Lifeboat News: The Blog https://lifeboat.com/blog Safeguarding Humanity Sun, 20 Jul 2025 07:06:11 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 PAPO: Perception-Aware Policy Optimization for Multimodal Reasoning https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/papo-perception-aware-policy-optimization-for-multimodal-reasoning https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/papo-perception-aware-policy-optimization-for-multimodal-reasoning#respond Sun, 20 Jul 2025 07:06:11 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/papo-perception-aware-policy-optimization-for-multimodal-reasoning

Suppose you’re trying to solve a puzzle that includes both words and pictures — like reading a comic strip and figuring out what happens next. That’s the kind of challenge today’s AI faces in “multimodal reasoning,” where it must understand both text and images to think and respond accurately.

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Could Down syndrome be eliminated? Scientists say cutting-edge gene editing tool could cut out extra chromosome https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/could-down-syndrome-be-eliminated-scientists-say-cutting-edge-gene-editing-tool-could-cut-out-extra-chromosome https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/could-down-syndrome-be-eliminated-scientists-say-cutting-edge-gene-editing-tool-could-cut-out-extra-chromosome#respond Sun, 20 Jul 2025 07:05:09 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/could-down-syndrome-be-eliminated-scientists-say-cutting-edge-gene-editing-tool-could-cut-out-extra-chromosome

A new study reveals how CRISPR gene editing could potentially eradicate Down syndrome.

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OpenAI just won gold at the world’s most prestigious math competition. Here’s why that’s a big deal https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/openai-just-won-gold-at-the-worlds-most-prestigious-math-competition-heres-why-thats-a-big-deal https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/openai-just-won-gold-at-the-worlds-most-prestigious-math-competition-heres-why-thats-a-big-deal#respond Sun, 20 Jul 2025 07:03:46 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/openai-just-won-gold-at-the-worlds-most-prestigious-math-competition-heres-why-thats-a-big-deal

An experimental LLM from OpenAI solved some of the world’s hardest math problems at the 2025 International Math Olympiad, the company said.

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Goodbye to gravity as we know it — Quantum wave makes spacetime tremble https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/goodbye-to-gravity-as-we-know-it-quantum-wave-makes-spacetime-tremble https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/goodbye-to-gravity-as-we-know-it-quantum-wave-makes-spacetime-tremble#respond Sun, 20 Jul 2025 07:03:19 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/goodbye-to-gravity-as-we-know-it-quantum-wave-makes-spacetime-tremble

Gravity is normal on Earth, but out there it plays a deeper role. If a cosmic body is massive enough, it could bend the spacetime and cause distortions.

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‘Junk DNA’ is not actually junk, it’s found to play a powerful role in the human body https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/junk-dna-is-not-actually-junk-its-found-to-play-a-powerful-role-in-the-human-body https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/junk-dna-is-not-actually-junk-its-found-to-play-a-powerful-role-in-the-human-body#respond Sun, 20 Jul 2025 07:03:06 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/junk-dna-is-not-actually-junk-its-found-to-play-a-powerful-role-in-the-human-body

Scientists discovered that ancient viral DNA sequences called MER11, once dismissed as genetic junk, actually act as important gene switches.

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Undruggable ‘disordered’ proteins become druggable with new AI techniques from David Baker https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/undruggable-disordered-proteins-become-druggable-with-new-ai-techniques-from-david-baker https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/undruggable-disordered-proteins-become-druggable-with-new-ai-techniques-from-david-baker#respond Sun, 20 Jul 2025 07:02:48 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/undruggable-disordered-proteins-become-druggable-with-new-ai-techniques-from-david-baker

In a new study, Nobel laureate David Baker and colleagues detail new methods for targeting undruggable “disordered” proteins.

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Molecular Decrowding by Tissue Expansion Allows Precise Determination of the Spatial Distribution of Synaptic Proteins at a Nanometer Scale by exTEM https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/molecular-decrowding-by-tissue-expansion-allows-precise-determination-of-the-spatial-distribution-of-synaptic-proteins-at-a-nanometer-scale-by-extem https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/molecular-decrowding-by-tissue-expansion-allows-precise-determination-of-the-spatial-distribution-of-synaptic-proteins-at-a-nanometer-scale-by-extem#respond Sun, 20 Jul 2025 03:09:24 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/molecular-decrowding-by-tissue-expansion-allows-precise-determination-of-the-spatial-distribution-of-synaptic-proteins-at-a-nanometer-scale-by-extem

To understand how the molecular machinery of synapses works, it is essential to determine an inventory of synaptic proteins at a subsynaptic resolution. Nevertheless, synaptic proteins are difficult to localize because of the low expression levels and limited access to immunostaining epitopes. Here, we report on the exTEM (epitope-exposed by expansion-transmission electron microscopy) method that enables the imaging of synaptic proteins in situ. This method combines TEM with nanoscale resolution and expandable tissue-hydrogel hybrids for enhanced immunolabeling with better epitope accessibility via molecular decrowding, allowing successful probing of the distribution of various synapse-organizing proteins. We propose that exTEM can be employed for studying the mechanisms underlying the regulation of synaptic architecture and function by providing nanoscale molecular distribution of synaptic proteins in situ. We also envision that exTEM is widely applicable for investigating protein nanostructures located in densely packed environments by immunostaining of commercially available antibodies at nanometer resolution.

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Lipid nanoparticle screening in nonhuman primates with minimal loss of life https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/lipid-nanoparticle-screening-in-nonhuman-primates-with-minimal-loss-of-life https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/lipid-nanoparticle-screening-in-nonhuman-primates-with-minimal-loss-of-life#respond Sun, 20 Jul 2025 03:08:05 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/lipid-nanoparticle-screening-in-nonhuman-primates-with-minimal-loss-of-life

End-of-life nonhuman primates can be used to screen pools of lipid nanoparticles for clinical safety studies.

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Better antibodies by engineering targets, not engineering antibodies (Nabla Bio) https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/better-antibodies-by-engineering-targets-not-engineering-antibodies-nabla-bio https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/better-antibodies-by-engineering-targets-not-engineering-antibodies-nabla-bio#respond Sun, 20 Jul 2025 03:07:42 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/better-antibodies-by-engineering-targets-not-engineering-antibodies-nabla-bio

4k words, 19 minutes reading time

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“R&D” Means Something Different on Capitol Hill https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/rd-means-something-different-on-capitol-hill https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/rd-means-something-different-on-capitol-hill#respond Sun, 20 Jul 2025 03:07:12 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/07/rd-means-something-different-on-capitol-hill

Scientists need to learn how information flows to congressional staffers—and the crucial role they play in setting policy.

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