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Researchers have labelled memory cells in mice during a fear-conditioning event — that is, a mild electric shock delivered when the mouse is in a particular chamber. Then, they could use light to artificially reactivate these memory cells at different times and see if that reactivation provoked a behavioral response from the mice (freezing in place). The researchers could also determine which memory cells were active when the mice were placed in the chamber where the fear conditioning occurred, prompting them to naturally recall the memory. The researchers labeled memory cells in three parts of the brain: the hippocampus, the

Construction of high-speed railways abroad is part of Beijing’s massive “One Belt, One Road” initiative to increase trade and infrastructure links with countries from Asia to Africa, but most of the current rail projects have stalled. China had a 124,000 km rail network as of the end of last year, featuring the world’s largest high-speed rail networks covering more than 22,000 km, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported in February. The amount of high-speed railways in operation Will be increased to 30,000 km by 2020, connecting more than 80 percent of the nation’s big cities. Signing high-speed rail deals have

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An interdisciplinary team of scientists led by scientists from Utrecht University with participation from University of Gothenburg have found new clues about how deep life may extend into the Earth’s interior near the deepest place on our planet – the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean. In their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they examine complex organic molecules that have been trapped within rock fragments brought to the seafloor by massive mud volcanoes. The massive mud volcanoes that sit above the Izu-Bonin-Mariana subduction zone, where the Pacific Plate is dragged under the Philippine Sea

The reactor pressure vessel for unit 5 of the Fuqing nuclear power plant has completed hydraulic pressure tests. The unit – the first of two demonstration Hualong One units being built at the site in China’s Fujian province – is expected to start up in 2019. In November 2014, CNNC announced that the fifth and sixth units at Fuqing will use the domestically-developed Hualong One pressurised water reactor (PWR) design, marking its first deployment. The company had previously expected to use the ACP1000 design for those units, but plans were revised in line with a re-organisation of the Chinese nuclear

Zooniverse volunteers on Exoplanet Explorers have discovered a new 4-planet system. This new planetary system, 597 light years away in the constellation Aquarius, has dips from four different planets. The planets take only 3 to 13 Earth days to orbit their star. The smallest is just shy of twice Earth’s size, and the largest is 2.74 times as big. 14,000+ volunteers provided over 2 million classifications in just three days to make this discovery possible. The Zooniverse enables everyone to take part in real cutting edge research in many fields across the sciences, humanities, and more. The Zooniverse creates opportunities

Military and civilian technological systems, from fighter aircraft to networked household appliances, are becoming ever more dependent upon software systems inherently vulnerable to electronic intruders. To meet its mission of preventing technological surprise and increasing national security, DARPA has advanced a number of technologies to make software more secure. But what if hardware could be recruited to do a bigger share of that work? That’s the question DARPA’s new System Security Integrated Through Hardware and Firmware (SSITH) program aims to answer. “Security for electronic systems has been left up to software until now, but the overall confidence in this approach

How different will the future be from today? As different as we can imagine, and possibly stranger and more wonderful than we ever HAVE imagined. The key is turning our visions for the future into the future itself. And that begins with articulating our visions. In this collection of essays compiled by the hosts of the popular internet radio series, The World Transformed, world-leading futurists, scientists, authors, artists and others share their visions for changes that are on their way, or that we can bring about, that will transform our world forever. Contributors include Ramez Naam, Brian Wang, PJ Manney,

For decades, loops of genetic material known as circular RNA were considered a kind of genetic accident. But scientists have given them new attention in recent years, and a set of papers published this month suggests some of them actually give rise to proteins, just like their more familiar, linear counterparts, messenger RNA. The new research reveals that, despite their unusual structure, circular RNAs can communicate with ribosomes, the cell’s protein making machinery. And several proteins in fly, mouse, and human cells appear to be translated from circular RNAs. Researchers haven’t yet shown that these new proteins have an important function, many suspect they are a previously unrecognized way that cells control gene expression.

Spacex has around 500 job openings on its careers site.