Lifeboat Foundation

In Brief:

• A new visual implant from SecondSight may help restore useful sight in more than 6 million additional people who aren’t candidates for the company’s previous implant model.
• Recently, there are more options being developed to restore both hearing and sight in affected patients, such technology has the potential to improve the quality of life of countless people.

In Brief:

• Using an advanced supercomputer, scientists came up with a profile for dark matter, concluding that it may be made of axions of a specific type.
• With this new information, the race is on to be the first to prove the existence of dark matter particles.

Understanding what dark matter is has proven to be amazingly difficult. Of course, one might expect this from a thing that is, for all intents and purposes, entirely invisible. Scientists have come to the conclusion that dark matter exists by observing the way gravity behaves—either our model of gravity is in need of an update, or dark matter exists. The latter is the most likely conclusion.

Who would have thought that roaches, that’s right, C-O-C-K-R-O-A-C-H-E–S, could actually do something good for humanity? Well, it seems that they are helping out quite a lot.

Bar-Ilan University scientists, together with the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, designed injectable nanobots, and they are testing them on these little critters. Remarkably, the technology controls the release of drugs that are needed for the brain using the brain itself. That’s right, using only brain power!

And down the road, this extra mind boost could be a lifesaver for many. The work was published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Continue reading “Scientists Made Nanorobots That Can Release Drugs in The Body Using Mind-Control” »

If successful, the cis-lunar space station (a space station in the vicinity of the Moon) will be the largest international space project to date, influencing the direction of human space flight for decades to come.

Here’s my new Vice Motherboard story on my experience running the Transhumanist Party for 2 years, before its leadership changes next week.

Transhumanist Party presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan explains his thoughts on how to move forward.

“A new floating solar photovoltaic system in Singapore is just one hectare in size and is meant as a prototype. But it could help usher in a new wave of PV placements on water resources globally.”

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Engineers from the University of California, San Diego have brought together a couple of nascent technologies that could result in inexpensive and long-lasting electronic devices. The team created a magnetic ink that can print a variety of self-healing components.

The ink is loaded with inexpensive microparticles made of neodymium that are magnetically oriented in such a way that if the material rips, each side of the tear is attracted to the other. This allows components printed with the ink to self-repair tears as wide as 3 mm, which the researchers claim is a new record.

Continue reading “Magnetic ink brings printable and self-healing electronics together” »

A recent study suggested that the total number of unique species that call Earth home may be as mind-bogglingly high as 1 trillion. Granted, the vast majority of those are microscopic organisms, but still, that number makes the Digital Life project’s goal, to make 3D scans of every kind of living animal, sound ridiculously ambitious. Nevertheless, the team believes that digitally preserving the biodiversity of the planet is increasingly important.

To reach that lofty goal, scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are using an array of 30 cameras they call the Beastcam. This contraption is made up of 10 fixed arms with three Canon G16 cameras attached to each one, and a platform in the middle for the subject to sit on, or where that’s not possible, a more portable, handheld version can be passed over the animal to take the shot. All of the cameras take photos of the animal simultaneously, before off-the-shelf software stitches them together into a 3D model.

“We are excited to use the Beastcam technology to preserve the digital heritage of all life on Earth,” says Duncan Irschick, the biologist leading the team. “This will take several lifetimes, but we are thrilled to begin the journey. Digitally preserving the heritage of life on Earth is especially important given the rapid decline of many species, and this technology can recreate organisms in a way that has never been done before.”

“Cancer is a disease of ageing,” Lin, geneticist and president of the Rare Genomics Institute, told the audience at WIRED2016. The World Health Organisation estimates there are about 14 million new cases of cancer every year, and predicts that figure will double by 2050. Currently, eight million people are killed every year by the disease.

By combining early intervention with an understanding of cancer genomics, however, mankind could be on the cusp of fighting cancer effectively and at scale. “We are at the intersection of three of the most exciting revolutions in cancer therapy,” Lin said.