Month: April 2016

(credit: Addi and Cassi Fund)

Two parents’ quest to save their twin daughters’ lives from a rare, degenerative genetic disorder may end up saving and improving the lives of millions.

After digging through medical literature and fitting pieces of data together, the non-medically trained couple contacted German researchers and suggested that a chemical called cyclodextrin may be able to treat atherosclerosis—the hardening of arteries with cholesterol-rich plaques, which is a precursor to heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases.

The researchers, Eicke Latz at the University of Bonn and colleagues, followed up on the parents’ hypothesis and found that in mice, cyclodextrin indeed blocked plaque formation, melted away plaques that had already formed in arteries, reduced atherosclerosis-associated inflammation, and revved up cholesterol metabolism—even in rodents fed cholesterol-rich diets. In petri dish-based tests, the researchers found that the drug seemed to have the same effects on human cells and plaques.

(credit: TJJSvdM)

Some Tuesday morning listeners of KIFT, a Top 40 radio station located in Breckenridge, Colorado, were treated to a radically different programming menu than they were used to. Instead of the normal fare from Taylor Swift, The Chainsmokers, or other pop stars, a hack by an unknown party caused one of the station's signals to broadcast a sexually explicit podcast related to the erotic attraction to furry characters. The unauthorized broadcast lasted for about 90 minutes.

KIFT wasn't the only station to be hit by the hack. On the same day, Livingston, Texas-based country music station KXAX also broadcast raunchy furry-themed audio. And according to an article posted Wednesday by radio industry news site RadioInsight.com, the unauthorized broadcasts from a hobbyist group called FurCast were also forced on an unnamed station in Denver and an unidentified national syndicator.

"All in all the FurCast aired for an hour, possibly two," Jason Mclelland, owner and general manager of the KXAX Radio Group, wrote in an e-mail. "During that time they talked about sex with two guys and a girl in explicit details and rambled on with vulgar language not really having much of a point to the podcast. I'm assuming there was no real reason for this hack."

Ariel Waldman/Chronicle Books

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Designer and citizen scientist Ariel Waldman has been obsessed with space for quite a while. While working for NASA, she founded Spacehack, a group for citizen scientists who want to participate in space observation with DIY satellites, astro data-crunching apps, and more. In 2013, she was appointed to the National Academy of Sciences Committee For Human Spaceflight.

Now she's written What's It Like in Space?, a delightful mini-coffee table book about all the awkward and beautiful moments you can have in space, based on dozens of interviews with people who have actually been there. We've got a gallery of pages from the book, which combines art with short observations to create an experience that people of all ages can enjoy.

This is the perfect book to fill your brain with wonder and remind you that going to space isn't all about watching our beautiful blue marble and discovering amazing new things. Sometimes it's about mopping pee out of your spacesuit or finding a comfortable sleeping position while strapped to a wall in zero-G. Waldman balances the breathtaking glory of spacewalks with everyday life on the ISS. And along the way, you'll learn that astronaut ice cream is a lie. A lie!

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. (credit: Dan Farber)

Amazon Web Services (AWS) will become a $10 billion business this year, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a letter to shareholders this week.

While Amazon as a whole "became the fastest company ever to reach $100 billion in annual sales" in 2015, Amazon Web Services will hit the $10 billion mark "at a pace even faster than Amazon achieved that milestone," Bezos wrote. AWS is used by more than 1 million people from "organizations of every size across nearly every industry," he wrote.

AWS launched in March 2006 with the Simple Storage Service (S3). It expanded with the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) a few months later, letting customers rent virtual machines over the Internet. The service allowed developers to obtain computing capacity on demand without having to operate their own servers, and over the years many startups have built online businesses with Amazon's data centers and services providing the back-end infrastructure. It's not just small companies relying on Amazon, though, as big names like Adobe, Capital One, GE, MLB Advanced Media, Netflix, and Pinterest use the online platform.

(credit: The Next Rembrandt)

A computer-generated portrait using machine learning algorithms created by The Next Rembrandt project has been shown off by a team from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The computer analysed Dutch master Rembrandt's work, thoroughly tagged by humans.

"We examined the entire collection of Rembrandt’s work, studying the contents of his paintings pixel by pixel," the project team explained. "To get this data, we analysed a broad range of materials like high resolution 3D scans and digital files, which were upscaled by deep learning algorithms to maximise resolution and quality."

Since much of Rembrandt's work was portraiture, the team of researchers—supported by Microsoft, financial company ING, and Dutch museums Mauritshuis and Rembrandthuis—decided to focus on the great man's portraits for analysis and recreation.

Claire returns from her job as a nurse in World War II, only to time travel back to eighteenth century Scotland. (credit: Starz/Sony)

At first glance, Starz' series Outlander looks like breezy historical romance. Its protagonist, Claire Beauchamp, stands in a dramatic landscape wearing 18th century clothing, her hair blowing in a Scottish wind. The series’ leading man, Jamie Fraser, sports long curling red hair and a kilt that somehow manages to suggest both pragmatic durability and convenient access.

Those first impressions are not wrong, precisely. Most of Outlander is set in 18th-century Scotland (and France in the upcoming second season). Claire is increasingly interested in taking advantage of Jamie Fraser’s accommodating kilt. But Outlander isn't just a great, detailed, and persuasive historical romance. It's also the first hit series from Ron Moore since Battlestar Galactica.

Though it may seem like a departure, Moore has woven sci-fi into the fabric of the series, a time travel story whose setting in the 18th century Scottish highlands offers an intriguing alternate history twist. That initial impression of a historical romance is actually just one facet of a series that is, like the books it’s based on, a crazy and appealing genre mashup. Outlander somehow brings together time travel and alternate history with romance, psychological suspense, and political drama.