Lifeboat Foundation

Allen Institute working with Baylor on reconstructing neuronal connections.

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) has awarded an $18.7 million contract to the Allen Institute for Brain Science, as part of a larger project with Baylor College of Medicine and Princeton University, to create the largest ever roadmap to understand how the function of networks in the brain’s cortex relates to the underlying connections of its individual neurons.

The project is part of the Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONS) program, which seeks to revolutionize machine learning by reverse-engineering the algorithms of the brain.

Continue reading “IARPA awards $18.7 million contract to Allen Institute to reconstruct neuronal connections” »

The preview image below thanks Robert Bradbury(no not Ray Bradbury) who is no longer with us but you can find his work concerning Matrioshka Brains and he has a great life extension lecture on youtube.

The author greatly appreciates and thanks Robert J. Bradbury for doing the painstaking and often tedious original html coding job for 25 of these papers, among the many linked papers cited on this page.

Last updated on 6 July 2013.

The realities of VR.

NEW YORK, March 7, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Horizon Media, the largest and fastest growing privately held media services agency in the world, announced today its most recent research on consumer interest in virtual reality devices. The research was fielded in Finger on the Pulse, the agency’s proprietary online research community comprised of 3,000 people reflective of the U.S. population, and with the social media expertise of Horizon’s Distillery social intelligence team. The research shows that despite extensive media coverage of Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard and other virtual reality devices, fully two thirds of consumers are unaware of the technology.

Virtual reality – often referred to as “VR” – has been readily embraced by the mainstream media as the shiny, new, technological advancement. Marketers are also understandably excited about the possibilities unleashed by VR technology. But while there is interest among consumers, the survey findings suggest that companies would be well served to walk before they run when incorporating virtual reality activations into marketing plans, at least until the technology reaches greater awareness and scale.

Continue reading “Horizon Media Study Finds Two Thirds of Americans Unaware of Virtual Reality Devices” »

A new study claims chocolate can improve cognitive performance – joining research that indicates it can prevent heart attacks and help you lose weight. But dig a little deeper and all is not what it seems …

I have spent the last 30 years in various aspects of the biopharmaceutical industry, which for the most part has been a very rewarding experience.

However, during this time period, having been immersed many different components of therapeutic development and commercialization, one thing has always bothered me: a wide array of promising research never makes it off the bench to see the translational light of day, and gets lost in the historical scientific archives.

I always believed that scientific progress happened in a very linear narrative, with each new discovery supporting the next, resulting ultimately in an eventual stairway of scientific enlightenment.

Continue reading “Death Reversal — The Reanima Project — Research Whose Time Has Come” »

US Government’s cool $100 mil in brain research. As we have been highlighting over the past couple of months that the US Government’s IARPA and DARPA program’s have and intends to step up their own efforts in BMIs and robotics for the military; I am certain that this research will help their own efforts and progress.

Intelligence project aims to reverse-engineer the brain to find algorithms that allow computers to think more like humans.

By Jordana Cepelewicz on March 8, 2016.

Continue reading “The U.S. Government Launches a $100-Million ‘Apollo Project of the Brain’” »

Virtual and augmented reality is taking giant leaps every day, both in the mainstream and in research labs. In a recent TechEmergence interview, Biomedical Engineer and Founder of g.tec Medical Engineering Christopher Guger said the next big steps will be in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and embodiment.

Image credit: HCI International

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, embodiment is the moment when a person truly “feels” at one with a device controlled by their thoughts, while sensing that device as a part of, or an extension, of themselves. While researchers are taking big strides toward that concept, Guger believes those are only baby steps toward what is to come.

While augmented or virtual reality can take us away for a brief period, Guger said true embodiment will require far more BCI development. There has been a lot of work recently in robotic embodiment using BCI.

Continue reading “When Will Virtual Embodiment Take Shape in Mainstream Society?” »

Cells normally associated with protecting the brain from infection and injury also play an important role in rewiring the connections between nerve cells. And, constant generation of new pathways and networks among brain cells is critical in learning and keeping the mind sharp.

New technique may allow more precise and less invasive study of the brain.

Originally published:

Mar 7 2016 — 11:00am.

Continue reading “Magneto Protein Could Help Magnets Control Brain Circuitry” »