Author: Jonas Steeb

Jonas is an accomplished journalist with expertise in technology and medical news.

3668 C Street, Worcester Massachusetts 01609, USA
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Ph: 508-421-1310
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Uncategorized

PrettyLitter For Cat Lovers :/

For those who love cats, there are still PLENTY of things that are annoying about cats! Let’s talk about the most obvious one: cleaning up their poo. If you have a cat that lives indoors, that’s a reality you have to deal with, and you don’t want your cat crapping and peeing on your fancy persian rug. So how do you deal with the problem?

Well let’s see. There’s a few things you can do, and a few products you can use. The one that has caught our attention is PrettyLitter (also available on Amazon) which is a litter box that is supposed to also tell you how your cat is doing, health wise. It does that by changing colors to indicate different things.

Reviews on PrettyLitter are fairly mixed right now, with many hyping the product up, and some just giving 1 star reviews for random reasons (eg. it’s a renewable billing product).

For a relatively objective review that talks about the good AND bad, see this prettylitter review for 2020 by outwittrade.com. It’s rated 3 stars out of 5. Good, but not perfect. Reviews from other people who’ve used PrettyLitter are also included.

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Uncategorized

Exercise in pregnancy helps restore tissues in obese mothers according to the study

The exercise performed during pregnancy can be of great help to obese mothers according to a new study published in Physiological Reports and conducted by researchers at the University of Cambridge.

According to the researchers, in particular, physical activity would help mothers to restore key body tissues during pregnancy.
It is well known that physical exercises can help manage sugar levels in the blood and generally reduce health problems even in pregnant women, however the beneficial effects on tissues have never been well analyzed.

To overcome this shortcoming, researchers at the English University carried out experiments on mice: they fed various females with a diet rich in sugars and fats to make them obese.
They then subjected the rodents to various sessions of exercise on rolling carpets for 20 minutes a day for at least a week before conception and then for 12.5 minutes a day until the 17th day of pregnancy (the entire pregnancy of a mouse lasts about 20 days).

The researchers discovered beneficial effects concerning the metabolic health of obese mouse mothers, effects that were due to the changes with which the molecules and in general the cells communicated with maternal tissues during pregnancy.
In particular the key organs affected were the white adipose tissue, the skeletal muscles and the liver.

According to Amanda Sferruzzi-Perri, researcher at the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience of the University of Cambridge, one of the authors of the study, “A moderate level of physical exercise immediately before and then during pregnancy leads to important changes in the different tissues of the mother obese, effectively making the tissues more similar to those seen in non-obese mothers “.

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Technology

New Nevada Law For Selling Private Data Is About To Become Effective

Online privacy has been an extremely hot topic in recent years. In an interesting recent development, the state of Nevada has taken some initiatives in this area, introducing a bill that allows Nevada residents to opt-out from having their information resold by tech companies.

This law was signed in May and requires online companies to comply with users’ requests to not share their personal data, else they could face serious fines.

The law is titled ‘Sentate Bill 220’ and was based on the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). It should go into effect on January 1, 2020.

Various tech companies have argued that such laws should be national, and that state laws such as this one are very difficult to follow. However, those in favor of increased privacy laws tend to praise state laws, as they often argue they will be more stringent than a national law that makes it into Congress.

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Technology

Fortnite Season X is Almost Done! Whats Buzzing and What’s not?

Ever since the launch of season X, Fortnite’s fan base have been going through a whirlpool of emotions. From bringing back old favourite POIs to crossovers with other game brands, Epic has been experimenting with various formulas to keep their fanbase happy.

Being the most played game in the planet at the moment, Fortnite has casual and full-time professional players. The game has now completed 10 seasons and Epic is still trying to find a middle-ground between the pros and the casual players. Season 9 was all about transportation and allowed players rotate between cities almost instantly with various forms of travel. In season X, hoverboards are the only vehicle-mode of transport that remains from the previous seasons. This is one among the many changes that have been incorporated in season 10.

Let’s sort these changes by “ Buzzing” and “Not so Buzzing”

The Buzzing Season X Changes

Old OG locations are back: Dusty depot, Retail Row and a new Tilted town now exist in the season 10 map. Tiled town has an added twist of “No Building and No Breaking” within the city. Retail Row is now loaded with different sized zombies.

Crossover Content : Paradise Palms now has an area dedicated to the upcoming Borderlands 3 video game. Players can drop into a specific area of the map and a borderlands filter is applied to the game, allowing players to experience the “comic” like visuals associated with Borderlands.

Map Changes Expected Every Week: Since the start of season X a rift beacon appears at a random city hinting for changes to happen within that city in the next available update. The old floating island located at loot lake can now be found at Fatal fields, along with the return of Kevin the cube.

New fun items are still being added: Items such as the zapper trap, junk rifts and fully automatic sniper have been introduced in season X. By the looks of it, the developers seems to be well on track to add more weapons, traps, healing items into the game.

