Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,456

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ free preschool program is coming to Houston

This is a bit interesting. As we all know, education has been crushed by the pandemic measures. Jeff Bezos has been operating one free preschool program in Washington State where Amazon is based. Now he is adding three more such programs in Texas.

I assume he picked Texas because Blue Origin is based there and he wishes to focus more on Blue Origin. Elon Musk regularly donates to education in Texas as well, likely because Starship is currently based in Texas.

Houston city council member Karla Cisneros said the partnership will help support the development and success of some of the city’s neediest children and help the future workforce be prepared for jobs. “We are helping women get back to work, and we are giving young children a good shot at a better life,” Cisneros said in the release.

The Bezos Academy opened its first school in Des Moines, Washington in October 2020. The preschool program has three other locations opening in Texas this year, including two in Dallas.

Mixed Reality and AI for Safer Surgeries

Surgeries require a lot of planning, practice, and precision. Doctors cannot afford to get distracted or lose focus when operating on a person. The use of AI in surgery aims to support doctors and supply them with the necessary information and surgical tools without disturbing them at any point.

Mixed reality makes it possible to use technology to assist doctors during surgeries and minimize risks.

Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino first introduced the term mixed reality in 1994 in their paper titled A Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays. MR combines computer vision, cloud computing, graphical processing, etc., to blend the physical and virtual worlds. Many companies have been developing MR applications that can be used in various industries.

Multi-gigabit fiber internet launched in Reno (updated)

Telecom provider AT&T this week said some local customers now have access to faster internet with the addition of 2 gigabit and 5 gigabit fiber internet to the community. Reno is one of more than 70 metro regions in the country to get the upgrade.

The top speeds for AT&T fiber internet had previously been 1 gig.

AT&T officials said the rollout of the improved fiber network for residential customers was in response to pandemic shifts in how people work, with many more people setting up home offices or making their homes a permanent workplace.

HumanityMars NEW YEAR 2030 PARTY IN MARS CITY!

FeaturedRead our 3 books at https://lifeboat.com/ex/books.

The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards the Singularity.

Lifeboat Foundation is pursuing a variety of options, including helping to accelerate the development of technologies to defend humanity, such as new methods to combat viruses, effective nanotechnological defensive strategies, and even self-sustaining space colonies in case the other defensive strategies fail.

We believe that, in some situations, it might be feasible to relinquish technological capacity in the public interest (for example, we are against the U.S. government posting the recipe for the 1918 flu virus on the internet). We have some of the best minds on the planet working on programs to enable our survival. We invite you to join our cause!

Visit our site at https://lifeboat.com. Participate in our programs at https://lifeboat.com/ex/programs. Follow our Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/LifeboatHQ and our GETTR feed at https://gettr.com/user/LifeboatHQ. Watch our YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/lifeboathq. Read our blog at https://lifeboat.com/blog. Join our LinkedIn group at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/35656. Subscribe to our newsletter at https://lifeboat.com/newsletter.cgi.

Interact with the author of “The Human Race to the Future: What Could Happen—and What to Do” at https://www.facebook.com/groups/thehumanracetothefuture.

Continue reading “HumanityMars NEW YEAR 2030 PARTY IN MARS CITY!” | >

First Molecular Electronics Chip Developed — Realizes 50-Year-Old Goal

A platform for single-molecule measurement of binding kinetics & enzyme activity.

The first molecular electronics chip has been developed, realizing a 50-year-old goal of integrating single molecules into circuits to achieve the ultimate scaling limits of Moore’s Law. Developed by Roswell Biotechnologies and a multi-disciplinary team of leading academic scientists, the chip uses single molecules as universal sensor elements in a circuit to create a programmable biosensor with real-time, single-molecule sensitivity and unlimited scalability in sensor pixel density. This innovation, appearing this week in a peer-reviewed article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), will power advances in diverse fields that are fundamentally based on observing molecular interactions, including drug discovery, diagnostics, DNA

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a molecule composed of two long strands of nucleotides that coil around each other to form a double helix. It is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms that carries genetic instructions for development, functioning, growth, and reproduction. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).

