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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,085

Ford wants to be able to shut down your air conditioner and radio if you miss a car payment—and the car could even drive away on its own

Ford Motor Co. has filed for a patent on technology that could remotely shut down your radio or air conditioning, lock you out of your vehicle, or prompt it to ceaselessly beep if you miss car payments. Ford said it has no plans to use the technology, contained in just one of the many patents filed by the auto-making giant.

Still, it emerges at a troubling time for car owners. Loan delinquencies have been steadily ticking back up from their pandemic lull. Cox Automotive data showed severely delinquent auto loans in January hitting their highest point since 2006. The use of technology to aid repossessions isn’t new, but the patent application is wide-ranging, even proposing the idea that an autonomous vehicle could drive itself to a “more convenient” location to be collected by a tow truck.

“It really seems like you’re opening up a can of worms that, as a manufacturer, you don’t really need to be doing,” said John Van Alst, a senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center.

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Scientists unveil plan to create biocomputers powered by human brain cells

Despite AI’s impressive track record, its computational power pales in comparison with that of the human brain. Scientists today unveil a revolutionary path to drive computing forward: organoid intelligence (OI), where lab-grown brain organoids serve as biological hardware. “This new field of biocomputing promises unprecedented advances in computing speed, processing power, data efficiency, and storage capabilities – all with lower energy needs,” say the authors in an article published in Frontiers in Science.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has long been inspired by the human brain. This approach proved highly successful: AI boasts impressive achievements – from diagnosing medical conditions to composing poetry. Still, the original model continues to outperform machines in many ways. This is why, for example, we can ‘prove our humanity’ with trivial image tests online. What if instead of trying to make AI more brain-like, we went straight to the source?

Scientists across multiple disciplines are working to create revolutionary biocomputers where three-dimensional cultures of brain cells, called brain organoids, serve as biological hardware. They describe their roadmap for realizing this vision in the journal Frontiers in Science.

Determining the tempo of evolution across species

Scientists from Denmark and China have estimated germline mutation rates across vertebrates by sequencing and comparing genetic samples from 151 mother, father, and offspring trios from 68 species of mammals, fishes, birds and reptiles. A bioinformatics pipeline was designed to read, analyze and compare the genome mutations that occur yearly and between generations in each species.

The research was published March 1, 2023, in the journal Nature.

Knowing the germline mutation rate could allow a greater understanding of evolutionary drivers and be used to estimate when a species first arose. Despite the variety of evolutionary paths seen in 68 different species, researchers found the germline mutation rate to be relatively conserved.

Figure promises the first commercially viable general-purpose humanoid robot

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is unarguably the most exciting field in robotics. And humanoid robots, robots resembling the human body in shape, are one of the most popular forms of AI. However, a lot of work, finances, and research are put into making these humanoid robots.

The field is already crowded with a number of companies with interesting projects, such as Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot and Tesla’s much-hyped Optimus prototype designed to be “general purpose.”

This week, an AI Robotics startup, Figure, has unveiled Figure 1, the world’s first commercially viable general-purpose humanoid robot. The company says this humanoid will have the ability to think, learn, and interact with its environment.

Is reverse aging already possible? Some drugs that could treat aging might already be on the pharmacy shelves

“People on metformin have 30% lower rates of almost every kind of cancer. It delays cognitive decline. Even people with diabetes who are obese and have more disease to start with but are on metformin have lower mortality rates than people without diabetes who aren’t on the drug.”

What he says is born out in numerous studies. Overall, this safe, super-cheap, decades-old drug not only treats diabetes, but it also seems to delay and compress the years of chronic illness associated with the final stage of life and extend what geroscientists call the “healthspan.”

Metformin is just one of many medications, including other old ones and some brand new inventions, that academic researchers and biotech startups are exploring to slow, stop, or perhaps even reverse aging.

Bowel cancer breakthrough as scientists find chemotherapy response could be predicted by existing NHS test

Researchers hope KRAS test can serve renewed function as soon as possible Scientists have found an existing gene test frequently used on the NHS can also shed light on whether a bowel cancer patient will respond positively or negatively to chemotherapy. Researchers from The Institute of Cancer Research, Imperial College London and the Netherlands Cancer Institute have found the KRAS test can have use beyond its current function of predicting how patients will react to cancer drug cetuximab.