Central Queensland University in Australia. “We know that they can improve physical activity outcomes, but much less is known on how they can positively influence mental health outcomes. The association between physical activity and improved mental health outcomes is well established, as such in theory web-based physical activity interventions should also improve mental health outcomes.”

From Tom's Hardware: Gabriele Gorla, Director of Engineering at Nvidia, told Igor's Lab that Nvidia buys its 4-to-1 12VHPWR (four eight pins to one 12-pin) power adapters from two companies: Astron and NTK. While both adapters are designed up to the specifications defined by the PCI-SIG standards body, they are still quite a bit different 'inside' as they use slightly different contacts. Astron apparently uses double-slot spring contacts, whereas NTK sticks to a long single-slot spring contact that has lower resistance and it is easier to detach.

According to Igor's Lab, Zotac and Gigabyte have said the adapter from NTK is less prone to failure even after multiple mating cycles. Astron argues, according to Nvidia, that its adapter performs in accordance with specifications (i.e., its resistance is below 1.5 mOhm). Meanwhile, as Igor's Lab points out, Astron's 12VHPWR adapter has its thick 14AWG wires rigidly soldered to 2mm^2 soldered pads, which is a point of failure, especially for contacts on the edges of the adapter.

While Igor's Lab details how to distinguish between adapters from Astron and NTK, it is impossible to tell which of them will ship in a particular box with a GeForce RTX 4090 inside. Meanwhile, the report says that Nvidia will keep using 3-to-1 12VHPWR adapters from Astron and NTK supplied with GeForce RTX 4080, but will only use 2-to-1 12VHPWR adapters from NTK with GeForce RTX 4070 Ti boards.

From the article: Blood transfusions are an important way to replace lost blood, often saving lives in the worst possible circumstances. But not everyone can get the procedure. Some patients with rare blood group types don’t meet the requirements. But what if they could use blood grown in a lab?

The National Health Service (NHS) in the U.K. announced on Monday that it has started a clinical trial where researchers will be administering laboratory-grown red blood cells to patients. Notably, this is the first time ever that red blood cells grown in a lab will be given to another person as part of a blood transfusion trial.

The study––called the RESTORE trial––is a joint research initiative between the NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) and the University of Bristol, as well as various researchers at the University of Cambridge.

In a YouTube video from NHS, University of Bristol researcher Ash Toye explains that RESTORE is a clinical trial set up to assess whether lab-grown red blood cells are similar, or possibly even better, than a donor’s own blood cells produced inside the body.

“We’re hoping that because they’re so freshly made and ready to go that they’ll be better. If that’s true, then this will be a world first because effectively we’ve taken a cell produced in the donor and we’ve put them into a volunteer who is not related to the donor and they’ve been matched,” he said.

From the article: The pandemic forced many children to be isolated at home without consistent social interactions. This unprecedented situation left many concerned about the consequences of such isolation for children. Of course, one obvious consequence is loneliness, but does loneliness mean children will experience depression? Researchers at the University of New South Wales conducted a meta-analysis of research investigating the connection between loneliness and depressive symptoms. The results, published in Behavior Change, indicate that loneliness may be a significant risk factor for depression.

As the world exits this stage of the global pandemic, it provides an opportunity to assess the response, what worked, and what did not, and to gather data to support future decisions. Researchers Carissa Dunn and Gemma Sicouri sought to analyze previous literature to determine if loneliness was a significant factor in the increased rates of depression symptoms in children and adolescents during the pandemic years.

The research team searched for studies published between 1900-2020 with human participants under 18. Search terms used were ‘loneliness,’ ‘isolation,’ ‘depression,’ and ‘children’ or ‘adolescents .’This process elicited 3,664 articles whittled down to 44 studies that fit the meta-analysis criteria. The criteria included: full text in English, peer-reviewed and empirical, participants were younger than 19, and the study included “standardized and validated measure(s)” of depression and loneliness as well as a cross-sectional relationship between loneliness and depression.

The chosen 44 studies were published between 1983-2021 and included a total of 27,214 children between the ages of 9-18. Approximately one-half of the participants were female. Statistical analysis of these studies revealed there was a moderate correlation between loneliness and depressive symptoms. This indicates that when feelings of loneliness increase, depressive symptoms increase.