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If you want to perform surgery on the brain‚ first you need to get access to it. That means cutting through the protective membranes that surround it and keep all that watery stuff inside where it belongs. But how do you seal the membrane back up again? Scientists think they may have a solution that beats the current surgical methods – and its inspiration comes from an animal that doesn’t even have a proper brain of its own.Bioinspired engineering – letting nature guide the development of new technologies – has produced some fascinating breakthroughs‚ from biohybrid robots made with spider corpses and live pill bugs to shape-shifting materials inspired by octopuses. In their 10-year search for a new way of repairing damaged body tissues‚ a group led by Professor David Mooney of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University turned their attention to slug mucus.The Dusky Arion slug (Arion subfuscus) secretes a very particular kind of mucus‚ which it uses to avoid predation by sticking itself firmly to a surface. Taking their cue from this‚ the team produced a hydrogel made of two polymer networks‚ combined with an adhesive layer composed of chitosan (the stuff shellfish exoskeletons are made of). The finished hydrogel is called Tough Adhesive – and it sure lives up to its name.The sticky mucus of Arion subfuscus inspired the team behind Tough Adhesive.Image credit: Dani Rietze via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0)Hearing of this‚ neurosurgeon Dr Kyle Wu and colleagues thought that this adhesive could be just what the doctor ordered when it comes to repairing the brain’s outer membrane‚ called the dura‚ after surgery.“As neurosurgeons‚ we routinely open the dura to access the brain or spinal cord‚ but achieving a watertight seal of the dura at the conclusion of these procedures can be challenging in particular circumstances‚” Wu said in a statement.The dura is the outermost of three layers of membrane that surround and protect the brain. Below it is the arachnoid‚ and below that is the pia. Collectively‚ they're referred to as the meninges.Cross-section illustrating the three meningeal layers that surround the brain.Image credit: udaix/Shutterstock.comThe dura itself is pretty thick and tough. It's a bit like the wax on cheese‚ or a kind of biological plastic wrap – but the good stuff you get in professional kitchens‚ not the dollar store version. There’s also a dura around the spinal cord‚ a tough fibrous tube.The usual options for dura repair are suturing or grafting‚ which are not always easy to do. Surgical adhesives don’t work so well‚ mostly because the whole environment around the brain is quite wet. But it’s vital to get a good‚ watertight seal‚ otherwise cerebrospinal fluid can leak out and cause a whole new set of problems for the patient.By combining their expertise‚ the collaborative team of neurosurgeons and bioengineers have now built on the original Tough Adhesive to create a new version‚ called Dural Tough Adhesive (DTA).In a series of experiments‚ they tested it on human-derived tissues and in animal models‚ studying its effectiveness in the brains of rats and the spinal cords of pigs. DTA performed better than currently available sealants across a range of tests‚ including one where the adhesive was applied to a human cadaver through the nose‚ and withstood pressures well beyond what would be seen even in someone with serious illness or injury.It’s hoped that with such positive results‚ continued development might soon see DTA made available for real-world surgeries.“We are excited to have opened a new perspective for neurosurgeons with this study that‚ in the future‚ could facilitate a variety of surgical interventions and lower the risk for patients who need to undergo them‚” said Mooney.“This study also underscores how unique and well-understood advances in the design of biomaterials‚ like the ones we made in our Tough Adhesive platform‚ have the potential to impact multiple‚ very diverse areas of regenerative medicine.”The study is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. 

