Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,998

Ann Druyan, who co-wrote the original 1980s series with her late husband, is back at work as this season’s executive producer, writer and director. Her book, “Cosmos: Possible Worlds,” was recently published as a companion to the series, which will be aired on March 9 at 8/7c on National Geographic. We were lucky enough to catch up with Druyan to talk more about her latest projects.

You’ve described this season of “Cosmos” as the “boldest” season yet. Can you elaborate on that, without giving too much away?

I think it’s the boldest in that it appears to present such an optimistic vision of the future, and that sets it apart, I think, in many ways from most of our entertainment. Of course, our entertainment is just a reflection of the reality we’re coping with, but this “Cosmos” is not only a vision of a magnificent future, but a vision of a magnificent future if we learn to use our science in high technology with wisdom. It’s the future we can still have and so many of the stories in both book and show are the stories of our ancestors who endured terrible situations. Every single person alive today is descended from humans who have been back to the wall repeatedly, but rose to the challenge.

And so, [the theme of] “possible worlds” works on many different levels. It’s the possible worlds of exoplanets we’ve yet to discover. It’s the possible world within, the science of our brains and the dream of creating connectomes similar to a genome — one consisting of all our thoughts, associations, memory.

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Circa 2015 o.o take their Gene’s and could make immunity greater for stomaches.

Vultures have a unique genetic make-up allowing them to digest carcasses and guard themselves against constant exposure to pathogens in their diet, according to the first Eurasian vulture genome published in the open access journal Genome Biology. The study also finds that this species of Asian vulture is more closely related to the North American bald eagle than previously thought.

The cinereous vulture or black vulture, Aegypius monachus, is the largest bird of prey, and an iconic bird in the Far East. The species plays a key role in the ecosystem by removing rotting carcasses, thus preventing the spread of disease.

As their feeding habits involve constant exposure to pathogens, vultures are suspected to have strong immune systems, having evolved mechanisms to prevent infection by the microbes found in their diet. Despite the potential interest in the immune system of scavengers, little is known about the genetic variations involved in vultures’ immune processes.

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Bethesda, Md., Thurs., May 6, 2010 — Researchers have produced the first whole genome sequence of the 3 billion letters in the Neanderthal genome, and the initial analysis suggests that up to 2 percent of the DNA in the genome of present-day humans outside of Africa originated in Neanderthals or in Neanderthals’ ancestors.

The international research team, which includes researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health, reports its findings in the May 7, 2010, issue of Science.

The current fossil record suggests that Neanderthals, or Homo neanderthalensis, diverged from the primate line that led to present-day humans, or Homo sapiens, some 400,000 years ago in Africa. Neanderthals migrated north into Eurasia, where they became a geographically isolated group that evolved independently from the line that became modern humans in Africa. They lived in Europe and western Asia, as far east as southern Siberia and as far south as the Middle East.

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J Gen Psychol. 2009 Jan;136:21–39. doi: 10.3200/GENP.136.1.21–40.

The authors examined the role of cognitive operations in discriminations between externally and internally generated events (e.g., reality monitoring) in healthy and pathological aging. The authors used 2 reality-monitoring distinctions to manipulate the quantity and quality of necessary cognitive operations: discriminating between I performed versus I imagined performing and between I watched another perform versus I imagined another performing. Older adults had more difficulty than did younger adults when discriminating between memories in both versions of the task. In addition, older adults with Alzheimer’s-type dementia showed marked difficulties when attributing a source to imagined actions. The authors interpret these findings in terms of an age difficulty or the failure to use cognitive operations as useful cues during source monitoring.

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DENVER – Colorado’s first drive-up testing facility for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) opened Wednesday in Denver’s Lowry neighborhood and saw several dozen vehicles in line after it opened.

The drive-up facility, located at 8100 E. Lowry Blvd. in Denver, will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, and next week’s schedule will be posted on the state’s website once the schedule is decided.

Coronavirus in Colorado: COVID-19 cases, locations and live updates across the state.

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Chinese researchers have developed a robot designed to help doctors treat the new coronavirus and other highly contagious diseases.

The machine has a long robotic arm attached to a base with wheels. It can perform some of the same medical examination tasks as doctors. For example, the device can perform ultrasounds, collect fluid samples from a person’s mouth and listen to sounds made by a patient’s organs.

Cameras record the robot’s activities, which are controlled remotely so doctors can avoid coming in close contact with infected patients. Doctors and other medical workers can operate the machine from a nearby room, or from much farther away.

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