Lifeboat Foundation

Canada’s federal government believes that ‘regenerative medicine is the future,’ and they’re ready to put money behind this statement.

Stem cells are remarkable. They have the ability to grow into a plethora of different kinds of cells. As the National Institute of Health notes, they are capable of “dividing essentially without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive.” And it is precisely this ability to grow and develop into different cell types that makes stem cells so useful in the fight again a host of diseases and ailments.

Now, Canada’s newly appointed Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has just announced that the federal government is set to put in $20 million towards the development of the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine. The move is set to support the establishment of a stem-cell therapy development facility in Toronto.

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My latest article for Vice Motherboard. It’s on why I dislike sleeping and how we can get rid of it:

Sleeping is probably the most wasteful thing all humans do.

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Nice venture for GeckoSystems; this is their 2nd venture with another Japanese robotics company in less than 12 months.

Invitation to Japan next month from company’s CEO

CONYERS, GA / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2016 / GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. (OTC: GOSY) announced that its CEO, Martin Spencer, has been invited by the CEO of a prominent Japanese robotics company to meet for the purpose of signing a joint venture agreement. For over eighteen years GeckoSystems has dedicated itself to development of “AI Mobile Robot Solutions for Safety, Security and Service™.”

“I am pleased to report that due to the continued hard work of one of our Japanese representatives, Mr. Fujii Katsuji, we have again achieved demonstrable progress securing viable joint ventures in Japan. This latest, one of several joint ventures being entertained, is particularly significant due to the breadth and depth of the robotics expertise of this company and their insistence we meet them next month in Japan to sign the JV agreement,” commented Spencer.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=hWUqZmDBJLc

Insilico Medicine utilizing high-performance computing to combat aging and age-related diseases selected for NVIDIA GTC Contest Finals.

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WhatsApp is dropping its subscription fees to access the popular messaging service. WhatsApp introduced the fees a few years ago, forcing new users to pay an annual 99 cents subscription after the first year. “As we’ve grown, we’ve found that this approach hasn’t worked well,” admits WhatsApp in a company blog post today.

“Many WhatsApp users don’t have a debit or credit card number and they worried they’d lose access to their friends and family after their first year. So over the next several weeks, we’ll remove fees from the different versions of our app and WhatsApp will no longer charge you for our service.”

If you’ve been using WhatsApp for the six years it has been available then you’ve probably never experienced the subscription fees. Most original users were granted a free lifetime service, but in recent years the company introduced its subscription to new users. Recode reports that if you’ve already paid the 99 cents for the year then there won’t be a refund, but subscription fees will cease immediately.

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The material to create space elevators will be developed by 2030, enabling a new golden age of space travel, according to a study published in the journal New Space.

“The material needed to have a 100,000 km rope will become real before 2030 and enable the creation of this low-cost access to space,” wrote Cathy W Swan, of SouthWest Analytic Network, Peter A Swan and John M Knapman, of the International Space Elevator Consortium, and David I Raitt, retired from the European Space Agency.

A space elevator would make launching people, satellites and craft into geostationary orbit dramatically cheaper than at present, with the researchers estimating it would drop from the current prices of $25,000 per kg for commercial launches and $40,000 per kg for governmental launches to $100 per kg for materials.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTc-6JPF9o0

A robot ethicist is going after sex robots, saying that banning them is important if you care about real relationships. Dr. Kathleen Richardson claims that men will prefer the robots and that real women will become obsolete. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian (The Point) hosts of The Young Turks discuss.

Would you buy a sex robot? Can it replace a real person? Let us know in the comments below.

Continue reading “Will Sex Robots Make Real Women Obsolete?” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZwSwZ2Y0Ops

Here are 18 predictions that finally came true in 2015, from an actual working hoverboard to cyborgised brains.

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“Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who lived aboard the International Space Station from 2012 to 2013, recently explained to CBC Music how difficult it was to play guitar in space, along with some pointers for future space musicians.”

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