Archive for the ‘biological’ category: Page 187
Apr 10, 2018
International conference «Interventions to extend healthspan and lifespan»
Posted by Elena Milova in categories: biological, genetics, life extension
Kazan, Russia, April 23–25.
23–25 April 2018 in Kazan (Russia) will be a biogerontological conference with the following main topics:
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Apr 4, 2018
Synthetic biology companies raised over $650 million in Q1, setting the pace for another record-breaking year
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: bioengineering, biological
In 2017, synthetic biology companies raised a record amount of funding – just over $1.8 billion for fifty two companies – driven mostly by several multi-hundred million dollar deals. This was a 50% increase over the previous year, a pace of growth that indicated an intense interest in the field from outside investors. It seems that this interest has only intensified since then, as 27 companies raised $650 million in funding during the first quarter of 2018, which is double the activity of the first quarter of 2017. At this rate, the field is on track to raise over $2.4 billion with over 100 companies being funded, which would be a record for both statistics.
The companies raising money in 2018 are pursuing a broadly diverse set of applications from all sections of the synthetic biology technology stack. Many companies are developing products that will eventually end up in the hands (or bodies) of everyday consumers, but others are making the tools and reagents that will empower the whole field to become more productive. It is important that all of these types of companies exist in order to build a healthy industry ecosystem.
Mar 31, 2018
Bioquark Inc. — Natural Awakenings Magazine — Ira Pastor
Posted by Ira S. Pastor in categories: aging, bees, biological, biotech/medical, chemistry, cosmology, genetics, health, neuroscience, transhumanism
Mar 30, 2018
Elon Musk’s Neuralink files permit to build biological research lab
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: biological, Elon Musk, neuroscience
Elon Musk’s neurotechnology startup Neuralink filed for permits to build an in-house machine shop and a biological testing laboratory for its facility in San Francisco last year.
The documentation on the company’s 2017 permits was retrieved by Gizmodo, which was able to access Neuralink’s public records. An excerpt of a letter submitted by Neuralink executive Jared Birchall on February 2017 to the city’s planning department gives some clues about the company’s plans for the facility’s proposed machine shop and animal testing lab.
Mar 29, 2018
The brain learns completely differently than we’ve assumed, new learning theory says
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biological, information science, neuroscience
A revolutionary new theory contradicts a fundamental assumption in neuroscience about how the brain learns. According to researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel led by Prof. Ido Kanter, the theory promises to transform our understanding of brain dysfunction and may lead to advanced, faster, deep-learning algorithms.
Mar 22, 2018
Biological Cells Fused with Artificial Cells
Posted by Steve Hill in categories: bioengineering, biological
For the first time in history, researchers have fused artificial cells with biological cells in a way that lets them work together. This opens the door for a variety of new possibilities and applications.
Fusing biological and artificial cells
The research team at Imperial College London uses a system that encapsulates biological cells within an artificial cell. Using this approach, the team can harness the ability of biological cells to produce chemicals while offering them protection from the environment.
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Mar 21, 2018
In 1986, scientists found a fuel-producing bacterium at the bottom of a Swiss lake. Now, they know how it works
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: biological
Mar 20, 2018
Bioquark Inc. — Senior Care — Reversal Of Age-Related Diseases — Ira Pastor
Posted by Ira S. Pastor in categories: aging, bioengineering, biological, biotech/medical, disruptive technology, DNA, futurism, genetics, health, science
Mar 16, 2018
Quantum coherence–driven self-organized criticality and nonequilibrium light localization
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biological, chemistry, quantum physics
Self-organized criticality emerges in dynamical complex systems driven out of equilibrium and characterizes a wide range of classical phenomena in physics, geology, and biology. We report on a quantum coherence–controlled self-organized critical transition observed in the light localization behavior of a coherence-driven nanophotonic configuration. Our system is composed of a gain-enhanced plasmonic heterostructure controlled by a coherent drive, in which photons close to the stopped-light regime interact in the presence of the active nonlinearities, eventually synchronizing their dynamics. In this system, on the basis of analytical and corroborating full-wave Maxwell-Bloch computations, we observe quantum coherence–controlled self-organized criticality in the emergence of light localization arising from the synchronization of the photons. It is associated with two first-order phase transitions: one pertaining to the synchronization of the dynamics of the photons and the second pertaining to an inversionless lasing transition by the coherent drive. The so-attained light localization, which is robust to dissipation, fluctuations, and many-body interactions, exhibits scale-invariant power laws and absence of finely tuned control parameters. We also found that, in this nonequilibrium dynamical system, the effective critical “temperature” of the system drops to zero, whereupon one enters the quantum self-organized critical regime.
The self-organization of many nonequilibrium complex systems toward an “ordered” state is a profound concept in basic science, ranging from biochemistry to physics (2–4). Examples include the group movement of flocks of birds , motions of human crowds , neutrino oscillations in the early universe , and the formation of shapes (“morphogenesis”) in biological organisms (8, 9). An intriguing trait of this nonequilibrium, driven-dissipative systems (2, 3) is that their self-organization can lead them to a phase transition and to critical behavior—a phenomenon known as self-organized criticality (SOC) (10). Unlike equilibrium phase-transition phenomena, such as superconductivity or ferromagnetism, where an exogenous control parameter (for example, temperature or pressure) needs to be precisely tuned for the phase transition to occur, no such fine-tuning is needed in SOC systems (10–13): They can self-organize and reach their critical state even when driven far away from it.
