Menu

Blog

Page 11333

Dec 28, 2015

Doing nothing is not OK: A call for change at the FDA

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, innovation

Doing nothing is no longer acceptable. Even the FDA admits the system needs fixing. Stem cell work holds huge potential and needs freedom to test breakthrough therapies that could change medicine forever.

Read more

Dec 28, 2015

Shields up ready for Mars shot

Posted by in category: space

A superconductor that deflects cosmic radiation away from interplanetary spacecraft sounds like science fiction, but it’s on its way to becoming reality. Tim Dean reports.

Read more

Dec 28, 2015

Faster entanglement of distant quantum dots

Posted by in categories: futurism, quantum physics

Entanglement between distant quantum objects is an important ingredient for future information technologies. Researchers at the ETH have now developed a method with which such states can be created a thousand times faster than before.

Read more

Dec 28, 2015

Researchers have figured out how to store the entire Internet in a test tube

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, internet

Engineer Robert Grass says that though we believe information is here forever, it’s actually fragile. Hard drives and physical sources of information, like books, decay over time. In a video for the BBC, Grass describes his quest to find a method of preserving information that could be stable for millions of years. The secret is DNA.

In 2012, research showed that you could translate a megabyte (MB) of information into DNA and then read it back again. DNA has a language of its own, and is written in sequences of nucleotides (A, C, T, and G). Think of it as similar to binary, which breaks information down into ones and zeros.

And DNA has the advantage of being able to put an enormous amount of information in a tiny space. Theoretically, one gram of DNA could hold 455 exabytes of information. That’s “enough for all the data held by Google, Facebook and every other major tech company, with room to spare”, according to New Scientist.

Read more

Dec 27, 2015

British couple celebrate after birth of first cloned puppy of its kind

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

West Yorkshire couple Laura Jacques and Richard Remde enlisted South Korean firm offering dog-cloning service for £67,000.

Read more

Dec 27, 2015

NASA’s next Mars mission has been called off

Posted by in categories: futurism, space travel

A U.S. science satellite slated to launch to Mars in March has been grounded due to a leak in a key research instrument, NASA said on Tuesday, creating uncertainty about the future of a widely anticipated effort to study the interior of the planet.

The spacecraft, known as InSight, was designed to help scientists learn more about the formation of rocky planets, including Earth.

The cancellation raises questions about the future of the research effort, as it will be another two years before Earth and Mars are favourably aligned for a launch. NASA has not said if it will have funding for the program, which was capped at $425 million US.

Read more

Dec 27, 2015

Could Time Travel Soon Become a Reality? Physicists Simulate Sending Quantum light Particles into the Past

Posted by in categories: evolution, particle physics, quantum physics, time travel

If a time traveler went back in time and stopped their own grandparents from meeting, would they prevent their own birth?

That’s the crux of an infamous theory known as the ‘grandfather paradox’, which is often said to mean time travel is impossible — but some researchers think otherwise. A group of scientists have simulated how time-travelling photons might behave, suggesting that, at the quantum level, the grandfather paradox could be resolved.

The research was carried out by a team of researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia and their results are published in the journal Nature Communications. The study used photons — single particles of light — to simulate quantum particles travelling back through time. By studying their behavior, the scientists revealed possible bizarre aspects of modern physics.

Continue reading “Could Time Travel Soon Become a Reality? Physicists Simulate Sending Quantum light Particles into the Past” »

Dec 27, 2015

Transhumanist Party: Immortality would not mean overpopulation

Posted by in categories: geopolitics, life extension, transhumanism

Part 3 in this video series on transhumanism. I talk about the #1 concern I hear about when advocating for overcoming death:


Presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan from the Transhumanist Party speaks to Ellie Zolfagharifard from DailyMail.com.

Read more

Dec 27, 2015

Major Mouse Testing Program

Posted by in category: life extension

An interesting solution to testing combinations of compounds for longevity effects. As we move into implementing multiple approach therapies eg, SENS, which need several interventions we will need ways to measure their efficacy. Good to see people are thinking about this problem already.


Combination testing can it work? One of the MMTP collaborators Josh Mitteldorf suggests a way we might make it work.

http://majormouse.org/?q=node/152

Read more

Dec 27, 2015

‘Writable’ Circuits Could Let Scientists Draw Electronics into Existence

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, electronics, materials, wearables

Scientists have developed a way to produce soft, flexible and stretchy electronic circuits and radio antennas by hand, simply by writing on specially designed sheets of material.

This technique could help people draw electronic devices into existence on demand for customized devices, researchers said in a new study describing the method.

Continue reading “‘Writable’ Circuits Could Let Scientists Draw Electronics into Existence” »