The Not so “Buzzing” Season X Changes

B.R.U.T.E.S: Fortnite has never received more criticism for a change than introducing the “B.R.U.T.E” into the game. This giant sized robot can fire back to back missile, stomp through building and other such structures. The whole community raged with regards to how overpowered the B.R.U.T.E is and surely this might be Epic’s biggest regret of the season.

No more Combat Shotgun: In season 9, Combat shotgun came into the game giving players the ability to fire rapid shotgun shots and kill fully shielded opponent in under 2 seconds. Well, now they’ve removed it from the game forcing players to opt for the pump or tactical shotguns.
With just a third of the season remaining, Fortnite developers have many other surprises in store. Rift beacons are still popping up all over and changes to the map are inevitable. A Fortnite crossover with the upcoming movie “IT chapter 2” is what’s beyond the horizon for the coming week.

What are your highlights for season X?

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Science

Moon’s gravity is changing! Who’s to blame?

According to recently published study Moon’s gravity is changing and a mysterious large mass of material, hidden beneath the largest lunar crater is to be blamed for it.

The mass was found under the Moon’s South Pole – Aitken basin, and may contain metal from the asteroid that crashed into the Moon and formed the crater, according to the researchers from Baylor University in the US.

The crater itself is oval-shaped, as wide as 2,000 kilometres and several miles deep. Despite its size, it cannot be seen from Earth because it is on the far side of the Moon.

To measure subtle changes in the strength of gravity around the Moon, researchers analysed data from spacecrafts used for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission.

The dense mass is weighing the basin floor downward by more than half a mile, according to the research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Computer simulations of large asteroid impacts suggest that, under the right conditions, an iron-nickel core of an asteroid may be dispersed into the upper mantle (the layer between the Moon’s crust and core) during an impact.

Another possibility is that the large mass might be a concentration of dense oxides associated with the last stage of lunar magma ocean solidification.

James said that the South Pole-Aitken basin—thought to have been created about four billion years ago—is the largest preserved crater in the solar system.

While larger impacts may have occurred throughout the solar system, including on Earth, most traces of those have been lost.

James called the basin “one of the best natural laboratories for studying catastrophic impact events, an ancient process that shaped all of the rocky planets and moons we see today.”

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Electronics

Surface Pro 7 features – will they be worth the wait and extra money?

The Surface Pro range of two-in-ones may not be the game changers per say, but they are one of the most practical and amazing hardware that we have ever seen come out of Microsoft factories. Surface Pro 7 is the next in line and it is already being talked about even though the current generation Surface Pro – the Surface Pro 6 – has been barely out for a few months.

Surface Pro 6 isn’t an over the top device as far as features are concerned. Processor upgrades as well as a few internal changes may be acknowledged but that doesn’t really up the ante by a whole lot. The Surface Pro devices in general have been the go-to item if you want a portable laptop which is premium and lightweight and by far the best alternative to Apple’s MacBook.

As its predecessors, the yet to be confirmed Surface Pro 7 will also most likely feature the same sleek and light design but fans are expecting more out of it as far as hardware and features are concerned as the Surface Pro 6 left many users dissatisfied.

So what could Microsoft do to appease its users. Surface Pro 7 could come with larger RAM options as the same, if not lower price options. Further, the storage options could be increased or the SSDs upgraded with better technologies. Processors will definitely receive a bump and if possible, Microsoft could even fit in latest NVIDIA GPUs in some of its models.

If we are to believe rumors, Microsoft could also launch an AMD chip powered Surface Pro 7 with improved battery life and USB-C Magnetic Surface chargers.

Surface Pro 7 isn’t due for another 6 months, but it is safe to assume that Microsoft has already started working on Surface Pro 6 successor. We also anticipate a Surface Go device launch and release of some accessories for the laptop are also expected.

We know nothing about the exact pricing of the Surface Pro 7. The Surface Pro 6 was launched at $899(base model). So one can expect the pricing of the next Surface to be around that price level.

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Science

Israeli spacecraft Beresheet barely misses soft landing on moon

Israel’s ambitions for a moon landing will have to wait for now as Beresheet, the first privately funded mission to the moon, barely missed the lunar landing as it crashed in the last part of its journey.

The spacecraft crash landed on the moon moments before it was supposed to soft land, reports indicate. If the country would have managed to soft land the spacecraft on moon, it would have made it the fourth country to do so after the US, the former Soviet Union and China. The $100 million spacecraft, built by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries, lost communications with the control room during the landing sequence. At the time of the communications failure, the Beresheet was travelling at 2,110 mph and was about 120 km from its intended landing site.

“I am sorry to say that our spacecraft did not make it in one piece to the moon,” Opher Doron, the manager of Israel Aerospace Industries’ Space Division, said. “We made it all the way to the moon. This is a great accomplishment. We are the seventh country to make it all the way to the moon.”

Back in 2008, NASA has signed an agreement with the Israel Space Agency (ISA) to cooperatively utilize the Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL’s commercial lunar mission. The US space agency contributed a laser retroreflector array to aid with ground tracking and Deep Space Network support to aid in mission communication. ISA and SpaceIL shared data with NASA from the SpaceIL lunar magnetometer installed aboard the spacecraft.

