Lifeboat Foundation

Interfacing modern electronics-based technology with biology is notoriously difficult. One major stumbling block is that the way they are powered is very different. While most of our gadgets run on electrons, nature relies on the energy released when the chemical bonds of ATP are broken. Finding ways to convert between these two very different currencies of energy could be useful for a host of biotechnologies.

Genetically engineered microbes are already being used to produce various high-value chemicals and therapeutically useful proteins, and there are hopes they could soon help generate greener jet fuel, break down plastic waste, and even grow new foods in giant bioreactors. But at the minute, these processes are powered through an inefficient process of growing biomass, converting it to sugar, and feeding it to the microbes.

Now, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Germany have devised a much more direct way to power biological processes. They have created an artificial metabolic pathway that can directly convert electricity into ATP using a cocktail of enzymes. And crucially, the process works in vitro and doesn’t rely on the native machinery of cells.

AI helps implants work better, preventing diseases before they happen despite immune system challenges.

Imagine your body had an implant that could continuously monitor the occurrence of diseases and infections and immediately release medications to prevent them. Wouldn’t that be ideal, especially for patients who suffer from conditions like heart failure, diabetes, and asthma?

Continue reading “AI can make implants last longer inside the human body” »

Michael Levin talk for the Mind, Technology, and Society (MTS) talk series at UC Merced on January 23, 2023. Abstract: Each of us makes the remarkable journey from the physics and chemistry of a quiescentunfertilized egg to that of a complex human being. How can we understand the continuousprocesses that scale up minds from the tiny physiological competencies of single cells to the large-scale metacognitive capacities of large brains? Here, I will describe a framework known as TAME-Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere — which enables identifying, understanding, andrelating to unconventional cognitive agents. I will use the example of the collective intelligence ofcells during morphogenesis to illustrate how we can begin to widen the lessons of multiscale neuroscience well beyond neurons. This will be essential as we head into a future that will bepopulated by a wide range of evolved, designed, and hybrid beings with novel bodies and novelminds. I will conclude with a case study of our new synthetic biorobot (Xenobots) and a discussionof the implications of these ideas for evolution, biomedicine, and ethics.

Consciousness is usually ascribed to a specific set of mechanisms and functional capabilities of the complex brain. Importantly, those mechanisms (ion channels, electrical networks, neurotransmitter machinery) long pre-date the evolutionary innovation of nervous systems. Moreover, the algorithms and competencies such as memory, decision-making, and information integration likewise have an ancient evolutionary origin: before they controlled moving the body through 3D space, electrical networks moved body configurations through anatomical morphospace. In this talk, I will describe how we view the morphogenesis during embryonic development and regeneration as the behavior of a collective intelligence, which has many problem-solving capacities. I will describe the tools we have developed, paralleling neuroscientists’ attempts to read and write mental content by control of electrophysiology, to decode and re-write the pattern memories of the body. This has significant implications not only for biomedicine and evolutionary biology, but also for questions about consciousness and the scaling of coherent Selves from agential materials. I will conclude with some conjectures about what this new field offers the science of consciousness, in the form of new embodied living creatures that are outside the natural evolutionary stream of Earth, and the quest for theories of consciousness.-https://www.drmichaellevin.org/ Participate in our online research survey-Survey on Diverse intelligence-https://tufts.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eE51vKE34q3hexo (takes 9 minutes). Thank you.

Edited by Emilio Manzotti.
https://github.com/emilim/

Conclusions: Most studies demonstrated the use of VR to be effective for supporting the treatment of anxiety or depression in a range of settings and recommended its potential as a tool for use in a clinical environment. Even though standalone headsets are much easier to work with and more suitable for home use, the shift from tethered VR headsets to standalone headsets in the mental health environment was not observed. All studies that looked at the use of CBT either in vivo or in a virtual environment found it to be effective in supporting the treatment of anxiety or depression.

Keywords: CBT; anxiety; depression; mental health; virtual reality.

©Nilufar Baghaei, Vibhav Chitale, Andrej Hlasnik, Lehan Stemmet, Hai-Ning Liang, Richard Porter. Originally published in JMIR Mental Health (https://mental.jmir.org), 23.09.2021.

What happens when humans begin combining biology with technology, harnessing the power to recode life itself.

What does the future of biotechnology look like? How will humans program biology to create organ farm technology and bio-robots. And what happens when companies begin investing in advanced bio-printing, artificial wombs, and cybernetic prosthetic limbs.

Continue reading “GENETIC ENGINEERING & BIOTECHNOLOGY in the Future (2077 & Beyond)” »

The Conversation Weekly podcast is taking a short break in August. In the meantime, we’re bringing you extended versions of some of our favourite interviews from the past few months.

This week, how researchers discovered a biological switch that could turn on and off neuroplasticity in the brain – the ability of neurons to change their structure. We speak to Sarah Ackerman, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Neuroscience and Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Oregon, about what she and her team have found and why it matters.

Continue reading “The biological switch that could turn neuroplasticity on and off in the brain” »

Inside of you, at all times, there are trillions of natural nano robots walking around, taking out the trash, and packaging strands of DNA. Below the calm, ordered exterior of a living organism lies a complex collection of molecular machines working together to create something greater than themselves. Physicist and author of “Life’s Ratchet” Peter Hoffmann shows us the tiny city beneath the surface.

Watch the full program here: https://youtu.be/FzFY5ms3AUc.
Original program date: May 30, 2013

Continue reading “The Nano Robots Inside You” »

How does the research conducted by Lige Leng at the Institute of Neuroscience of Xiamen University in China (I link it to you here)? It all starts with the study of the “inflamed brain”: many diseases of old age are associated with low-level chronic inflammation in the brain, organs, joints and circulatory system. A phenomenon sometimes called “inflammaging”.

You know it: over time all of our body’s repair systems deteriorate, our DNA and proteins accumulate damage, metabolism stumbles and cells stop doing their job. That’s life, beauty.

We’re all on our way to the exit, but research on worms, flies, mice and monkeys show that going at this speed isn’t inevitable. Diet and lifestyle changes (and, perhaps, upcoming anti-aging drugs) can curb decay and give us many more years of life, especially healthy life.

Continue reading “Discovered an aging ‘brake pedal’?” »