mold – Valerian's Realm

This gooey, brainless blob can store memories

Slime molds imprint “memories” of where they’ve recently found food. Source: https://www.livescience.com/slime-mold-memories.html

Ant Group Sponsors Reality Competition Show About Programmers

“A two-episode series which debuted on Chinese streaming platforms last week has been described as the first reality competition to focus on programmers,” reports the I Programmer web site: The show, sponsored by the Ant Group, an affiliate company of the Chinese Alibaba Group, is called Ranshaoba tiancaichengxuyuan, which roughly translates to “Burn Bright! Genius Programmer,” and followed four teams engaged…

Tips on choosing telescopes and binoculars for beginners

Tips for beginners: how to choose binoculars or your first telescope. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/how-to-choose-1st-telescope-binoculars…

A Disturbing Twinkie That Has, So Far, Defied Science

Apparently Twinkies aren’t immortal. After discovering that his 8-year-old Twinkies “tasted like old sock,” biologist Colin Purrington sent them to a pair of scientists — Brian Lovett and Matt Kasson from West Virginia University in Morgantown — to study the kind of fungus growing on them. An anonymous reader shares the report from NPR: The researchers immediately thought some kind of…

Mold that led to penicillin discovery revived to fight superbugs

Scientists grew and sequenced mold that first led to the discovery of penicillin. Source: https://www.livescience.com/penicillin-mold-revived-genome.html

The Future of Our Workplace: Remote, On Campus, and Blended Options for Employees

By Rich Jacquet, Chief People Officer At Coursera, we believe location shouldn’t limit access to world-class learning, and we’re bringing this mindset to the way we evolve our workplace. Today we announced that employees can continue to work remotely until January 1, 2022, when we anticipate bringing our offices back to full service. Giving all […]
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Tesla Engineer Reinvents Chocolate Chip for Maximum Taste and Melt

“Silicon Valley, long obsessed with computer chips, is now disrupting chocolate ones,” writes the New York Post:
Remy Labesque, a Los-Angeles based industrial engineer working for Elon Musk’s Tesla, has re-engineered the chocolate chip for the optimization-obsessed set. Thirty bucks gets you 17.6 ounces, or about 142, of the expertly forged chocolate geodes, which are molded to “melt at the right rate,”…

Self-Replicating Chernobyl Mold Tested on ISS as a Space Radiation Shield

Humans on the moon and Mars would face the problem of damaging space radiation. But new research suggests one possible solution to the fact that “Space wants to kill you,” according to CNET:
To protect astronauts, scientists have been studying an unusually hardy organism, discovered in one of the most radioactive places on the planet: Chernobyl… In some parts of the plant,…

Accelerating Curiosity: Novartis’s Integrated Approach to Employee Learning

By Steve Sitek, Head of U.S. Learning, Novartis There’s nothing better than a personalized experience, curtailed to our unique needs and wants. Those experiences are why social media platforms are now highly customized to our likes/dislikes, why we’re welcomed by name when we log in to our online banking platform, and why restaurants remember our […]
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