Lifeboat Foundation

Over the past twenty years, neuroscientists have been quietly building a revolutionary technology called BrainGate that wirelessly connects the human mind to computers and it just hit the world stage. Entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have entered the race with goals of figuring out how to get computer chips into everyone’s brains. The attention of Musk and Zuckerberg means the potential for giant leaps forward. But the question no one seems to be asking is whether our dependence on machines and technology has finally gone too far. Countries annually celebrate their independence from other countries, but it now seems we should start asking deeper questions about our personal independence.

60 Minutes recently ran a piece showing how engineers are using what scientists have learned about the brain to manipulate us into staying perpetually addicted to our smartphones. The anxiety most of us feel when we are away from our phone is real: During the 60 Minutes piece, researchers at California State University Dominguez Hills connected electrodes to reporter Anderson Cooper’s fingers to measure changes in heart rate and perspiration. Then they sent text messages to his phone, which was out of his reach, and watched his anxiety spike with each notification.

The segment revealed that virtually every app on your phone is calibrated to keep you using it as often and as long as possible. The show made an important point: a relatively small number of Silicon Valley engineers are experimenting with, and changing in a significant way, human behavior and brain function. And they’re doing it with little insight into the long-term consequences. It seems the fight for independence has gone digital.

Continue reading “Hacking The Brain: The Future Computer Chips In Your Head” »

We all know the feeling of a mobile phone vibrating in our hands when announcing an incoming call. If we perceive these vibrations so clearly, it is due to specialized receptors that transduce them into neural signals sent to our brain. But how does the latter encode their physical characteristics? To understand this, neuroscientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have observed what happens in the brains of mice whose forepaws perceive vibrations. They discovered that neurons in the somatosensory cortex are activated in a manner similar to those in the sound-reactive auditory cortex. These results, published in the journal Nature, suggest that feeling a phone vibrate or hearing it ring is ultimately based on the same brain codes.

If you place a glass of water on your desk, you can probably see on its surface the concentric oscillatory motions created by the small movements that occur nearby. These oscillations are caused by vibrations that propagate through the floor, desk, glass and all other solid surfaces. These vibrations are also important sensory stimuli that we use to detect, for example, an approaching train or to identify the familiar step of our office neighbor. «We live surrounded by vibrations that are extremely important in how we perceive the world,» explains Daniel Huber at the Department of Basic Neurosciences at the UNIGE Faculty of Medicine, who led this work. «So we wanted to know how the brain perceives and represents them.».

It’s not just that millennials have astonishing facility with computers, taking to every cell phone and software or video game release like birds to the sky. And it is not only that they seem more mechanically adept than other generations, with fine motor skills far beyond those of older people (with their ham-handed, clunky attempts at tiny phone keyboards).

It’s that they seem to be becoming one with the technology.

Anyone who’s ever had to remove a cell phone from beneath a teenager’s bed pillow to allow for a good night’s sleep (uninterrupted by incoming texts and calls) or peel an avid gamer away from the console long enough to eat dinner knows what I’m talking about. The devices are not just tools — they are extensions of young bodies and minds. In fact, according to a recent Nielsen survey, eighty-three percent of Generation Y admit to sleeping with their phones.

Continue reading “Rise of the Machine Empaths” »

We’re used to the security risks posed by someone hacking into our computers, tablets, and smartphones, but what about pacemakers and other implanted medical devices? To help prevent possible murder-by-hacker, engineers at Purdue University have come up with a watch-like device that turns the human body into its own network as a way to keep personal technology private.

The latest Facebook hack should have shown everyone nothing is safe. Researchers have now shown how easy it is to steal data from people doing research.

Engineers at the University of California say they have demonstrated how easy it would be to snoop on biotech companies making synthetic DNAll you need is an audio recording, they say. Place a smartphone near a DNA synthesizer, record the sound, run the recording across algorithms trained to discern the clicks and buzzes that particular machine makes, and you’ll know exactly what combination of DNA building blocks it is generating.

Researchers devise method for snooping on DNA synthesis using acoustic recordings. But is it a real threat?

Continue reading “How to Steal DNA With Sound” »

Scientists in the Emergent Photonics Lab (EPic Lab) at the University of Sussex have made a breakthrough to a crucial element of an atomic clock—devices which could reduce our reliance on satellite mapping in the future—using cutting-edge laser beam technology. Their development greatly improves the efficiency of the lancet (which in a traditional clock is responsible for counting), by 80% — something which scientists around the world have been racing to achieve.

Currently, the UK is reliant on the US and the EU for the satellite mapping that many of us have on our phones and in our cars. That makes us vulnerable not only to the whims of international politics, but also to the availability of satellite signal.

Dr. Alessia Pasquazi from the EPic Lab in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex explains the breakthrough: With a portable atomic clock, an ambulance, for example, will be able to still access their mapping whilst in a tunnel, and a commuter will be able to plan their route whilst on the underground or without mobile phone signal in the countryside. Portable atomic clocks would work on an extremely accurate form of geo-mapping, enabling access to your location and planned route without the need for satellite signal.

Continue reading “Scientists one step closer to a clock that could replace GPS and Galileo” »

There’s no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

The little-known “Significant Locations” list tracks every location you’ve been and how often you go there. But there’s a way to delete your history.

But would you actually want to carry it around?