What about attempts to test their virulence in humans? The approach in the Stanford lab sure sounds like a new form of gain-of-function research to me.

Source

A Little History My first experience with a Quadra 950 was back when they were new. Mike Bean, then president of the Arizona Macintosh User’s Group, had one. It was big. It was loud. It was fast… and it was beige. I loved it! Mike also had a Workgroup Server 95, the Unix-based file-server version […]

The post Fun with a Quadra 950 and a Whole Lot of RAM appeared first on Low End Mac.

By this point this iMac had seen many iterations of items used as a computer case for one length of time or another: a wooden board, a shelf, and then a drawer from a tossed out table. Why not a proper open air style case?     There’s nothing particular which makes this case more […]

The post Repacking a 20-Inch 2006 iMac onto an open air case appeared first on Low End Mac.

The iPhone X is a testament to device longevity, and durability. I gave mine to a family member when upgrading to an Xs Max in Late 2018, who held onto it all these years through a few different protective cases. Today I got it back where it’ll remain in my collection, after they upgraded to […]

The post The X, a Pro, and Air: 10 Years of iPhone design appeared first on Low End Mac.

Here is yet another clue about how we are both spiritual and physical beings. The two realms are connected in mysterious and remarkable ways.

Source

Back in early 2018 I wrote one of my first articles as a writer for Low End Mac, covering how to get 64 GB of RAM working in your Mac Pro 1,1 (2006) or Mac Pro 2,1 (2007). At the time, the project felt like a massive risk considering the cost of the RAM, and […]

The post Install 64 GB of RAM in your Mac Pro 1,1 or 2,1 – 2026 Edition appeared first on Low End Mac.

Description

This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s three SkyFall Mars helicopters collecting data while flying over the surface of the Red Planet. 

The green frequency waves emanating from the helicopters’ large antennas depict collection of subsurface radar data. The red beams depict collect near-infrared imagery data from regolith (crushed rock and dust) and other surface features.

Equipped with four instruments each, the three helicopters will follow in the footsteps of the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, a technology demonstrator that flew 72 times over nearly three years, proving that powered, controlled flight is possible in the rarefied Martian atmosphere. It also demonstrated how an aerial perspective can generate valuabledata by helping NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team plan time-saving routes and choose locations for science-gathering. 

SkyFall is expected to launch aboard NASA’s Space Reactor-1 Freedom in late 2028. 

The SkyFall project, which will carry three Mars helicopters to the Red Planet in December 2028, is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. AeroVironment of Arlington, Virginia — which worked with JPL to design and build the history-making Ingenuity rotorcraft — will co-design and co-manufacture the SkyFall helicopters. Managed by Caltech for NASA, JPL manages the overall Mars Exploration Program on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. 

For more information about NASA’s SkyFall:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/skyfall/

Description

SkyFall ground-penetrating radar engineer Maya Román connects a coaxial cable to a test antenna in the Environmental Test Lab’s electromagnetic interference testing chamber at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. 

The antenna was pointed up during test to minimize reflections and interferences with the antenna pattern during the measurement.

Equipped with four instruments each, the three SkyFall aircraft will follow in the footsteps of the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which flew 72 times over nearly three years, proving that powered, controlled flight is possible in the rarefied Martian atmosphere. It also demonstrated how an aerial perspective can generate valuable data by helping NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team plan time-saving routes and choose locations for science-gathering. 

SkyFall is expected to launch aboard NASA’s Space Reactor-1 Freedom in late 2028.

Ethan Siegel’s approach to public discussion of science is common enough: the exalted scientist reaches down to the ignorant masses.

Source

You heard that right, an entire GPU crammed into a compact PCMCIA card. What looks like an unassuming adapter for PowerBooks and PCs to hook up an external monitor, turns out to have an entire Trident Cyberblade XP2 chip crammed in there.     Featuring many supported resolutions including up to 2048 x 1280 @60Hz […]

The post Village Tronic VTBook: a whole GPU on a PCMCIA card appeared first on Low End Mac.

Macrobiological features have been cited as irreducibly complex, including animal joints and the trap mechanisms of carnivorous plants, even the cell itself.

Source

Glenview, Illinois—CHEST, the American College of Chest Physicians’ flagship journal portfolio, has reported a major milestone for its open-access publication CHEST® Critical Care: the journal has earned its first Journal Impact Factor of 2.7. Released annually by Clarivate through the Journal Citation Reports, the metric reflects the average number of citations received by articles published in a journal, serving as a widely used proxy for scholarly influence.

In practical terms, an Impact Factor offers more than prestige. It functions as a signal to authors, clinicians, and research teams that the work circulating in a journal is being engaged by the wider scientific and medical community—particularly important in time-sensitive domains like intensive care medicine, where findings can influence protocols and bedside decision-making.

Hayley Gershengorn, MD, FCCP, Editor in Chief of CHEST Critical Care, emphasized that the achievement is rooted in the ecosystem around the journal. Authors contribute original and reproducible studies; reviewers help refine rigor and clarity; editorial leadership maintains standards; and readers ensure the research travels beyond publication.

The journal was designed to accelerate dissemination of high-quality critical care research while keeping access frictionless. Because CHEST Critical Care is fully open access, its content can be read by practitioners, investigators, and policymakers worldwide without subscription barriers—an element that can broaden citation pathways and facilitate adoption of evidence-based practices.

Beyond original studies, the journal publishes a range of formats, including reviews and case reports, as well as “How I Do It” clinical education articles. This blend supports both scientific discovery and translational learning, which can be critical for managing complex syndromes such as sepsis, respiratory failure, and septic shock.