Getting astronauts into space requires an incredible amount of fuel. The Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo missions into space‚ for instance‚ carried 770‚000 liters (203‚400 gallons) of kerosene fuel‚ as well as liquid oxygen to allow combustion to take place.Scientists have dreamed of alternative methods of escaping our atmosphere‚ including concepts such as space elevators‚ where an elevator would run us from ground level all the way up to space. Unfortunately‚ this concept is not achievable with current technology. Startup SpinLaunch has also created a centrifugal launch system‚ which fires a payload at over 1‚600 kilometers per hour (1‚000 miles per hour). While potentially a lot cheaper‚ more fuel efficient‚ and more sustainable‚ the system is unsuitable for launching astronauts. The system spins to an incredible rate‚ with the payload experiencing around 10‚000 g. Fighter pilots‚ trained to deal with high acceleration‚ can manage a few seconds of 9 g‚ but sustained exposure to g-forces over 6 is fatal to humans.            Scientists in China are working on a different way to launch spaceships‚ with the added benefit of not killing all the astronauts on board: an electromagnetic railgun to fire their astronauts into space. According to Chinese news outlet the South China Morning Post‚ the idea is to accelerate a hypersonic spacecraft along a giant electromagnetic launch track‚ launching it at Mach 1.6. The craft would then ignite its own engines and leave Earth's atmosphere at around seven times the speed of sound.So far‚ scientists have tested the idea on a 2 kilometer (1.2 mile) maglev track‚ firing heavy objects along it at speeds of nearly 1‚000 kilometers per hour (620 miles per hour)‚ with plans to increase the length of the track and increase these speeds fivefold.It's still early days‚ so don't expect it to happen any time soon. But who knows‚ perhaps one day astronauts will begin their journeys into space with a trip on a giant ACME-style catapult. [H/T: Futurism]

With the release of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem‚ based on the acclaimed novel series by Liu Cixin‚ we have seen many people ask what exactly the three-body problem is. So join us on a trip into physics and math that started at the very beginning of modern science and continues to vex scientists and thinkers to this day.Newton’s laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation underpinned classical physics and were able to explain the behavior of a wide array of phenomena. In particular‚ the motion of planets around a star can be easily described with them – these are two-body problems‚ a star and its planet or the Earth and the Moon.These two-body problems can be solved exactly‚ providing a great power of prediction. Knowing the initial conditions‚ we can work out how the system will evolve forever. Now‚ let’s add a third body. You might think that it would add some difficulties but that it will still be solvable‚ however‚ reality must have a wicked sense of humor. The two-body problem is perfectly solvable‚ but the three-body problem is not.There is no generalized solution that allows you to predict the behavior of three objects (or particles or planets) under the laws of motion and force. It is possible to find solutions to specific cases and some not-so-specific cases‚ but there is no way to solve the three-body problem for all possible cases.Originally‚ the question of the three-body (and then the n-body) problem was about the stability of the Earth-Moon-Sun system and the Solar System as a whole. The search for solutions has brought forth new mathematical tools such as perturbation theory to improve on the numerical solution found for the motion of planetary bodies. It also led to the prediction of trojan asteroids on the orbit of Jupiter by Italian-born mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange‚ who was studying a particular case of the three-body problem.A still from episode three of the 3 Body Problem.Image Credit: NetflixWhile the three-body problem using Newtonian gravity is seen as the traditional one to solve‚ the problem is found in quantum mechanics too. A helium atom with a positive nucleus orbited by two negative electrons is also an example of a three-body problem. And if you like gravity but you prefer to make your life hell‚ why not try to find a solution to the three-body problem using general relativity? This comes in handy near black holes.New solutions to specific three-body problems are found every few years. And you never know‚ you might need it to make sense of a mysterious‚ hyper-realistic videogame…

On Earth‚ we have an incredibly useful of navigating our way around: a magnetized needle (suspended in a liquid or inside a compass) will align itself with our planet's magnetic field‚ and point you towards the magnetic north pole.References to magnetism‚ which occurs naturally in lodestone‚ go back to 600 BCE‚ when Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus noticed that iron was attracted to the stone. References to magnetism also appear in a Chinese 4th century BCE book Book of the Devil Valley Master‚ though it would take until the 12th century CE before lodestone was used in the area to create a compass for navigation.Compasses rely on our magnetosphere to work‚ and Mars no longer has a magnetosphere.            "When you navigate with a compass you can orient yourself thanks to Earth's global magnetic field. But on Mars‚ if you were to walk around with a compass it would haphazardly point from one anomaly to another‚ because the Red Planet does not possess a global magnetosphere‚" NASA explained in 2013‚ adding that as well as making compasses (virtually) useless‚ it helped make Mars hostile to life. "Scientists think that this lack of a protective magnetic field may have allowed the solar wind to strip away the Martian atmosphere over billions of years."However‚ compasses would not simply do nothing. While Mars lacks a magnetosphere‚ it has crustal magnetic fields more than 30 times stronger than those found on Earth. Compasses on Mars could help you locate magnetic rock.Image credit: NASAWhen Mars's crust cooled down to below the Curie temperature‚ it still had a magnetosphere. This drop in temperature locked magnetism within ferrous materials in the planet's crust. When the magnetized crust is heated above the Curie temperature‚ such as when the planet is struck by space rock‚ it causes the crust to become demagnetized again. With no magnetosphere around anymore‚ this leaves pockets of strong magnetism across the planet which may attract your compass‚ if you are close enough.All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text‚ images‚ and links may be edited‚ removed‚ or added to at a later date to keep information current.  

