Tuesday 25 June 2019

GM to upgrade assembly plants ahead of new pickup, SUV lines

General Motors Co. has announced it's investing more than $4.2 billion in assembly plants in Indiana, Michigan and Texas to prepare for the launch of its next generation of pickups and SUVs.

* This article was originally published here

Cyprus racers show budget solar cars have a sunny future

Venetia Chrysostomide fastened her helmet and rolled her solar-powered car into the sunny streets of Cypriot capital Nicosia for a race to showcase such vehicles' eco-friendly potential, even on a budget.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers study healthy ALS neurons as way to understand resistance to the disease

Although largely paralyzed, ALS patients can communicate through eye-tracking devices because they retain eye movement until the disease's late stages. Yet, how some motor neurons resist ALS to allow for this movement has been a mystery.

* This article was originally published here

Hate speech on Twitter predicts frequency of real-life hate crimes

According to a first-of-its-kind study, cities with a higher incidence of a certain kind of racist tweets reported more actual hate crimes related to race, ethnicity, and national origin.

* This article was originally published here

Israel's SpaceIL says it won't try second moonshot

SpaceIL, the Israeli company that attempted but failed to put an unmanned craft on the moon earlier this year, says it will not try a second moonshot.

* This article was originally published here

Ultrasmall nanoclusters and carbon quantum dots show promise for acute kidney injury

Acute kidney injury (AKI) often complicates the treatment outcomes of hospitalized patients, resulting in dangerous levels of toxic chemicals accumulating in the blood and causing numerous deaths annually. Currently, only supportive treatment is available for AKI, but two related research studies presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging offer hope for effective treatment and prevention.

* This article was originally published here

Does hypertension pose a health risk to older adults who wish to donate a kidney?

In an analysis of clinical information on older living kidney donors, hypertension was linked with a higher risk of developing kidney failure. The study, which is published in an upcoming issue of CJASN, provides new information that may help inform discussions with older individuals when they consider donating a kidney.

* This article was originally published here

De-escalating breast cancer therapy—can some patients be spared chemotherapy?

About one of every five breast cancers presents with high levels of HER2 proteins. Known as HER2-positive breast cancer, these tumors typically show an aggressive behavior—a greater likelihood of metastasis and relapse and decreased patient survival than HER2 negative types—and are physiologically dependent on the abundance of HER2. These findings prompted the question, if we take HER2 away from 'HER2-addicted' cancers, would cancer slow down?

* This article was originally published here

Report: Hackers using telecoms like 'global spy system'

An ambitious group of suspected state-backed hackers has been burrowing into telecommunications companies in order to spy on high-profile targets across the world, a U.S. cybersecurity firm said in a report published Tuesday .

* This article was originally published here

Applying active inference body perception to a humanoid robot

A key challenge for robotics researchers is developing systems that can interact with humans and their surrounding environment in situations that involve varying degrees of uncertainty. In fact, while humans can continuously learn from their experiences and perceive their body as a whole as they interact with the world, robots do not yet have these capabilities.

* This article was originally published here

Artificial intelligence learns to recognize nerve cells by their appearance

Is it possible to understand the brain? Science is still far from answering this question. However, since researchers have started training artificial intelligence on neurobiological analyses, it seems at least possible to reconstruct the cellular structure of a brain. New artificial neural networks developed by the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology and Google AI can now even recognize and classify nerve cells independently based on their appearance.

* This article was originally published here

Hacker used Raspberry Pi computer to steal restricted NASA data

A hacker used a tiny Raspberry Pi computer to infiltrate NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory network, stealing sensitive data and forcing the temporary disconnection of space-flight systems, the agency has revealed.

* This article was originally published here

Public opinion on wrongful convictions swayed by entertainment series, study finds

Americans are hooked on the Netflix series When They See Us, which reconstructs the true story of five Harlem teens falsely accused of a brutal crime.

* This article was originally published here

Babies can learn link between language and ethnicity, study suggests

Eleven-month-old infants can learn to associate the language they hear with ethnicity, recent research from the University of British Columbia suggests.

* This article was originally published here

European pregnancy rates from IVF and ICSI 'appear to have reached a peak'

The latest annual data collected by ESHRE from European national registries (for 2016) show another rise in the cumulative use of IVF in the treatment of infertility, although success rates after IVF or ICSI appear to have reached a peak, with pregnancy rates per started treatment calculated at 27.1% after IVF and 24.3% after ICSI. The figures, although indicative of a slight decline in pregnancy rate, continue a recent trend of conventional IVF cycles performing better than ICSI.

* This article was originally published here

Wearable technology to personalize Lu-177-DOTATATE therapy for NETs

Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, are developing a user-friendly (worn at home) vest with technology that collects data to tailor personalized therapy for patients with metastatic, somatostatin-receptor-2 positive neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). The study was presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI).

* This article was originally published here

Phones and wearables combine to assess worker performance

Using smartphones, fitness bracelets and a custom app, researchers have created a mobile-sensing system that judges employee performance.

* This article was originally published here

How you lock your smartphone can reveal your age: study

Older smartphone users tend to rely more on their phones' auto lock feature compared to younger users, a new UBC study has found. They also prefer using PINs over fingerprints to unlock their phones.

* This article was originally published here

Ant farmers boost plant nutrition

Humans began cultivating crops about 12,000 years ago. Ants have been at it rather longer. Leafcutter ants, the best-known insect farmers, belong to a lineage of insects that have been running fungus farms based on chopped-up vegetable matter for over 50 million years. The ant farming of flowering plants, however, started more recently, about 3 million years ago in the Fiji Islands.

* This article was originally published here