Science

Humans need sleep, but no one really knows why. Most researchers believe that it frees the brain of waste and harmful substances through tiny channels called the glymphatic system. They believe that sleep disorders can negatively affect the cleansing process, increasing the likelihood of Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases.

However, as a fresh study has demonstrated, mouse brains are better at eliminating toxins when awake. The glymphatic system is indeed responsible for ‘renewing’ the brain, but sleep actually slows down this process, the journal Science reports.

During the study, the experts injected the dye into the rodents’ large cisterna, a “pocket” that is located just behind the brain and supplies it with cerebrospinal fluid. To measure the influx of dye into the brain, they used a two-photon microscope. As a result, there was an increase in the flow of the substance to brain cells during sleep or being under anaesthesia, and in the period of wakefulness, on the contrary, there was a significant decrease and ‘cleansing’ of the brain from the dye.

Pages: 1 2

A farmer in rural Canada was shocked when he found a piece of spacecraft debris in the middle of his field.

Barry Sawchuk, 66, who owns a farm near Ituna in Saskatchewan, discovered the two-metre-long charred metal object weighing about 41 kilograms on his land in late April. It turned out that the source of the space debris was Elon Musk’s SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, and a fragment of it may have fallen as early as late February this year.

Pages: 1 2

The SLAC laboratory at the U.S. Department of Energy worked on the largest video camera on the planet until this spring. Finally, the device, called LSST, was delivered to customers in Chile. The camera will be used by specialists from the Vera Rubin Observatory and visiting scientists for space research.

The digital camera weighs three tonnes and the lens is one and a half metres across. The camera was transported from San Francisco by cargo plane, a procedure that took about ten hours. It was then transported to Mount Cerro Pachón by lorry, which took another five hours. Every effort was made to keep the CCD sensors, which were spaced half a millimetre apart, in alignment without exceeding a deviation of 15 micrometres.

Pages: 1 2

Larry Connor, an Ohio investor, approached Patrick Lahey of Triton Submarines with the idea of building a new vehicle to safely dive to the Titanic.
As well as exploring the wrecked vessel, the mission aims to correct the negative image around private deep-sea projects following the recent tragic Oceangate submarine accident. At the time, the death of the five-man crew drew global attention, and the very principle of such initiatives drew sharp criticism, including from the creator of the film Titanic and experienced submariner James Cameron.

Pages: 1 2

China’s Chang’e-6 lunar mission has successfully landed on the back side of the moon to collect samples. This was reported on Sunday by the state-run Xinhua news agency with reference to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

The landing module has landed in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, one of the largest known impact craters in the solar system. This is the first ever attempt to collect samples from this rarely explored region of the Moon.

The Chang’e-6 mission, which began on 3 May and is scheduled to last 53 days, The Guardian reported.

The main goal of the mission is to collect lunar soil and rocks and conduct experiments. The collection process should be completed within two days.

Pages: 1 2