112. Autonomous Trucks On US Roads in Q3, New Device Treats Pain Without Drugs, Starlink Gets FCC Green Light
Summary: News: Cabless autonomous electric truck approved for US public roads | New Atlas (01:35) Freight technology company Einride first introduced its cabless autonomous electric T-pod truck back in 2017.Couple years later in 2020, it started rolling along Swedish Roads Now the company has been given the green light for operation on public roads in the US. In what Einride claims is a first, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has approved its purpose-built autonomous electric vehicle to operate on public roads in the US, and there'll be no driver in the cab as the Einride Pod doesn't have a cab. The T-pod Truck makes use of an onboard sensor suite:cameras, radars and LiDARs will be monitored remotely by a human operator If you are curious about the sizing:Each vehicle should measure about 7 meters (23 ft) in length, and be capable of carrying 15 standard pallets worth of cargo. It will weigh 20 tons with a full load, covering a distance of approximately 200 km (124 miles) on one charge of its 200-kWh battery pack. The public road pilot is due to start in Q3 of this year, where the vehicle will merge with existing fleet operations at a GE Appliances manufacturing facility.Expected to move goods between warehouses and operate on public roads in mixed traffic. Enzyme reverses muscle loss due to aging and cancer | The Bright Side News (05:25) An international team led by uOttawa Faculty of Medicine researchers have published findings that could contribute to future therapeutics for muscle degeneration due to old age, and diseases such as cancer and muscular dystrophy. Their work demonstrates the importance of the enzyme GCN5 in maintaining the expression of key structural proteins in skeletal muscle.Those are the muscles attached to bone that breathing, posture and locomotion all rely on. GCN5: a well-studied enzyme which regulates multiple cellular processes such as metabolism and inflammation. Over the span of roughly five years, the uOttawa-led international collaboration painstakingly experimented with a muscle-specific mouse “knockout” of GCN5. In this case, multiple experiments were done to examine the role the GCN5 enzyme plays in muscle fiber. What they found:A notable decline in muscle health during physical stress, such as downhill treadmill running, a type of exercise known by athletes to cause micro-tears in muscle fibers to stimulate muscle growth. The affected mice became dramatically weaker as they scurried downhill, like those of old mice, while wild-type mice were not similarly impacted. Dr. Menzies, the senior author of the study, says the findings are akin to what is observed in advanced aging, or myopathies and muscular dystrophy, a group of genetic diseases that result in progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass. Ultimately, the team’s research found that GCN5 boosts the expression of key structural muscle proteins, notably dystrophin, and a lack of it will reduce them.This is significant because dystrophin is the body’s most important protein for maintaining the membrane of muscle cells, serving as a kind of anchor and cushioning shock absorber in cells of muscles. Dr. Menzies suggests the research could help to create a foundation for developing therapeutics down the line: “These findings may therefore be useful for the discovery of new therapeutics that regulate GCN5 activity, or its downstream targets, for maintaining healthy muscle during cancer, myopathies, muscular dystrophy or aging,” Scientists develop first-of-its-kind implant that relieves pain without drugs | Interesting Engineering (11:13) Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a device that sounds straight out of science fiction: a small, soft, flexible first-of-its-kind implant that relieves pain on demand, without the use of drugs and dissolves.Could provide a much-needed alternative to opioids and other highly addictive medications. As per the researchers, the device could be hi
