Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,258

Overcoming human challenges with transhumanism

Sometimes, being human involves tragedy: unexpected accidents can alter a person’s future, permanently changing how they need to approach their daily lives. Those with traumatic brain injuries suffer long-term mental and physical challenges, such as trouble with their working memory span, which can play a significant role in their education and longevity. However, if used properly, transhuman aids such as prosthetic limbs can provide solutions to human challenges.

Transhumanism, in a nutshell, is the idea that people can use technology to overcome biological limitations. Just as how we use rational means to improve our life experiences and the world around us, we can use such means to improve ourselves as organisms. It is simply a concept, not a tangible characterization of some futuristic cyborg.

There is reasonable fear that using such technologies would be tampering with nature. This is true. However, whether something is good or bad cannot be decided simply by asking whether or not it is natural. Plenty of natural things are horrible, such as diseases and parasites, where our moral interest is to intervene and improve these conditions. The question to ask is not whether the technology is natural, but rather, what are the various possible consequences that would arise from it, both desirable and undesirable, and the likelihood of each. People who are concerned that our species will stray too far away from what it means to be a ‘natural human’ forget how far we have already evolved as a species.

AI Helps Spot Dental Fraud

Artificial-intelligence startup Pearl Inc. is using machine learning to analyze dental imagery, helping insurers pinpoint whether the same X-ray was used for more than one patient and whether a procedure was necessary.

The West Hollywood, Calif., company said its system has found thousands of cases in which dentists have used the same X-rays or other images to bill insurers for multiple patients.

Unexpected new component discovered circulating in bloodstream

Researchers at the Montpellier Cancer Research Institute (IRCM) have discovered a new component in blood that has never been detected there before. Mitochondria are normally found inside cells, but the team has now discovered them floating around on their own in the bloodstream.

Often referred to as the power houses of cells, mitochondria are organelles that play a key role in metabolizing energy and cell signaling. Occasionally they are found outside of cells, but usually only as fragments within platelets.

But after a seven-year study, an IRCM team has now found complete and fully-functioning mitochondria in blood plasma, contained inside highly-stable structures. Using electron microscopy, the researchers analyzed plasma samples from about 100 people, and found up to 3.7 million of these mitochondria-containing structures per milliliter of plasma.

With Wuhan virus genetic code in hand, scientists begin work on a vaccine

CHICAGO/LONDON (Reuters) — When a newly organized vaccine research group at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) met for the first time this week, its members had expected to be able to ease into their work. But their mandate is to conduct human trials for emerging health threats — and their first assignment came at shocking speed.

Chinese ‘nurse’ claims corpses of coronavirus victims are left lying on hospital floor

Corpses of coronavirus victims are being left unattended in a corridor of a hospital flooded with patients in Wuhan as the Chinese city is ravaged by the deadly infection, it has been revealed.

The chilling scene, captured by a woman who claims to be a nurse, was posted on the country’s social media network today but quickly censored.

Dozens of videos posted online appear show people lying in the street after collapsing where they stood as they walked through the streets of Wuhan.

Pandemic simulation exercise spotlights massive preparedness gap

Circa 2019 Event 201, hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, envisions a fast-spreading coronavirus with a devastating impact.

Back in 2001, it was a smallpox outbreak, set off by terrorists in U.S. shopping malls. This fall, it was a SARS-like virus, germinating quietly among pig farms in Brazil before spreading to every country in the world. With each fictional pandemic Johns Hopkins experts have designed, the takeaway lesson is the same: We are nowhere near prepared.

Event 201 simulation hosted by university’s Center for Health Security envisions a fast-spreading coronavirus with a devastating impact.

Reversing Age-Related Visual Decline

A new study has demonstrated that increasing the expression of a single gene was enough to reverse age-related visual decline in the eyes of old mice.

Introducing ELOVL2

Elongation of Very Long Chain Fatty Acids Protein 2 (ELOVL2) is both a bit of a tongue twister and a known aging biomarker. The results of a new study from researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine suggest that the ELOVL2 gene plays a pivotal role in both the functional and anatomical aging of the retinas of mice and may also have relevance to human age-related eye conditions.

House Judiciary Committee Approves Bill To End Federal Marijuana Prohibition

In a 24–10 vote, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would effectively end marijuana prohibition on Wednesday. The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act of 2019, or H.R. 3884, was introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and currently has 55 co-sponsors. This is the first time that a congressional committee has approved a bill to make cannabis legal. The MORE Act would federally decriminalize cannabis by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act, and would require the expungement of past federal cannabis convictions.

The bill would also establish a Cannabis Justice Office to administer a program to reinvest resources in the communities that have been most detrimentally impacted by prohibition, funded by a 5% tax on state-legal cannabis commerce.

Moreover, it will allow the Small Business Administration to provide loans and grants to cannabis-related businesses and support state and local equity licensing programs, and would permit doctors within the Veterans Affairs system to recommend medical cannabis to patients in accordance with applicable state laws.

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