ScienceAlert: This Immortal Creature Can Create a Form of Cancer That’s Contagious
While tumors are an inevitable risk of being a multicellular being, there are thankfully few examples of cancer that can be passed between individuals. The most well-known are two that affect the Tasmanian devil, another instance affects dogs, and 11 observed in bivalves.
WashPo: Microsoft deal would reopen Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power AI
Pennsylvania’s dormant Three Mile Island nuclear plant would be brought back to life to feed the voracious energy needs of Microsoft under an unprecedented deal announced Friday in which the tech giant would buy 100 percent of its power for 20 years.
The restart of Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, would mark a bold advance in the tech industry’s quest to find enough electric power to support its boom in artificial intelligence. The plant, which Pennsylvanians thought had closed for good in 2019 amid financial strain, would come back online by 2028 under the agreement, according to plant owner Constellation Energy.
If approved by regulators, Three Mile Island would provide Microsoft with the energy equivalent it takes to power 800,000 homes, or 835 megawatts. Never before has a U.S. nuclear plant come back into service after being decommissioned, and never before has all of a single commercial nuclear power plant’s output been allocated to a single customer.
Another story about TMI. (AI is not going to be free.)
Stuff: Philip Polkinghorne trial: Who was Pauline Hanna?
Larger than life, driven, determined and beautiful. Pauline Hanna was someone who thrived in a high-pressure public health job and loved her family and friends.
But what exactly happened in the early hours of Easter Monday 2021 inside the Remuera home she shared with Philip Polkinghorne is likely to remain a mystery forever.
A post-trial summary.
Stuff: The ‘microscopic coffee stain’ which cost an Australian couple $3000 in new flights
In March 2022, journalist Bronte Gossling was denied boarding for her $4000 trip to Bali as her passport was deemed too mouldy due to recent high humidity in Sydney.
And it’s not just to Bali when issues occur.
A few months ago, a teen in the UK was left counting the cost of a night out after it led to the cancellation of a family holiday to Benidorm in Spain. His passport had a 1cm rip on a page after it was used for ID on a night out. The blunder meant his family lost £1000 (NZ$2130) on flights.
ScienceAlert: Mysterious Link Between Alzheimer’s And Cancer May Finally Be Explained
People with Alzheimer’s disease seem to be less likely to develop certain types of cancer, and a new study in rodents hints at why that is.
Among mice with symptoms of Alzheimer’s, researchers in China noticed a lower incidence of colorectal cancer than is typical.
When these mice were given a stool transplant from a healthy mouse, however, their rate of cancer in the colon and rectum returned to normal.
The findings suggest that symptoms of Alzheimer’s are closely linked to the makeup of the gut.
ScienceAlert: Scientists in Japan Are About to Build a Supercomputer Like No Other
Japan already has one of the fastest supercomputers in the world with its Fugaku rig, but the country’s scientists are looking at a seriously hefty upgrade in the next few years: a Fugaku Next supercomputer that’s roughly a thousand times faster than current systems.
It would be the first ‘zetta-class’ supercomputer in the world – a machine capable of reaching speeds at the zettaFLOPS level, the next step up from the exaFLOPS level we’re at today. FLOPS, or floating-point operations per second, indicate how quickly systems can make calculations and solve problems.
Last Updated: 23.Sep.2024 23:57 MDT