No matter how much you hate Hollywood‚ it is not enough. This week‚ the 4-part docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV aired on Investigation Discovery (ID) and was available for streaming on Max. The program chronicles years of horrors at Nickelodeon that included multiple convicted pedophiles on set‚ creepy sexual innuendo in television shows and interviews with former child actors who are still processing traumas. In the 1990s and early 2000s‚ Nickelodeon was a cultural juggernaut. The television station launched huge tween and teen television stars‚ from Amanda Bynes to Ariana Grande‚ and premiered reliable hits. Nickelodeon's biggest hitmaker was a creator named Dan Schneider. In the early years of his Nickelodeon career‚ Schneider was sued for discrimination and sexual harassment by two female writers‚ Christy Stratton and Jenny Kilgen. Their complaints included an accusation that he demanded Stratton simulate sodomy in front of the male writers in the room. Nickelodeon settled with the women‚ then proceeded to give Schneider even greater power and control over more shows. Schneider's scripts included using child actors in scenes and scenarios with obvious sexual connotations. The documentary's clips from episodes of All That‚ The Amanda Show with Amanda Bynes‚ Victorious with Ariana Grande and many others are jaw-dropping. You have to wonder who in Hollywood greenlit some of the scenes back then. One of the actors‚ now an adult‚ describes his discomfort as a child at wearing a penis-decorated costume while squirting liquid in a woman's face.   Then there are the clips of an underaged Ariana Grande in suggestive situations for the show Victorious.   What sort of a middle-aged guy writes such scenes for a teen girl? The documentary also covers the rise of Amanda Bynes under Schneider's wing. Schneider created a character named "Penelope Taynt" for Bynes' series The Amanda Show. According to Stratton and Kilgen‚ the name "Taynt" was an inside sexual joke by Schneider‚ playing on the word for the perineum.   The most horrifying parts of the documentary involve the convicted pedophiles who worked on the sets of Nickelodeon shows. Pedophiles included a production assistant named Jason Handy who targeted child guest stars. After being found with thousands of copies of child pornography in his home‚ he was sentenced in 2003 to six years in prison. Then there is child molester Brian Peck‚ who played "Pickle Boy" in the show All That.    Peck repeatedly raped Nickelodeon actor Drake Bell‚ who starred in All That‚ The Amanda Show and Drake and Josh. Police officers recorded Peck confessing his crimes while on the phone with Bell. According to Bell‚ Peck's side of the courtroom was filled with Hollywood industry supporters at his sentencing in 2004. Oddly‚ the scandal of multiple convicted pedophiles targeting child actors at a major studio received comparatively little Hollywood press back then. I wonder why. After Peck completed his jail sentence‚ Disney hired him to work on their tween hit The Suite Life of Zack &; Cody. The company only fired him after media exposure‚ claiming they were unaware of Peck's criminal background. Actors like Bell and Bynes would go onto have years of destructive behavior in adulthood. Bynes spent time in a mental hospital and much of her adult years under a conservatorship. Bell has grappled with addiction‚ bankruptcy‚ and multiple convictions of his own‚ including for child endangerment. It is impossible to walk away from this documentary without feeling rage at a Hollywood system that endangers children. Tinseltown's long history of child exploitation has continued for nearly a century from Judy Garland to Brooke Shields to the actors chronicled in Quiet on Set. Nickelodeon fired Schneider in 2018. At