For biomedical audiences, open-access visibility plus peer-reviewed credibility creates a compelling combination: findings are discoverable, accessible, and citable. That coupling helps explain why emerging journals can gain momentum quickly when their content resonates with urgent clinical needs.

To follow updates across the CHEST journal ecosystem, readers can visit the CHEST website and track news via the journal’s social channels. The organization frames the Impact Factor as a validation of community effort—and as motivation to keep publishing research that improves outcomes in critical care.

Subject of Research: Critical care medicine; scholarly publishing metrics
Article Title: CHEST Critical Care Achieves First Journal Impact Factor of 2.7
News Publication Date: Not provided
Web References: https://www.chestnet.org/guidelines-and-topic-collections/publications ; https://www.twitter.com/journal_chest
References: Clarivate Journal Citation Reports (Journal Impact Factor methodology)
Image Credits: Not provided
Keywords: CHEST Critical Care, Journal Impact Factor, Clarivate, open access publishing, critical care medicine, citations, peer review, intensive care research

Aleem Shaun:

I’ve used Day One for more than a decade. It was an excellent journalling app. Private, minimal, easy to use, with excellent features such as geolocation, weather, ‘On this Day’, and book printing. Features that got out of the way and either worked quietly in the background or appeared only when you summoned them. That’s changed.

Now there are new subscription tiers. Previously, the tiers were Free and Premium. Simple. Premium included sync and a few other things that I can’t remember, but it was compelling enough that I’ve been a Premium subscriber from the beginning. Now, without consultation, I’m Silver (not Premium), and there’s a new, more expensive AI-driven tier, Gold. I don’t object solely on that basis. You would think I could just choose to remain on ‘Silver’ and all would be well. But no. Even with these features turned off in settings, I’m visually prompted in the app to upgrade to Gold and use the Daily Chat (with AI), which I’ve turned off and can only use if I upgrade. And yet, there it is, taunting me.

Via Eric Schwarz:

Even Apple is guilty of doing this in the Settings app and the former iWork apps.

Previously:

• $10 Off at Fandango
• Automattic Acquires Day One
• Productivity Apps and Subscription Pricing

It seems like I may have stumbled into a solution for getting Photoshop on the M2 Air sooner rather than later. Initially the idea was to get Photoshop CS4 working in a Leopard VM on UTM, downsizing it somehow, and fitting it onto my Mac’s tiny 256 GB SSD. After trying out the “reclaim space” […]

The post Trying out Photoshop in an OS X Tiger VM appeared first on Low End Mac.

While the project started back in February and was attempted to be finished then, it has finally been done in its first iteration. This means mostly every navigation page (including everything on the navigation bar, tech specs, software index, etc;) can be displayed from bezel to shining bezel, without pinching to zoom. See: Introducing – […]

The post “Widescreen” UI view mode v1.0 now complete appeared first on Low End Mac.

Whether you’re dropping an OWC Mercury Accelsior AHCI into an old Mac Pro, are replacing a 2.5″ SATA HDD with an SSD, or deal with mostly any Mac made after 2012, Solid State Drives have become the predominant choice as the primary boot drive in nearly every modern computer. Flash storage has been used for […]

The post The different types of SSDs in your computer appeared first on Low End Mac.

Description

This composite of images taken by NASA’s Psyche mission shows the crescent of Mars grow as the spacecraft approached the planet for a gravity assist from May 2 to May 15, 2026. The series begins with the smallest crescent at the center of the of the image as Mars is farthest from the spacecraft, and progressively grows as the spacecraft gets closer. After these views were captured by the spacecraft’s multispectral imager instrument, Mars began to overfill the field of view as Psyche made close approach with the planet and captured a series of high-resolution images of the surface.

Because Psyche approached Mars from a high phase angle, the planet appeared as a thin crescent in the days running up to the close approach, lit by sunlight reflecting off its surface. Using these views of the approach, close approach, and departure from Mars, the Psyche team compiled a stunning time-lapse of its entire Mars encounter.

For more information about NASA’s Psyche mission, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/psyche/

The post The Growing Crescent of Mars as NASA’s Psyche Mission Approaches appeared first on NASA Science.

Description

Billions of years ago, an hours-long Martian sandstorm blew so intensely that sand ripples began to climb upon one another as they moved across the surface. These layers of sediment eventually hardened into the multilayered rocks seen in this image, which was taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover on Dec. 12, 2024, the 4,391st Martian day, or sol, of the mission. 

Scientists believe this is the first evidence of climbing wind ripple strata on the Red Planet. Spotted at a location nicknamed “Jawbone Canyon,” these rocks are a rare time capsule preserving a dramatic wind event early in Martian history. A paper detailing the discovery was featured on the cover of the journal Geology on July 1, 2026.

Description

This orbital map shows the path NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took to get to a location the science team has dubbed the “Broom Point member,” a sequence of layered bedrock likely more than 3.9 billion years old. As planned, the rover landed inside Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. It investigated the crater’s western delta and inlet river valley, Neretva Vallis, before summiting the crater rim in December 2024 following a rim-to-crest climb of 2,620 feet (800 meters).

The Broom Point region is situated on the outer edge of the crater rim and was visited by the rover in mid-2025. The yellow dot indicates location where the rover took a selfie.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover. Arizona State University leads the operations of the Mastcam-Z instrument, working in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, on the design, fabrication, testing, and operation of the cameras, and in collaboration with the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen on the design, fabrication, and testing of the calibration targets.

For more about Perseverance: science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/

JPL manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built MRO and supports its operations. The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information, visit:

science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter