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Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 1992

Aug 28, 2019

The 25-year-old Kiwi leading Silicon Valley’s quest to halt ageing

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

She’s now leading her own $39m Longevity Fund that supports entrepreneurs developing therapies for age-related diseases.

Born in New Zealand, Deming was home-schooled by her parents but as a child taught herself calculus, probability and statistics as well as French literature and history.

After her grandmother Bertie developed neuro-muscular problems in her 70s and 80s, she decided to dedicate her life to combating the ageing process.

Aug 28, 2019

Immortality, Cryogenics and UBI: How The Crypto Rich Influence Science

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cryptocurrencies, life extension, science

The rise of cryptocurrency is changing the philanthropic world by causing the redistribution of wealth from old money to visionary innovators and early tech adopters. The new crypto rich invest their donations by supporting scientific research in groundbreaking fields that may one day enable humanity to cure aging, reverse death and completely change the relationship between work and income.

Also Read: How Does a Country Do an ICO? They Call It QE

Examining the record of donations made by the crypto rich reveals a pattern of support for goals that others may feel belong in the pages of science fiction novels. Having benefited greatly from recognizing the potential of peer to peer electronic cash earlier than the masses, it is no surprise that they have great optimism in the power of technology to radically change our lives for the better.

Aug 28, 2019

Vaccine against deadly superbug Klebsiella effective in mice

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Scientists have produced and tested, in mice, a vaccine that protects against a worrisome superbug: a hypervirulent form of the bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae. And they’ve done so by genetically manipulating a harmless form of E. coli, report researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and VaxNewMo, a St. Louis-based startup.

Klebsiella pneumoniae causes a variety of infections including rare but life-threatening liver, respiratory tract, bloodstream and other infections. Little is known about how exactly people become infected, and the bacteria are unusually adept at acquiring resistance to antibiotics. The prototype , details of which are published online Aug. 27 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may offer a way to protect people against a lethal infection that is hard to prevent and treat.

“For a long time, Klebsiella was primarily an issue in the hospital setting, so even though was a real problem in treating these infections, the impact on the public was limited,” said co-author David A. Rosen, MD, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pediatrics and of molecular microbiology at Washington University. “But now we’re seeing Klebsiella strains that are virulent enough to cause death or severe disease in healthy people in the community. And in the past five years, the really resistant bugs and the really virulent bugs have begun to merge so we’re beginning to see drug-resistant, hypervirulent strains. And that’s very scary.”

Aug 28, 2019

Ohio university pharmacy students develop new drug to treat aggressive brain cancer

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

FINDLAY, Ohio — Pharmacy students at the University of Findlay believe they’ve developed a new drug that could target the most aggressive form of cancer occurring in the brain.

The oral compound, RK15, targets glioblastomas, an aggressive brain cancer. The disease has a 10 percent, five-year survival rate.

If it’s successful, the medication would remove the need for risky medical procedures which require physical access to brain tissue, according to the University of Findlay.

Aug 28, 2019

This Giant AI Chip Is the Size of an iPad and Holds 1.2 Trillion Transistors

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, education, finance, robotics/AI, singularity

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Singularity University is not a degree granting institution.

Aug 28, 2019

The Regenerage Show — Host _ Ira Pastor — Episode 1 — “What are Age and Aging?”

Posted by in categories: aging, bioengineering, biotech/medical, business, DNA, health, life extension, neuroscience, science, transhumanism

Aug 27, 2019

Researchers use machine learning to teach robots how to trek through unknown terrains

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, education, engineering, information science, robotics/AI

A team of Australian researchers has designed a reliable strategy for testing physical abilities of humanoid robots—robots that resemble the human body shape in their build and design. Using a blend of machine learning methods and algorithms, the research team succeeded in enabling test robots to effectively react to unknown changes in the simulated environment, improving their odds of functioning in the real world.

The findings, which were published in a joint publication of the IEEE and the Chinese Association of Automation Journal of Automatica Sinica in July, have promising implications in the broad use of in fields such as healthcare, education, disaster response and entertainment.

“Humanoid robots have the ability to move around in many ways and thereby imitate human motions to complete complex tasks. In order to be able to do that, their stability is essential, especially under dynamic and unpredictable conditions,” said corresponding author Dacheng Tao, Professor and ARC Laureate Fellow in the School of Computer Science and the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sydney.

Aug 27, 2019

Artificial muscles bloom, dance, and wave

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, robotics/AI, wearables

Wearing a flower brooch that blooms before your eyes sounds like magic. KAIST researchers have made it real with robotic muscles.

Researchers have developed an ultrathin, for soft robotics. The advancement, recently reported in the journal Science Robotics, was demonstrated with a robotic blooming flower brooch, dancing robotic butterflies and fluttering tree leaves on a kinetic art piece.

The robotic equivalent of a that can move is called an . The actuator expands, contracts or rotates like using a stimulus such as electricity. Engineers around the world are striving to develop more dynamic actuators that respond quickly, can bend without breaking, and are very durable. Soft, robotic muscles could have a wide variety of applications, from wearable electronics to advanced prosthetics.

Aug 27, 2019

Deadly Outbreak Of Superbug Salmonella Hits The US

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, futurism

A deadly outbreak of “superbug” salmonella sprung up in the US late last year. While this is certainly not the first time drug-resistant bugs have been found in the US, the outbreak marks yet another milestone on the road to a future without antibiotics.

Over 250 people across 32 states fell sick with a strain of Salmonella that’s resistant to multiple antibiotics between June 2018 and March 2019, according to a recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At least two people died from the infection, and a further 60 cases were so severe that they required hospitalization.

The outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella infections was linked back to beef bought in the US and a “Mexican-style soft cheese” obtained in Mexico. They found that the strain didn’t respond to ciprofloxacin and had “decreased susceptibility” to azithromycin, two of the main antibiotic drugs used to treat Salmonella infections. The unusual strain – known as Salmonella enterica serotype Newport – emerged no later than 2016 and is still continuing to spread among cattle.

Aug 27, 2019

A New Type of Visual Prosthetic

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, government, health, neuroscience

In normal vision, light falls on the retinas inside the eyes, and is immediately transduced into electrochemical signals before being uploaded to the brain through the optic nerves. So you do not see light itself, but the brain’s interpretation of electrochemical signals in the visual parts of the brain. It follows that, if your eyes do not work, but your brain is stimulated just so, your visual neurons will activate (and you will be able to see) just the same as if your eyes were in perfect condition.

Sounds easy, but can we do that? Building on decades of research in visual neuroscience, my lab, in collaboration with Susana Martinez-Conde’s, has now conducted some of the studies that validate this idea, completing some of the most important preliminary steps towards a new kind of visual prosthetic.

Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, has just posted a blog that highlights our approach. He took notice of our work when we first presented it at this year’s meeting for the Principal Investigators of the BRAIN Initiative—the NIH led government funding initiative meant to spur research along on topics like brain implants. The BRAIN Initiative funds several agencies including the NIH, including the National Science Foundation, who kindly funded the grant driving our research thus far.