that point‚ his shows no longer dominated tween pop culture anyway. Nickelodeon itself is no longer culturally relevant‚ which is probably why a documentary like this finally happened. If Dan Schneider and Nickelodeon were still churning out money-making hits‚ Hollywood would still be playing a game of "see no evil‚ hear no evil" in all likelihood. Hollywood has always been a cesspool behind the scenes‚ but after watching this documentary I also wonder how adults in the broader culture ignored the flashing red flags during these decades. Did parents not notice the way these popular shows sexualized the kids in them? Why did the lives of the young actors on the screen not matter? Long before TikTok transmitted sludge into developing adolescent brains‚ channels like Nickelodeon were inserting troubling images into children's homes. The cultural war against childhood innocence goes back generations.

How much do the "professional" journalists hate reporting on Biden scandals? A deep dive into the newspapers that arrived at our headquarters on Thursday finds that The New York Times‚ The Washington Post‚ and The Wall Street Journal have NO article on the contentious House hearing on Wednesday over the Biden family business scandal. It's on the front page of The Washington Times‚ a report by Susan Ferrecchio:  Two former Biden family business associates testified Wednesday that President Biden‚ his son Hunter Biden and his brother James Biden lied when they claimed Mr. Biden was not involved in their business deals dating back to his days as vice president. Tony Bobulinski‚ a former business partner‚ said Mr. Biden’s involvement in the deals was so important that it drew the attention of Chinese President Xi Jinping‚ according to a 2017 electronic message from Hunter Biden that was read aloud at an impeachment hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. Ferrecchio noted Hunter Biden was invited but refused to testify‚ so they left an empty chair for him at the witness table. The slavishly pro-Biden media promoted Hunter's demands for a public hearing‚ and then skipped the actual hearing‚ just like Hunter.  What was on the front pages today? The Wall Street Journal had Biden administration PR: "Carmakers Get More Time to Phase Out Gas Engine." The top of The New York Times is border-focused‚ with a story on "Nail-Biting Wait as Texas Statute is Reconsidered: U.S. Is Furiously Trying to Block the State's New Migrant Law." But this one is worse: "Seeking Clicks‚ And Influence‚ In Jungle Pass: Right-Wing Backdrop for Migrant Debate. Reporting from Panama‚ Ken Bensinger is offended as "right-wing activist" Laura Loomer is asking a Somali migrant if they support Ilhan Omar and Joe Biden. (The answer was Yes.) This one's also remarkably partisan: Rebecca Davis O'Brien reports on the "Democratic Party" trying to keep third parties off the ballot: "It amounts to a kind of legal Whac-a-Mole‚ a state-by-state counter-insurgency plan ahead of an election that could hinge on just a few thousand votes in swing states." The top of The Washington Post is also Biden's plans to phase out gas-powered cars‚ and the Texas border-enforcement case. Below the fold‚ there is an interesting piece headlined "Gaza War protests snarls Democrats' messaging." These newspapers don't typically  "snarl" Democrat messaging. They enhance Democrat messaging.  Follow this story by Ashley Parker and Tyler Pager inside to A-10‚ and there's this funny headline: "Protests seen by some as 'part of the democratic process.'" By some? The Post finds recent polls "ominous for Biden" and expresses alarm that "Some Democrats are also growing anxious about the party's convention this summer in Chicago and the prospect of mass protests interfering with the four-day event." Echoes of 1968??

