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Jan 16, 2017

Trust me, I’m a “Biologist” joins forces with LEAF

Posted by in category: lifeboat

Trust me, I’m a “Biologist” joins the Lifespan Network and joins Lifeboat Foundation in our cause.


We are pleased to announce Trust me, I’m a “Biologist” has joined the Lifespan Network bigsmile

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Jan 16, 2017

World’s eight richest people have same wealth as poorest 50%

Posted by in category: economics

Last year, Oxfam said the world’s 62 richest billionaires were as wealthy as half the world’s population. However, the number has dropped to eight in 2017 because new information shows that poverty in China and India is worse than previously thought, making the bottom 50% even worse off and widening the gap between rich and poor.


The world’s eight richest billionaires control the same wealth between them as the poorest half of the globe’s population, according to a charity warning of an ever-increasing and dangerous concentration of wealth.

In a report published to coincide with the start of the week-long World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam said it was “beyond grotesque” that a handful of rich men headed by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates are worth $426bn (£350bn), equivalent to the wealth of 3.6 billion people.

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Jan 16, 2017

Flatworms lose their heads but not their memories

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, life extension

(Phys.org) —Tufts University biologists using new, automated training and testing techniques have found that planarian flatworms store memory outside their brains and, if their heads are removed, can apparently imprint these memories on their new brains during regeneration.

The work, published online in the Journal of Experimental Biology, can help unlock the secrets of how memories can be encoded in living tissues, noted Michael Levin, Ph.D., Vannevar Bush professor of biology at Tufts and senior author on the paper.

“As and biomedicine advance, there’s a great need to better understand the dynamics of memory and the brain-body interface. For example, what will happen to stored memory if we replace big portions of aging brains with the progeny of fresh ?” said Levin, who directs the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology in Tufts’ School of Arts and Sciences.

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Jan 16, 2017

Number of New Patent Cases in the US Fell 25% Last Year, Thanks in Part to the Demise of Software Patent Trolls

Posted by in category: law

Hmmm; maybe it also that folks are tired of dealing with the patent process that is extremely costly by the time your patent is approved; not to mention the time to push things through.


Litigation and prosecutions that rely on patents (failure to resolve disputes, e.g. by sharing ideas, out of court) is down very sharply, in part because firms that make nothing at all (just threaten and/or litigate) have been sinking after much-needed reform.

The past half a decade saw gradual improvement in assessment of patents in the United States, but there is a growing threat and pressure from the patent microcosm to restore patent maximalism and chaos.

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Jan 16, 2017

The weird and spooky stories told by people who explored the internet’s hidden websites

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, internet

The “Dark Web” is a hidden corner of the internet that is home to many things people want to keep in the shadows: drugs, counterfeits, stolen items, and so on.

But there are also far stranger elements.

A popular thread on Reddit once asked the simple question, “What’s your Deep Web story?” In other words, the Reddit user was asking people to share any weird experiences they had encountered while using anonymous web services to access secret websites.

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Jan 16, 2017

Ohio Prepares for Autonomous Cars Without Spending a Dollar

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Without driverless cars, new laws meant to increase traffic flow could cost drivers their lives.

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Jan 16, 2017

Scientists snap mice brains, making them killing machines

Posted by in category: genetics

Hmmm; not sure that I like what they did here.


The behavior didn’t occur when they stimulated the mice’s other brain parts. It’s a mechanism common to all higher animals, including humans.

The researchers expected to find these hunting circuits in mice because many mice kill and eat insects. The study relied on the technique optogenetics, in which neurons can be artificially activated using light, effectively allowing scientists to switch the killer instinct on and off at will.

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Jan 16, 2017

Teleport Brain Control

Posted by in categories: education, internet, mobile phones, robotics/AI

http://aubot.com/

Teleport is a telepresence robot that can be used by people with a disability to attend school or work remotely. It can be controlled using an internet browser, Android phone, and now brain control.

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Jan 16, 2017

Could you recruit a ‘mind reader’ for Facebook?

Posted by in categories: computing, neuroscience

Many who worked closely with me at Microsoft use to say I had a Crystal ball and was psychic; maybe I have met my match for a career — LOL.


A number of job adverts suggest that Facebook is taking social networking to a different level of science fiction.

The social networking giant has advertised for a Haptics Engineer, a Neural Imaging Engineer, a Signal Processing Engineer and a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Engineer – leading people to think Facebook is working on mind reading technology.

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Jan 16, 2017

DARPA’s Latest Tech May Make Human Pilots a Thing of the Past

Posted by in categories: military, robotics/AI

That’s been the plan for a while.


The Pentagon’s Defense Advance Research Project Agency (DARPA), the agency responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military, has facilitated the development of a robotic system to take over flying duties from military pilots. According to DARPA, the program, known as Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) was to produce “a tailorable, drop-in, removable kit that would promote the addition of high levels of automation into existing aircraft, enabling operation with reduced onboard crew.”

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