Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 48

Tuochao Chen, a University of Washington doctoral student, recently toured a museum in Mexico. Chen doesn’t speak Spanish, so he ran a translation app on his phone and pointed the microphone at the tour guide. But even in a museum’s relative quiet, the surrounding noise was too much. The resulting text was useless.

Various technologies have emerged lately promising fluent translation, but none of these solved Chen’s problem of . Meta’s new glasses, for instance, function only with an isolated speaker; they play an automated voice translation after the speaker finishes.

Now, Chen and a team of UW researchers have designed a headphone system that translates several speakers at once, while preserving the direction and qualities of people’s voices. The team built the system, called Spatial Speech Translation, with off-the-shelf noise-canceling headphones fitted with microphones. The team’s algorithms separate out the different speakers in a space and follow them as they move, translate their speech and play it back with a 2–4 second delay.

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Computer simulations help materials scientists and biochemists study the motion of macromolecules, advancing the development of new drugs and sustainable materials. However, these simulations pose a challenge for even the most powerful supercomputers.

A University of Oregon graduate student has developed a new mathematical equation that significantly improves the accuracy of the simplified computer models used to study the motion and behavior of large molecules such as proteins, and synthetic materials such as plastics.

The breakthrough, published last month in Physical Review Letters, enhances researchers’ ability to investigate the motion of large molecules in complex biological processes, such as DNA replication. It could aid in understanding diseases linked to errors in such replication, potentially leading to new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.

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Researchers found the PHGDH gene directly causes Alzheimer’s and discovered a drug-like molecule, NCT-503, that may help treat the disease early by targeting the gene’s hidden function. A recent study has revealed that a gene previously identified as a biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease is not jus

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“I think, therefore I am,” René Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician, famously wrote in 1637. His idea was straightforward: even if your senses, the world, or your body deceives you, the very act of thinking proves you exist because there’s a thinker doing the thinking. Cogito, ergo sum, as the phrase goes in Latin, cemented the way the Western world would continue to define the self for the next 400 years—as a thinking mind, first and foremost.

But a growing body of neuroscience studies suggest the father of modern thought got it backward: the true foundation of consciousness isn’t thought, some scientists say—it’s feeling. A massive international study published in Nature late last month is further driving the theory forward. That means “I feel, therefore I am” may be the new maxim of consciousness. We are not thinking machines that feel; we are feeling bodies that think. And it’s more than a philosophical debate, too. Determining where consciousness resides could reshape life-or-death decisions and force society to rethink who, or what, truly counts as being self-aware.

The experiment used a rare “adversarial collaboration” model, bringing together scientists with opposing views to test two major theories of consciousness: integrated information theory (IIT) and global neuronal workspace theory (GNWT). Put simply, IIT says consciousness arises when information in the brain is deeply connected, especially in the back of the brain. GNWT argues that consciousness arises when the front of the brain broadcasts important information across a wide network, like a brain-wide alert.

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Some 460 million metric tons of plastic are produced globally each year, out of which a staggering 91% of plastic waste is never recycled—with 12% incinerated and 79% left to end up in landfills and oceans and linger in our environment.

Exposure to various elements causes the plastics to break down into microplastics (5 mm) and nanoplastics (1,000 nm). There is a growing public health concern as these nanoplastics (NPs) make their way into the human body through air, water, food and contact with skin.

A recent study published in ACS ES&T Water has revealed that the already detrimental effects of NPs are further amplified by their ability to interact with various toxic environmental contaminants, such as heavy metal ions.

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Roboticists, from what I’ve seen, are normally a patient bunch. The first Roomba launched more than a decade after its conception, and it took more than 50 years to go from the first robotic arm ever to the millionth in production. Venture capitalists, on the other hand, are not known for such patience.

Perhaps that’s why Bank of America’s new prediction of widespread humanoid adoption was met with enthusiasm by investors but enormous skepticism by roboticists. Aaron Prather, a director at the robotics standards organization ASTM, said on Thursday that the projections were “wildly off-base.”

As we’ve covered before, humanoid hype is a cycle: One slick video raises the expectations of investors, which then incentivizes competitors to make even slicker videos. This makes it quite hard for anyone—a tech journalist, say—to peel back the curtain and find out how much impact humanoids are poised to have on the workforce. But I’ll do my darndest.

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Traditionally, bacterial diseases are diagnosed by the tedious isolation of pathogens and the creation of bacterial cultures. Waiting times of several days are the rule here. Only then can targeted treatment of the disease begin.

Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Imperial College London have developed a new method to identify bacteria with unprecedented speed. This means that the waiting time can be reduced from several days to just a few minutes.

The work is published in the journal Nature Communications.

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Northwestern University Trustee Kimberly K. Querrey (’22, ’23 P) has made a $10 million gift to create and enhance the Querrey Simpson Institute for Regenerative Engineering at Northwestern University (QSI RENU), bringing her total giving to the institute to $35 million. The new institute will advance the development of medical tools that empower the human body to heal, focusing on the regeneration or reconstruction of various tissues and organs, such as the eyes, cartilage, spinal cord, heart, muscle, bone and skin.

The Querrey Simpson Institute for Regenerative Engineering at Northwestern University will advance research to regenerate and reconstruct tissues and organs.

Guillermo Ameer, director of the new Querrey Simpson Institute for Regenerative Engineering at Northwestern University, showcases his bioresorbable bandage, which delivers electrotherapy to wounds, accelerating diabetic ulcer healing and dissolving safely after use. QSI RENU combines engineering, biology, medicine and data science to develop technologies for tissue and organ function.

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