The result was a bizarre, Lego-like human tissue that replicates the basic circuits behind how we decide to move. Without external prompting, when churned together like ice cream, the three ingredients physically linked up into a fully functional circuit. The 3D mini-brain, through the information highway formed by the artificial spinal cord, was able to make the lab-grown muscle twitch on demand.
In other words, if you think isolated mini-brains—known formally as brain organoids—floating in a jar is creepy, upgrade your nightmares. The next big thing in probing the brain is assembloids—free-floating brain circuits—that now combine brain tissue with an external output.
The end goal isn’t to freak people out. Rather, it’s to recapitulate our nervous system, from input to output, inside the controlled environment of a Petri dish. An autonomous, living brain-spinal cord-muscle entity is an invaluable model for figuring out how our own brains direct the intricate muscle movements that allow us stay upright, walk, or type on a keyboard.
The Federal Aviation Administration has released new and looser rules for flying drones over highly populated areas and at night, effectively laying a welcome mat for future aerial deliveries of takeout food, Amazon packages, prescription drugs — you name it.
Why it matters: While the prospect of Jetsons-style convenience with less street gridlock is tantalizing, there are still plenty of logistical hurdles, and it will take some time for cities to figure out how to manage low-altitude air traffic as routinely as they do today’s road traffic.
Driving the news: FAA rules — handed down late last month — will require drones flying over cities to use remote identification technology, so people on the ground can tell what they’re doing and who owns them.
It can be done. And it can be done sooner than many realise…even within YOUR lifetime. Imagine… Reaching triple digits with the health, fitness and body of an athletic 30 year old… It is entirely within reach now, it may be even less than a decade away. All we need to do is repair the damage that living and our metabolism create, it is slowly accumulating, which is why it takes 7 or 8 decades to rear its ugly head in most people, so one treatment should keep things under control for many years, and by then science will have advanced immeasurably, improving the treatments to whole new levels… Then you can dream of reaching 4 digits…then 5…then 6… BUT You need to stay in good enough shape to last long enough to see the treatments perfected and available. So watch your diet, your mental and physical health, your weight, and look to use occasional fasting, and time restricted eating, along with saunas and cold showers (or any hot/cold therapy), etc., to keep yourself at your optimum until that days arrives. If you want to know more, then this video breaks it down into even more detail. Have a great day and enjoy your journey into the future…
In a roadmap to end aging — understand the hallmarks to change your direction.
Getting old, grey hair, wrinkles, less strength, fragile bones, slower healing… And these are just the visible obvious factors, a slow continual decline towards your final grave. But if you know what is at fault, you can start to make lifestyle changes to alter their trajectory. Watch this video on Stress to find out more about what you can do and why it works https://youtu.be/s17UP_Ia4pQ And we do not only know what is happening, we also have some very good ideas of how to reverse, or at least, slow their decline whilst science works on real solutions. So, this will show you what the problems are, and then we shall start looking at what YOU can do to turn back the clock. With an aging population the benefits of more living their extended years in good health and able to lead whatever lifestyle they desire, is taking on ever more importance. Once you understand the mechanisms and follow the processes you will be able to build a better lifestyle aimed at a long and enjoyable existence. What are you actively doing to extend your healthspan? And these are just the visible obvious factors, a slow continual decline towards your final grave.
But if you know what is at fault, you can start to make lifestyle changes to alter their trajectory.
Watch this video on Stress to find out more about what you can do and why it works.
Review: Meat Planet (2019) by Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft
In the words of the book’s author, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food (2019) is “not an attempt at prediction but rather a study of cultured meat as a special case of speculation on the future of food, and as a lens through which to view the predictions we make about how technology changes the world.” While not serving as some crystal ball to tell us the future of food, Wurgaft’s book certainly does serve as a kind of lens.
Our very appetites are questioned quite a bit in the book. Wondering about the ever-changing history of food, the author asks, “Will it be an effort to reproduce the industrial meat forms we know, albeit on a novel, and more ethical and sustainable, foundation?” Questioning why hamburgers are automatically the default goal, he points out cultured meat advocates should carefully consider “the question of which human appetite for meat, in historical terms, they wish to satisfy.”