Alabama doesn’t want to teach its children that they are responsible for the sins of others in the past or that meritocracy is racist or sexist. For MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight Wednesday guest host Ali Velshi‚ not only does this mean teaching the history of segregation just became more difficult‚ but those in favor of such a law might as well be George Wallace himself. Velshi began by playing a clip of Samford University student Akeem Tims opposing the law‚ “History shall not and will not repeat. The time has come for a new wave of activists and empowered individuals to speak up and spread justice and equity in every way possible.”     Instead of pointing out that Tims’s claims of what would happen under the bill were completely illogical and false‚ Velshi indulged him‚ “The bill he referenced was a new Alabama Senate bill restricting Diversity‚ Equity‚ and Inclusion efforts in public schools‚ universities‚ and colleges‚ and the history Akeem Tims referenced included this: spring 1963‚ thousands of students gathered to protest segregation in Alabama. They faced fire hoses‚ police dogs‚ and arrests while calling for the diversification of classrooms and one of the most segregated cities in the country?” Velshi then falsely stated‚ “That was just 61 years ago and today it became that much harder to learn that history and diversify classrooms in Alabama.” We know Velshi was spreading fake news because Velshi himself then read two portions of the bill‚ “Despite student protests‚ today Governor Kay Ivey signed that new anti-DEI bill into law. The bill‚ which takes effect October 1‚ prohibits the teaching of quote ‘divisive concepts' including 'that individuals are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past’ or ‘that meritocracy is racist or sexist.’” How in the world does prohibiting teachers from telling students that they are responsible for something that happened decades before they were born or that meritocracy is racist or sexist prohibit them from teaching about fire hoses and police dogs? Velshi also mourned that‚ “It also bans schools and agencies from sponsoring DEI programs and it bans trans people from using restrooms aligning with gender identity.” He additionally parroted some outlandish comments from Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin‚ who “wrote‚ ‘if supporting inclusion becomes illegal in the state‚ hell‚ you might as well stand in front of the school door like Governor Wallace.’ Governor Wallace‚ the former Alabama governor‚ who in 1963 stood in a doorway to block black students from attending classes at the University of Alabama. He’s the one whose inaugural promise was quote ‘segregation now‚ segregation tomorrow‚ segregation forever.’”  If Velshi has his way‚ MSNBC will spread fake news now‚ spread fake news tomorrow‚ and spread fake news forever. Here is a transcript for the March 20 show: MSNBC Alex Wagner Tonight 3/20/2024 9:41 PM ET AKEEM TIMS: History shall not and will not repeat. The time has come for a new wave of activists and empowered individuals to speak up and spread justice and equity in every way possible. ALI VELSHI: That was Samford University student Akeem Tims gathered with hundreds of Alabama student protesters earlier this month and the bill he referenced was a new Alabama Senate bill restricting Diversity‚ Equity‚ and Inclusion efforts in public schools‚ universities‚ and colleges‚ and the history Akeem Tims referenced included this: spring 1963‚ thousands of students gathered to protest segregation in Alabama. They faced fire hoses‚ police dogs‚ and arrests while calling for the diversification of classrooms and one of the most segregated cities in the country?  That was just 61 years ago and today it became that much harder to learn that history and diversify classrooms in Alabama. Despite student protests‚ today Governor Kay Ivey signed that new anti-DEI bill into law. The bill‚ which takes effect October 1‚ prohibits the teaching of quote “divisive concepts including that individuals are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past” or “that meritocracy is racist or sexist.” It also bans schools and agencies from sponsoring DEI programs and it bans trans people from using restrooms aligning with gender identity.  Criticizing the bill‚ Birmingham Mayor Woodfin wrote‚ “if supporting inclusion becomes illegal in the state‚ hell‚ you might as well stand in front of the school door like Governor Wallace.” Governor Wallace‚ the former Alabama governor‚ who in 1963 stood in a doorway to block black students from attending classes at the University of Alabama. He’s the one whose inaugural promise was quote “segregation now‚ segregation tomorrow‚ segregation forever.”