Anti-aging vaccine clears out dysfunctional cells that cause disease

Many of the all-too-familiar symptoms of aging can be attributed to a build-up of senescent cells, those which have stopped dividing. In a new study, researchers in Japan have identified a protein specific to these cells and developed a vaccine that can clear them away, with tests on mice reducing the effects of aging.

Cells cannot keep dividing forever – eventually they accumulate too much DNA damage through environmental stress, so the body shuts them down and flags them to be cleared out by the immune system. This seems to be an evolutionary defense mechanism against cells turning cancerous.

However, even immune cells aren’t immune from this process, and as they become senescent themselves the immune system gradually loses the ability to clear out senescent cells. As these inactive cells accumulate in the body, they contribute to symptoms of aging and the diseases that come with it.

After First Pig-to-Human Heart Transplant, Scientists Aim to Make It Routine

“It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” said Bennett.

The heart was provided by Revivicor, a company based in Virginia that has been engineering pig organs for roughly two decades. In several experiments for pig-to-baboon transplants, the organs survived up to nine months, until the animals passed away due to a lung infection unrelated to the transplant.

Overall, the heart had 10 hefty genetic edits. Three of them wiped out sugar molecules on the outside of cells that provoke an immune response. Six bolstered the chance of the human host accepting the heart—amping up an anti-inflammatory response, preventing blood vessel damage, and dampening any antibodies against the organ. Finally, the last edit limited the pig heart’s size. Although it generally matched the size of a human heart, the team wanted to prevent the pig organ from overgrowth inside Bennett’s chest once it was transplanted—something they previously noticed happened in baboons.

Habitat for Humanity Is Using 3D Printing to Build Affordable Houses

Over the last year home prices have skyrocketed (along with prices of almost everything else), leaving millions of people unable to afford to move or to change their housing situation. Mortgage lender Freddie Mac estimated last year that the US has a housing supply shortage of 3.8 million homes. It’s partly Covid-related; construction has slowed due to labor shortages, high raw material costs, and supply chain issues—but the problem predates the pandemic, as demand for homes was already outpacing supply in 2019.

Middle-and low-income families have been hit hardest by the housing shortage. In an effort to assist those in need, Habitat for Humanity launched an initiative last year to incorporate 3D printing into its construction process to cut costs. The first home was completed last month, and a family moved in just before Christmas.

Located in Williamsburg, Virginia, the house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and the 3D printed portion of it—that is, the exterior walls—took just 28 hours to build. “Build” in this case meant a 3D printer moved along a track in the shape of the house, putting down one layer after another of a cement mixture.

Scientists regrow frog’s missing leg

For millions of patients who have lost limbs – for reasons ranging from diabetes to trauma – the possibility of regaining function through natural regeneration remains out of reach. The regrowth of legs and arms remains limited to animals such as salamanders and the realm of science fiction.

However, a new study published in the journal Science Advances, by scientists at Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute, has brought us a step closer to the goal of regenerating human limbs.

On adult frogs, which are naturally unable to regenerate limbs, a research team succeeded in triggering regrowth of a lost leg using a five-drug cocktail applied in a silicone wearable bioreactor dome that seals over the stump for just 24 hours. That brief treatment sets in motion an 18-month period of regrowth that eventually restores a functional leg.

Tesla Shows How Bioweapon Defense Mode Cleans the Cabin Air

A standard feature on its Model S, Model X, and Model Ys since 2016.

As Tesla explains in the description accompanying the video, it uses highly efficient particulate air (HEPA) filters in its car models S, X, and Y. The air filtration system removes more than 99 percent of particulates and is something we also saw in some other EV concepts last year.

To demonstrate the efficiency of the filters in its car, Tesla engineers blew up a large bubble and filled up the interiors with smoke from smoke bombs. For comparison, they also put a BMW X3, without a HEPA filter, inside the bubble. Musk confirms the Cybertruck is delayed until 2023.