Lifeboat Foundation

If SANTOSH Ostwal and his wife, Rajashree Otswal, were to calculate the number of electricity units saved or the amount of water conserved in terms of money, thanks to their invention, it would be enough to set up a small power plant or building a small dam. The end to a farmer’s daily drudgery and sleepless nights, though, is hard to convert into currency. But then money is something the Ostwal couple have not seen much of in their long journey of taking technology to the farms.

Much before information and communication technology (ICT) for agriculture and rural development became buzzwords and ‘e’ got hyphenated to everything, the Ostwals, both engineers, ventured into wireless irrigation and mobile-to-mobile (M2M) communication systems for agriculture. A remotely controlled pump using the mobile phone and combing it with some clever electronics was the innovation that has made the lives of farmers easier.

The Ostwals’ invention has impacted the lives of four lakh farmers with 50,000 installations in the last 12 years. A smart and affordable device, Nano Ganesh, saves farmers from making treacherous trips in pitch dark to their farms at midnight to access their water pumps and operate them, a daily reality, especially with erratic power supply. When the tired farmer fails to go out and switch off the water pump, there’s wastage of water and electricity. In addition, the excess water damages the soil and crop, hurting them further. If that is not enough, there is the theft of water pumps and cables to be dealt with. These are the problems that the couple set to solve.

Continue reading “Nano Ganesh: How mobile phone tech helped 400,000 Maharashtra farmers water plants remotely” »

Cell powerhouses are typically long and lean, but with brain injury such as stroke or trauma, they can quickly become bloated and dysfunctional, say scientists who documented the phenomena in real time for the first time in a living brain.

The scientists also found that without giving these mitochondria anything but time, they often resume their usual healthy shape once blood and oxygen were restored to mild or moderately damaged tissue, said Dr. Sergei Kirov, neuroscientist in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.

“We believe this is good evidence that mitochondria can recover their normal form following brief periods of ischemia from stroke or trauma and that drugs that enhance their recovery may improve overall recovery from these sorts of brain injuries,” Kirov said.

Continue reading “Brain cell powerhouses appear good treatment target for stroke, TBI recovery” »

The article does bring up many of the same points that many have raised with self driving cars; and folks still don’t seem to understand that we have thousands if not millions of laws in the US alone that must be reviewed and possibly changed to address this technology on the roads. When you look at every state, each county, and each town or city’s laws around driving on their roads; it could be a long and painful period for companies and consumers before the legal side of things catch up.

Self-driving car technology is not yet ready for prime time. Driver assist is.

The Legal challenges and potential liability are immense.

Continue reading “Self-Driving Cars Will Fail” »

Another difference between normal and abnormal cells — cancer cells can continue to grow despite damage to cell structures and changes in the number of chromosomes.

Scientists have uncovered how tumours are able to grow despite significant damage to the structure and number of their chromosomes — the storage units of DNA — according to two new studies published in Cancer Cell and Cancer Discovery today.

“We hope that understanding these mechanisms will allow us to limit drug resistance and improve the efficacy of cancer therapies.” - Professor Charles Swanton

Continue reading “Researchers reveal how cancer cells cope with genetic chaos” »

Scientists identify the physical connection through which the prefrontal cortex inhibits instinctive behavior

From fighting the urge to hit someone to resisting the temptation to run off stage instead of giving that public speech, we are often confronted with situations where we have to curb our instincts. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have traced exactly which neuronal projections prevent social animals like us from acting out such impulses. The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, could have implications for schizophrenia and mood disorders like depression.

Continue reading “Neural connection keeps instincts in check” »

Is the time we experience in our day-to-day lives real? Here, theoretical physicist Brian Green explores the potential particles of time and why we could, in theory, travel forward in time but not back.

A Japanese company is laying off 34 workers and replacing them with artificial intelligence based on IBM’s Watson Explorer. While advancing automation may be helpful in alleviating Japan’s aging and declining population, what does this mean for other workers across the globe?

Researchers have identified a drug that can regenerate teeth from the inside out, possibly reducing the need for artificial fillings.

The drug was previously used in Alzheimer’s clinical trials, and it now appears to improve the tooth’s natural ability to heal itself. It works by activating stem cells inside the tooth’s pulp centre, prompting the damaged area to regenerate the hard dentin material that makes up the majority of a tooth.

“The simplicity of our approach makes it ideal as a clinical dental product for the natural treatment of large cavities, by providing both pulp protection and restoring dentine,” said lead author Paul Sharpe from King’s College London.

Continue reading “Scientists Have Found a Drug That Regenerates Teeth, and It Could Reduce the Need for Fillings” »

In late 2015, iPhone and PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz teased a project that sounded like a dream: his new company would produce a $1,000 consumer product that could grant your car semi-autonomous capabilities. Eleven months and one terse letter from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration later, Hotz killed the project.

About a month after that, Hotz resurrected it as a two open-source efforts, splitting the hardware and software of the self-driving tech he had created with the rest of his company, Comma.ai. Hotz always talked like he wanted to start a DIY car revolution to take on the car industry (and Elon Musk especially). Open sourcing the plans only increased the chances of it happening.