Wurgaft’s question of “which human appetite” – past, present, or future – is an excellent one. If we use his book as a lens to observe other emerging technologies, the question extends well beyond our choices of food. It could even have direct implications for such endeavours as radical life extension. Will we, if we extend our lifetimes, be satisfactory to future people? We already know the kind of clash that persists between different generations, and the blame we often place on previous generations for current social ills, without there also being a group of people who simply refuse to die. We should be wary of basing our future on the present – of attempting to preserve present tastes as somehow immutable and deserving immortality. This may be a problem such futurists as Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Near (2005) need to respond to.
Dr. Halima Benbouza is an Algerian scientist in the field of agronomic sciences and biological engineering.
She received her doctorate in 2004 from the University Agro BioTech Gembloux, Belgium studying Plant Breeding and Genetics and was offered a postdoctoral position to work on a collaborative project with the Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture in Stoneville, Mississippi.
Subsequently, Dr. Benbouza was funded by Dow Agro Science to study Fusarium wilt resistance in cotton. In 2009 she was awarded the Special Prize Eric Daugimont et Dominique Van der Rest by the University Agro BioTech Gembloux, Belgium.
Dr. Benbouza is Professor at Batna 1 University where she teaches graduate and postgraduate students in the Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Agronomy. She also supervises Master’s and PhD students.
From 2010–2016, Dr. Benbouza served as inaugural Director of the Biotechnology Research Center (CRBt) in Constantine, appointed by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. In 2011, she was appointed by the Algerian government as President of the Intersectoral Commission of Health and Life Sciences. Dr. Benbouza is a member of the Algerian National Council for Research Evaluation and a past member of the Sectorial Permanent Board of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
In 2013, Dr. Benbouza was appointed by the Prime Minister as President of the steering committee of Algeria’s Biotech Pharma project. In 2014 she was honored by the US Embassy in Algiers as one of the “Women in Science Hall of Fame” for her research achievements and her outstanding contribution to promote research activities and advance science in her country.
The future is someone else’s problem. Tomorrow is just another day.
This is all well and good to think, but if we want to live a long, healthy life, then we ALL need to work to make tomorrow a better day…
Or we could just let Mad Max, Handmaid’s Tale, 1984, Animal Farm, etc., come to pass…anr then we can all moan about it as we are living in a nightmare…
Does it have to be that way?
I will look at where we are today and what we need to change as we seek to design a better life and a better world, so together, we can build a better future.
Invasive round goby fish have impacted fisheries in the Great Lakes and the Finger Lakes by competing with native species and eating the eggs of some species of game fish.
But the camouflaged bottom dwellers can be difficult to find and collect—especially when they first enter a new body of water and their numbers are low and they might be easier to remove.
In a proof-of-principle study, Cornell researchers describe a new technique in which they analyzed environmental DNA—or eDNA—from water samples in Cayuga Lake to gather nuanced information about the presence of these invasive fish.
New program aims to build and demonstrate ruggedized device for tactical applications.
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Linear accelerators, LINACs for short, are devices that accelerate electrons or other sub-atomic particles along a straight line to generate a beam of high energy. LINACs have a variety of commercial uses such as generating X-rays for cargo inspection, medical diagnostics, food sterilization, and even enabling precise external radiation treatments to destroy cancer cells without damaging surrounding tissue. To generate more powerful electron beams using current technology, however, requires building larger LINACs that can grow to dozens of meters or longer depending on the application. Unfortunately, powerful LINACs are too large and heavy to be practical for military use in the field.
DARPA has announced its Advanced Concept Compact Electron Linear-accelerator (ACCEL) program whose goal is to develop a powerful, deployable electron LINAC. A webinar Proposers Day for potential proposers is scheduled for January 282021.
“A high-power compact, rugged accelerator that could be transported by truck or aircraft to austere locations would provide multiple defense and homeland security benefits,” said Col. Dan “Animal” Javorsek, ACCEL program manager. “It could be used for medical treatments in locales without advanced hospitals, remote detonation of Improvised Explosive Devices, and mobile imaging or inspection of shipping containers’ contents to counter chem-bio and radiological threats. A deployable LINAC could also enable portable sterilization for foods and surfaces to prevent contamination and infection in deployed environments.”
Samsung’s Bot Handy has a robotic arm that can pick up laundry, load the dishwasher, set the table, pour wine, and bring you a drink. The robot is still in development.
