Month: January 2019

Netflix has pulled an episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj from Saudi Arabia after complaints from the Saudi government, according to a report from Financial Times.

The second episode of the Netflix comedy show criticized Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the government’s reaction to the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudi government reportedly told Netflix that the episode violated its cybercrime laws and requested its removal. The cited law effectively states that criticizing the government through any kind of digital medium is a criminal act.

Although Netflix has removed the episode from its service in Saudi Arabia, it can still be viewed on the series’ YouTube channel for those living in the country, according…

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Commentary: As the tech world descends on Las Vegas next week, these are the issues that dominate the landscape.

NASA received a critical signal from one of its most distant spacecraft this morning, confirming that the vehicle had just flown by a tiny frozen rock in the outer reaches of the Solar System. That space probe, named New Horizons, has now made history. Currently located more than 4 billion miles from Earth, the spacecraft has now whizzed past the most distant — and most primitive — object that’s ever been visited by humanity.

“We have a healthy spacecraft,” Alice Bowman, the mission operations manager for the New Horizons mission, said after confirming the feat. “We’ve just accomplished the most distant flyby.”

It’s a flyby that’s been over a decade in the making, too. Launched in 2006,…

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A ground-breaking new study has succeeded in compiling an atlas of genetic factors associated with estimated bone mineral density (BMD), one of the most clinically relevant factors in diagnosing osteoporosis. The paper identifies 518 genome-wide loci, of which 301 are newly discovered, that explain 20 percent of the genetic variance associated with osteoporosis.

For the first time, engineers have demonstrated an electronic device to closely monitor beating heart cells without affecting their behavior. A collaboration between the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Women’s Medical University and RIKEN in Japan produced a functional sample of heart cells with a soft nanomesh sensor in direct contact with the tissue. This device could aid study of other cells, organs and medicines. It also paves the way for future embedded medical devices.

Chemotherapy is an effective treatment for breast cancer, yet some patients develop metastasis in spite of it. Researchers have now discovered that chemotherapy-treated mammary tumors produce small vesicles that may help them spread to other organs.

A new neurostimulator can listen to and stimulate electric current in the brain at the same time, potentially delivering fine-tuned treatments to patients with diseases like epilepsy and Parkinson’s.