The instrument, which was developed in collaboration with the Weizmann Institute of Science, measured the magnetic field on and above the landing site. If the landing would have been successful and the instrument active, the data collected by it would have been made publicly available through NASA’s Planetary Data System.

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Healthcare

Vitamin D deficiency said to influence susceptibility to multiple sclerosis

A new study by scientists at University of Edinburgh has shed light on the links between vitamin D deficiency and its influence on susceptibility to diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

It has long been known that our body produces vitamin D in response to sunlight. Researchers have found in previous studies that it also affects key cells of the immune system. The latest discovery could possibly explain how vitamin D regulates immune reactions that have been implicated in autoimmune diseases such as MS.

For the study, researchers at the University of Edinburgh focused on how vitamin D affects a mechanism in the body’s immune system – dendritic cells’ ability to activate T cells. It has long been known that in healthy people, T cells play a crucial role in helping to fight infections. In people with autoimmune diseases, however, they can start to attack the body’s own tissues.

By studying cells from mice and people, the researchers found vitamin D caused dendritic cells to produce more of a molecule called CD31 on their surface and that this hindered the activation of T cells. The team observed how CD31 prevented the two cell types from making a stable contact – an essential part of the activation process – and the resulting immune reaction was far reduced.

Researchers say the findings shed light on how vitamin D deficiency may regulate the immune system and influence susceptibility to autoimmune diseases. Low vitamin D status has long being implicated as a significant risk factor for the development of several autoimmune diseases. Our study reveals one way in which vitamin D metabolites can dramatically influence the immune system.

The study, published in Frontiers of Immunology, was funded by the Medical Research Council, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Natural Environment Research Council and Wellcome.

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Science

Super-Earth orbiting Barnard’s star potentially has atmosphere and life

There is a possibility that super-Earth planet orbiting the Barnard b (or GJ 699 b) star could potentially be having atmosphere and possibly life.

The planet is likely cold (-170 degrees centigrade), but scientists believe that it could still have the potential to harbor primitive life if it has a large, hot iron/nickel core and enhanced geothermal activity. Scientists have published their findings in a paper titled, “X-Ray, UV, Optical Irradiances and Age of Barnard’s Star’s New Super Earth Planet — ‘Can Life Find a Way’ on Such a Cold Planet?” [PDF].

Scientists say that geothermal heating could support ‘life zones’ under its surface, akin to subsurface lakes found in Antarctica. They say that surface temperature on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is similar to Barnard b but, because of tidal heating, Europa probably has liquid oceans under its icy surface.

The discovery of Barnard’s Star b was announced in November 2018 in the academic journal Nature. An international team of researchers led by Ribas of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), and Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC) based its analysis on 18 years of observations combined with newly acquired data.

Barnard’s Star b, with a mass just over three times that of the Earth, orbits Barnard’s Star, a red dwarf star, every 233 days and at roughly the same distance that Mercury orbits the Sun. It passes near the dim star’s snow line.

Scientists have obtained high-precision photometry of Barnard’s Star (as well as dozens of other stars) for the past 15 years. This data, along with that of other observers, was included in a recent comprehensive study led by Borja Toledo-Padrón, a doctoral student at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, University of La Laguna. Although very faint, it may be possible for Barnard b to be imaged by future very large telescopes, according to Guinan. “Such observations will shed light on the nature of the planet’s atmosphere, surface, and potential habitability,” he added.

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Healthcare

Hyaluronic acid could help in wound healing

Hyaluronic acid which is known to have many skin and ageing related benefits has found itself at the midst of one more use – wound healing.

According to a team of scientists at the Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania, hyaluronic acid has anti-inflammatory properties and stimulates tissue regeneration and this could be put to good use in wound dressings. The team is developing a new generation sponge-like wound dressings with hyaluronic acid. Antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory wound dressings stimulate tissue regeneration and can be especially efficient in treating deep wounds that are difficult to heal.

For deep wound to heal successfully, tissue regeneration is extremely important. Development of new generation wound dressings, which assist this process, is one of biggest challenges in tissue engineering. Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) researchers are developing sponge-like wound dressings based on hyaluronic acid, which is a well-researched polymer stimulating tissue regeneration and used in ophthalmology, bone regeneration and for other medical and cosmetic purposes.

Check out: Face Skin Care Hyaluronic Acid Skin Repair

Sponge-like wound dressings created at KTU have net structure, which is essential in developing wound dressings for tissue regeneration. Although biopolymers are often chosen for this purpose as they are compatible with biological systems, sponge-like wound dressings are mostly being made from alginate or collagen.

At the moment, KTU researchers have built hyaluronic acid scaffolds, which can be used for tissue regeneration. Collaborating with the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, the scientists are testing the prototype in vitro with different cells. According to researchers, the proof of concept stage research can take up a few more years.