Lifeboat Foundation

Inspired by the comic book character Wolverine, scientists have developed a self-healing, highly stretchable, transparent material that can be used to power artificial muscles.

The end product is a soft, rubber-like material that’s easy to produce at low cost. It can stretch to 50 times its original length, and can heal itself from a scissor cut in the space of 24 hours at room temperature.

Continue reading “This New Self-Healing, Stretchable Material Is Perfect for Wolverine” »

The gene drive is quickly becoming one of the most controversial technologies of our time. Its possibilities are at once spectacular and alarming: by using genetic engineering to override natural selection during reproduction, a gene drive could allow scientists to alter the genetic makeup of an entire species. This could be used to eliminate diseases and protect natural habitats —but could also go horribly wrong in the wrong hands.

Valery Spiridonov will use a virtual reality system to prepare for the shock of looking down and seeing someone else’s body.

A version of this piece appears on the Sociological Imagination website

Twenty years ago Theodore Kaczynski, a Harvard-trained maths prodigy obsessed with technology’s destruction of nature, was given eight consecutive life sentences for sending letter bombs in the US post which killed three people and injured 23 others. Generally known as the ‘Unabomber’, he remains in a supermax prison in Colorado to this day.

It is perhaps easy to forget the sway that the Unabomber held on American society in the mid-1990s. Kaczynski managed to get a 35,000 word manifesto called ‘Industrial Society and Its Future’ published in both The New York Times and The Washington Post. It is arguably the most famous and influential statement of neo-Luddite philosophy and politics to this day. Now he is back with a new book, Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How.

Continue reading “Does the Unabomber Have a More Realistic Sense of Today's Existential Risks?” »

Imagine farming your very own greens in a mini farm, inside your home! www.cenews.tv

Good Morning, People of the Page. Thanks to fellow writer Bruce P. Grether for this story about solar power. And also, thank you, Bruce, for all your wonderful posts to the page, especially in the last few days…the posts you’ve been making in your travels. Much appreciated.

In Brief

• A study of 36 patients with brainstem lesions revealed that the majority of those in comas had damage in a specific area of the brainstem, while most conscious patients did not.
• The identification of the areas of the brain responsible for consciousness could lead to new treatment options for patients in comas or vegetative states.

Human consciousness has been defined as awareness, sentience, a person’s ability to experience and feel, but despite the important role it plays in our lives and making us who we are, we actually know very little about how consciousness works.

Scientists currently believe that consciousness is composed of two components: arousal and awareness. The first is regulated by the brainstem, but the physical origins of the latter were always a mystery. Now, a team of researchers at Harvard think they may have discovered the regions of the brain that work with the brainstem to maintain consciousness.

Continue reading “Harvard May Have Pinpointed the Source of Human Consciousness” »

Speculation on 3D printed tissue coming to humans sooner than we think is backed by new pre-clinical findings from 3D bioprinting company Organovo (NASDAQ: ONVO). Though it will still be 3 – 5 years before the U.S. based Organovo apply for clearance of their liver tissue, that is still sooner than perhaps even the FDA had in mind.

Pre-clinical trial data shows that 3D bioprinted liver tissue has been successfully planted into lab-bred mice. The human liver-cell tissue shows regular functionality and, at this stage, is being explored as a suitable patch for the organ.

Asteroid mining is the new Wild West, and the resources hidden in asteroids, potentially worth trillions, are available to whomever can get there first.