Lifeboat Foundation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkxgRIgo2dA

Primarily talking about CRISPR.

Daisy Robinton explores bioengineering and its potential to end ageing.

Continue reading “Daisy Robinton — The Fight Against Aging” »

In the far future, tricorders are invented and humanity spends many centuries prospering due in part to their widespread adoption. It’s too early to tell whether we’re on that timeline or a different one, but rest assured that one part of Gene Roddenberry’s quixotic vision for the future has indeed come to pass. Tricorders are coming to the mass market, courtesy of the just-awarded Tricorder XPrize.

The $2.5 million first prize went to Final Frontier Medical Devices, a team of seven including four Trekkie siblings, for their DxtER diagnostic device (below).

Continue reading “Real-life tricorders are here 230 years early, courtesy of the Tricorder XPrize” »

Starving cancer via amino acids looks like a promising approach.

Cutting out certain amino acids — the building blocks of proteins — from the diet of mice slows tumor growth and prolongs survival, according to new research published in Nature.

Researchers at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute and the University of Glasgow found that removing two non-essential amino acids — serine and glycine — from the diet of mice slowed the development of lymphoma and intestinal cancer.

Continue reading “Amino acids in diet could be key to starving cancer” »

Scientists hope they have found a drug to stop all neurodegenerative brain diseases, including dementia. In 2013, a UK Medical Research Council team stopped brain cells dying in an animal for the first time, creating headline news around the world. But the compound used was unsuitable for people, as it caused organ damage. Now two drugs have been found that should have the same protective effect on the brain and are already safely used in people. “It’s really exciting,” said Prof Giovanna Mallucci, from the MRC Toxicology Unit in Leicester. She wants to start human clinical trials on dementia patients soon and expects to know whether the drugs work within two to three years.

Why might they work?

The novel approach is focused on the natural defence mechanisms built into brain cells.

Facebook’s advanced hardware group is working on technology to let you “hear with your skin.” The technology could be used to help deaf people communicate, but Facebook also envisions it as a way to advance communications for people who can already hear, allowing for such things as a conversation to be automatically translated into another language.

The technology is being developed by Facebook’s Building 8 research group, led by ex-DARPA director and former head of Google’s experimental research group Regina Dugan.

Facebook today unveiled a project from its secretive Building 8 research group that’s working to create a brain-computer interface that lets you type with your thoughts. Regina Dugan, a former director of DARPA and the ex-head of Google’s experimental ATAP research group, announced the news today onstage at Facebook’s F8 developer conference. Dugan, who now heads up Building 8, says the goal is “something as simple as a yes-no brain click” that could fundamentally change how we interact with and use technology. While it does not exist today outside of very specific medical research trials, Dugan says her team is actively working to make it a reality.

Is the quest to collect comprehensive health data and use it as a map and compass, pointing the way to disease prevention.

“The 192,000-square-foot facility will house UNMCs Interprofessional Experiential Center for Enduring Learning, or iEXCEL program, which aims to help physicians and other healthcare professionals do clinical training exercises and develop surgical skills via advanced simulation technologies, virtual immersive reality, augmented reality and holographic technologies, officials say.

The center’s advancements will include the creation of 3D/virtual and augmented reality content for clinical and surgical training modules; leading-edge technology such as the iEXCEL Helix – an extended 280-degree curved screen creating a 2-D/3D immersive environment; laser-based “3D iSpace,” a five-sided virtual immersive reality environment, and a 130-seat holographic auditorium.

The goal is to move beyond traditional lecture-based models to embrace more hands-on experiential learning, which can improve retainment of skills competencies proficiencies. Thus, the traditional mentor-based “see one, do one, teach one” training model for physicians will now be complemented by human patient simulators, surgical simulation, interactive visualization tools such as head-mounted displays, interactive “learning walls” and 3D virtual immersive reality environments.”

Continue reading “Hospital makes $119 million bet on virtual, augmented reality center” »

• An advisory council has urged the U.S. to establish a new body that creates plans for national biodefense and to set aside a $2 billion standby fund to address emerging bioterror threats.
• As gene editing technology advances, the potential for its use as a weapon increases, and preparing for such threats before they happen is of the utmost importance.

Though the technology promises seemingly innumerable ways to positively impact human life, gene editing is truly a double-edged sword, with nearly as many potentially negative consequences as benefits. Now, an advisory council to President Obama is urging the government to start creating countermeasures for the negative use of emerging biotechnologies.

This month, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) wrote a letter to President Obama recommending measures to address this potential for harm using new technologies. It advocates funding new research into antibiotic and antiviral drugs to combat resistance and having a $250 million fund for the stockpiling of vaccines.