Commentary: These envelope-pushing phones will move everyone forward, but it will be years before they’re fully embraced.
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LG Display is reportedly readying out-foldable OLED panels to go into mass production in 2018. According to Korean news website etnews, the company will work with, and supply to, Apple, Google and Microsoft, as it competes with Samsung in the foldable display market.
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As pubs and bars in the UK get busier in the run up to Christmas, Barclaycard has uncorked a way to reduce the time people spend waiting to be served. Pay @ Pump is a beer pump that allows customers to pour their own pint and pay with a contactless card in as little as a minute.
According to Barclaycard, people spend an average of 12 minutes per order waiting to be served over the Christmas period. The Pay @ Pump system is designed to reduce customer queuing time and speed up service.
“I’m sure everyone has been stuck behind the person who orders the most complicated cocktail on the menu or a round of 10 drinks for their group of friends,” explains Barclaycard’s commercial director for digital consumer payments Tami Hargreaves. “When people told us that waiting time was one of their biggest annoyances, we wanted to help solve a common problem with a simple solution.”
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My new story for New Scientist on robot voting rights. This story came about because of my discussion with Professor Lawrence Lessig on the BBC World Service. To read my article, you may have to sign up for a free New Scientist account (it takes 1 minute). Please do it! It’s an important article. Gerrymandering in the AI and & robot age: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23231043-300-prep…ith-votes/ #transhumanism
If human-like AI comes to fruition then we may have grant voting rights to our silicon equals. Democracy will change forever, says Zoltan Istvan.
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Check out the LEAF interview with Synthetic Biology company CellAge who plan to use their technology to create aging biomarkers for the research community to use for free as well as new approaches to removing senescent cells.
CellAge are using synthetic biology to remove senescent cells that accumulate with age and contribute to disease. We took the time to interview them about their technology, treating age-related diseases and their plans for the future.
You can also check out their campaign on Lifespan.io:
https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/cellage-targeting-senescen…c-biology/
Progress with treating osteoporosis.
A team of scientists at the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) discovered a new bone-forming growth factor, Osteolectin (Clec11a), which reverses osteoporosis in mice and has implications for regenerative medicine.
Although Osteolectin is known to be made by certain bone marrow and bone cells, CRI researchers are the first to show Osteolectin promotes the formation of new bone from skeletal stem cells in the bone marrow. The study, published in eLife, also found that deletion of Osteolectin in mice causes accelerated bone loss during adulthood and symptoms of osteoporosis, such as reduced bone strength and delayed fracture healing.
“These results demonstrate the important role Osteolectin plays in new bone formation and maintaining adult bone mass. This study opens up the possibility of using this growth factor to treat diseases like osteoporosis,” said Dr. Sean Morrison, who led the team that made the discovery. Dr. Morrison, CRI Director, holds the Mary McDermott Cook Chair in Pediatric Genetics at UT Southwestern Medical Center, and the Kathryne and Gene Bishop Distinguished Chair in Pediatric Research at Children’s Research Institute at UT Southwestern.
Zura Kakushadze is lead author of this peer reviewed paper published by the Free University of Tbilisi. It describes an information paradox that arises in a materialist’s description of the Universe—if we assume that the Universe is 100% quantum. The observation of the paradox stems from an interdisciplinary thought process whereby the Universe can be viewed as a “quantum computer”.
The presentation is intentionally nontechnical to make it accessible to a wide a readership.
Dr. Aubrey de Grey on the case again in this amusing video.
Dr. Aubrey de Grey in a new video where people ask questions via Twitter. It is a bit tongue in cheek and sorry about the title but hopefully you will enjoy it,
If you liked this video and agree that eliminating age-related diseases is a good idea please consider visiting our website and making a donation for science on the link below:
An interesting but predictably hyped research study currently doing the rounds. Epigentic changes are one of the Hallmarks of Aging and this study reinforces their importance despite the usual media hype.
Graying hair, crow’s feet, an injury that’s taking longer to heal than when we were 20—faced with the unmistakable signs of aging, most of us have had a least one fantasy of turning back time. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have found that intermittent expression of genes normally associated with an embryonic state can reverse the hallmarks of old age.
This approach, which not only prompted human skin cells in a dish to look and behave young again, also resulted in the rejuvenation of mice with a premature aging disease, countering signs of aging and increasing the animals’ lifespan by 30 percent. The early-stage work provides insight both into the cellular drivers of aging and possible therapeutic approaches for improving human health and longevity.
“Our study shows that aging may not have to proceed in one single direction,” says Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory and senior author of the paper appearing in the December 15, 2016 issue of Cell. “It has plasticity and, with careful modulation, aging might be reversed.”