Paul Gonçalves – Lifeboat News: The Blog https://lifeboat.com/blog Safeguarding Humanity Tue, 14 Sep 2021 07:22:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.2 Autos to Integrate AI-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/09/autos-to-integrate-ai-based-brain-computer-interfaces-bcis Tue, 14 Sep 2021 07:22:18 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/09/autos-to-integrate-ai-based-brain-computer-interfaces-bcis

BCI to enable drivers to use thoughts to control select car functions.

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This Brain-Controlled Robotic Arm Can Twist, Grasp—and Feel https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/this-brain-controlled-robotic-arm-can-twist-grasp-and-feel Sun, 23 May 2021 14:22:18 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/this-brain-controlled-robotic-arm-can-twist-grasp-and-feel

Nathan Copeland learned to move a robotic arm with his mind, but it was kind of slow. Then researchers gave him touch feedback.

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Towards the end of deep learning and the beginning of AGI https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/03/towards-the-end-of-deep-learning-and-the-beginning-of-agi Mon, 22 Mar 2021 20:22:25 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/03/towards-the-end-of-deep-learning-and-the-beginning-of-agi

How recent research points the way towards defeating adversarial examples and achieving a more resilient, consistent and flexible A.I.


How recent neuroscience research points the way towards defeating adversarial examples and achieving a more resilient, consistent and flexible form of artificial intelligence.

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Scientists Discover Ways of Making Old Blood New Again https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/03/scientists-discover-ways-of-making-old-blood-new-again Wed, 10 Mar 2021 18:22:34 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/03/scientists-discover-ways-of-making-old-blood-new-again

Creating 200 billion-plus brand-new red blood cells a day can take a toll on a body. The capacity to replace components charged with the life-sustaining task of carrying oxygen eventually wears out with aging, resulting in health problems, from anemia to blood cancers.

What if we could halt the aging process and maintain young blood cells for life? With blood cells making up a whopping 90% of the body’s cells, it makes sense that keeping them abundant and fit could boost vitality into our golden years.

Now, a group of researchers, including experts at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, has discovered ways to do just that – keep the blood manufacturing process flowing. The work, recently published in the journal Nature, could open doors to everything from disease-preventive therapies to better blood banks.

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Astronomers detect new super-Earth exoplanet orbiting nearby star https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/02/astronomers-detect-new-super-earth-exoplanet-orbiting-nearby-star Thu, 25 Feb 2021 08:22:16 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/02/astronomers-detect-new-super-earth-exoplanet-orbiting-nearby-star

Using the radial velocity (RV) technique, astronomers have discovered a new super-Earth alien world as part of the HADES and CARMENES programs. The newfound exoplanet, designated GJ 740 b, orbits a bright star some 36 light-years away and is at least three times more massive than the Earth. The finding is reported in a paper published February 18 on the arXiv pre-print server.

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Interstellar Lab’s BioPod prepares for plant cultivation on the moon https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/02/interstellar-labs-biopod-prepares-for-plant-cultivation-on-the-moon Tue, 09 Feb 2021 06:24:29 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/02/interstellar-labs-biopod-prepares-for-plant-cultivation-on-the-moon

Revealed at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyad, the inflatable, environmentally controlled plant cultivation pod is intended to sustain flora beyond the earth’s surface.

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Jupiter Mission https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/01/jupiter-mission Wed, 13 Jan 2021 05:22:31 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/01/jupiter-mission

China has hinted before that it would like to send missions to the outer planets. Chinese scientists, working with European collaborators, are now solidifying plans for two distinct Jupiter mission concepts, one of which will likely move forward. Both seek to unravel mysteries behind the planet’s origins and workings using a main spacecraft and one or more smaller vehicles.

The competing missions are called the Jupiter Callisto Orbiter and the Jupiter System Observer, or JCO and JSO, respectively. Both would launch in 2029 and arrive in 2035 after one Venus flyby and two Earth flybys. JCO and JSO would study the size, mass, and composition of Jupiter’s irregular satellites—those captured by Jupiter rather than formed in orbit, and often in distant, elliptical and even retrograde orbits—complementing science conducted by NASA’s Europa Clipper and Lucy missions, as well as the European Space Agency’s JUICE mission.

Both JCO and JSO would possibly include CubeSats with particle and field detector payloads to perform the first multi-point study of Jupiter’s magnetic field.

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Drug Reverses Age-Related Mental Decline Within Days, Suggesting Lost Cognitive Ability is Not Permanent https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/01/drug-reverses-age-related-mental-decline-within-days-suggesting-lost-cognitive-ability-is-not-permanent Sat, 02 Jan 2021 10:22:18 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/01/drug-reverses-age-related-mental-decline-within-days-suggesting-lost-cognitive-ability-is-not-permanent

ISRIB, a new drug that reboots protein production in cells can reverse aging declines in memory and cognition in mice, with no side effects.

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The Turing Test is obsolete. It’s time to build a new barometer for AI https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/12/the-turing-test-is-obsolete-its-time-to-build-a-new-barometer-for-ai Wed, 30 Dec 2020 03:22:15 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/12/the-turing-test-is-obsolete-its-time-to-build-a-new-barometer-for-ai

The head scientist for Alexa thinks the old benchmark for computing is no longer relevant for today’s AI era.

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Scientists build whole functioning thymus from human cells https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/12/scientists-build-whole-functioning-thymus-from-human-cells Mon, 14 Dec 2020 19:22:18 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/12/scientists-build-whole-functioning-thymus-from-human-cells

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and University College London have rebuilt a human thymus, an essential organ in the immune system, using human stem cells and a bioengineered scaffold. Their work is an important step towards being able to build artificial thymi which could be used as transplants.

The thymus is an organ in the chest where T lymphocytes, which play a vital role in the immune system, mature. If the thymus does not work properly or does not form during foetal development in the womb, this can lead to diseases such as severe immunodeficiency, where the body cannot fight infectious diseases or , or autoimmunity, where the immune system mistakenly attacks the patient’s own healthy tissue.

In their proof-of-concept study, published in Nature Communications today, the scientists rebuilt thymi using taken from patients who had to have the organ removed during surgery. When transplanted into mice, the bioengineered thymi were able to support the development of mature and functional human T lymphocytes.

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