Lifeboat Foundation

The assembly of the gorilla genome was announced today, March 7, by a multi-national group of researchers. The gorilla is the last genus of the living great apes to have its genome decoded. While confirming that our closest relative is the chimpanzee, the team showed that much of the human genome more closely resembles the gorilla than it does the chimpanzee genome.

This is the first time scientists have been able to compare the genomes of all four living great apes: humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. This study provides a new perspective on human origins and is an important resource for research into human evolution and biology, as well as for gorilla biology and conservation.

Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom lead the study, with contributions from several other institutions, including the University of Washington.

Geneticists exploring the dark heart of the human genome have discovered big chunks of Neanderthal and other ancient DNA. The results open new ways to study both how chromosomes behave during cell division and how they have changed during human evolution.

Centromeres sit in the middle of chromosomes, the pinched-in “waist” in the image of a chromosome from a biology textbook. The centromere anchors the fibers that pull chromosomes apart when cells divide, which means they are really important for understanding what happens when cell division goes wrong, leading to cancer or genetic defects.

But the DNA of centromeres contains lots of repeating sequences, and scientists have been unable to properly map this region.

Mechanics study boosts our understanding tumour evolution.

Russia’s beleaguered space science program is hoping for a rare triumph this month. Spektr-RG, an x-ray satellite to be launched on 21 June from Kazakhstan, aims to map all of the estimated 100,000 galaxy clusters that can be seen across the universe. Containing as many as 1000 galaxies and the mass of 1 million billion suns, the clusters are the largest structures bound by gravity in the universe. Surveying them should shed light on the evolution of the universe and the nature of the dark energy that is accelerating its expansion.

Spektr-RG x-ray mission will be nation’s only space observatory.

Sea squirts use stem cells to regenerate their bodies from nothing but fragments of blood vessel, a finding that could help uncover the evolution of regeneration.

Objective reality is merely a pattern that a mind constructs because it provides a useful simplified explanatory scaffolding of the long series of subjectively perceived moments stored in its memory. Think about it when the next time you come across these overloaded terms ‘objective reality’ and ‘objectivity’ – to be precise, they mean ‘intersubjectivity’ instead: Termites would never comprehend chess, for example, this human abstraction lies beyond their species-specific intersubjective mind-network. Apart from inter-species levels of abstractions we should consider psychological, cultural and linguistic differences between individuals of the same species that makes objectivity simply non-existent. We can still use ‘objective reality’, ‘objectivity’ or ‘objectively’ colloquially but we should bear in mind that in a deeper sense these terms are no more than colorful misnomers. https://www.ecstadelic.net/top-stories/what-we-call-objectiv…ally-exist #ObjectivityMyth

We can’t help but anthropomorphize the notion of objective reality. As I make my case in the new 2019 book, The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution , objective reality does not exist, what exists instead is subjectivity, intersubjectivity (or “consensus” reality) and supersubjectivity (overmind, The Omega Hypermind in the book). This extraordinary claim apparently demands an explanation, so let’s get to it.

In quantum physics, measurements can fundamentally yield discrete and random results. Emblematic of this feature is Bohr’s 1913 proposal of quantum jumps between two discrete energy levels of an atom. Experimentally, quantum jumps were first observed in an atomic ion driven by a weak deterministic force while under strong continuous energy measurement^2,3,4. The times at which the discontinuous jump transitions occur are reputed to be fundamentally unpredictable. Despite the non-deterministic character of quantum physics, is it possible to know if a quantum jump is about to occur? Here we answer this question affirmatively: we experimentally demonstrate that the jump from the ground state to an excited state of a superconducting artificial three-level atom can be tracked as it follows a predictable ‘flight’, by monitoring the population of an auxiliary energy level coupled to the ground state. The experimental results demonstrate that the evolution of each completed jump is continuous, coherent and deterministic. We exploit these features, using real-time monitoring and feedback, to catch and reverse quantum jumps mid-flight—thus deterministically preventing their completion. Our findings, which agree with theoretical predictions essentially without adjustable parameters, support the modern quantum trajectory theory^5,6,7,8,9 and should provide new ground for the exploration of real-time intervention techniques in the control of quantum systems, such as the early detection of error syndromes in quantum error correction.

This paper analyses the evolution of the institution of patent by examining the normative meaning of business method patents. A business method is defined as a process of converting abstract data to useful information, to be applied in business activities. A business method patent is a patent whose claims are directed to a business method, regardless of the claim format. In recent years, the patenting of business methods in the US, Japan and in Europe has generated a global claim of controversy. Business method patenting is often seen as an example of subject matter expansion, by which process the institution of patent accommodates challenges brought forth by the increased quantity of potential subject matter. As the subject matter expansion begs the question of what is the proper boundary of the patent law, this paper attempts to answer this question by examining relevant statutes and cases, the administrative examination guidelines of the patent offices, and the claims of business method patents issued in Japan, the US and Europe. Specifically, the thesis questions whether business method patenting signifies something more than a mere accretion of a subject matter, and is a reconfiguration of patent eligible subject matter; and whether this can be justified with the instrumentalism. The paper suggests that to include business methods as a patent-eligible subject matter, courts and patent offices in the US, Japan and Europe have commonly redefined the meaning of invention of technology, from the context of physical instantiation, i.e., physical transformation, to the level of conceptual instantiation, i.e., useful information. Although they are varying in their extensiveness, as a result, the practical definitions of patent-eligible subject matter in all three regions, understood from the issued patents, court decisions and examination guidelines, reflects this change. This thesis argues that this could signify the reconfiguration of patent-eligible subject matter.

More often than not, we fall into the trap of trying to predict and anticipate the future, forgetting that the future is up to us to envision and create. In the words of Buckminster Fuller, “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”

But how, exactly, do we create a “good” future? What does such a future look like to begin with?

In Future Consciousness: The Path to Purposeful Evolution, Tom Lombardo analytically deconstructs how we can flourish in the flow of evolution and create a prosperous future for humanity. Scientifically informed, the books taps into themes that are constructive and profound, from both eastern and western philosophies.

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