Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Wait until you see how Quantum bio is applied in Biosecurity.

By guest author Devang Mehta

The world in 1918 was emerging from under the pall of a World War that had claimed 38 million lives, and yet in the span of only one year, just as many lives would be lost to the Spanish Flu — an influenza pandemic that is still regarded the single deadliest epidemic in recorded history. The disease reached all corners of the world, from the Antipodes to Europe and Asia, eventually claiming 20–50 million lives. The 1918 virus caused unusually strong symptoms, described by one physician at the time as “a blood-tinged froth that sometimes gushed from (the) nose and mouth”. The disease also had an incredibly high mortality rate of 10–20%, which combined with a high rate of infection meant that up to 6% of the world’s population died due to the virus.

Ever since the outbreak, the particular H1N1 sub-strain that caused the pandemic has been a constant target of research by virologists seeking to understand the causes behind its lethality. In 2005 researchers in the US made a breakthrough where they isolated the virus’ genetic material from a frozen infected lung sample, deciphered its genetic sequence and then published it for anyone to see. Going a step further, the researchers resurrected the virus, using chemically synthesised DNA fragments, and showed that this very literal Frankenstein’s monster could kill mice at an enhanced rate compared to other extant flu viruses.

For perhaps obvious reasons this case has become standard in bioethics and especially synthetic biology lectures and discussions. The 1918 virus case was not the first successful attempt to ‘de-extinct’ a virus (that distinction goes to a 2002 study resurrecting the poliovirus), but this was one of the first studies to actually pass through regulatory processes (the approval of the newly formed U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity was obtained prior to publication); and of course influenza — a fast-spreading, potentially airborne virus — presents a more clear biosafety/biosecurity threat. Now, it is true that from a scientific point of view, these studies are very illuminating, and could possibly help stave off the effects of future pandemics. That logic guided the NSABB’s recommendation that the authors publish the full genetic sequence of the 1918 virus.

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The bottom-line why folks are investing so much in QC is frankly because it means you will be behind everyone else who has adopted a superior infrastructure. As a consumer, if I can use my private information to secure a loan or access my medical information without fear of exposure of my information as well as performance of my online media and other online services are 100 times faster than any known network service to date; it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know what I will do,

And, banks, trading houses, etc. know this.

Thanks to the collaborative effort of an international team of scientists led by Professor Winfried Hensinger of the University of Sussex in UK, the world may have gotten one step closer to building the most powerful computer ever — a large-scale quantum computer capable of solving ultra-complex problems that will take a regular computer billions of years to solve.

Quantum computers work quite differently from conventional computers. Instead of typical computer ‘bits’ that can represent either the value ‘0’ or ‘1’, quantum computers use ‘qubits’ (short for quantum bits) that are capable of representing either ‘1’ or ‘0’, or both at the same time. This is made possible by the extraordinary property of qubits known as ‘superpositioning’ — the ability to exist as two different states at the same time.

Superpositioning is what allows quantum computers to effectively handle complex calculations simultaneously. But it is also this particular state that makes quantum computers difficult to build. That’s because an ion in superposition cannot be allowed to come into contact with anything from the outside given the fact that as soon as it does it loses its superposition state, reverting into just one state and consequently removing its ‘quantumness’ and its ability for super-computing.

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During the ‘in vivo’ reprogramming process, cellular telomeres are extended due to an increase in endogenous telomerase. This is the main conclusion of a paper published in Stem Cell Reports by a team from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO). Their observations show, for the first time, that the reprogramming of living tissue results in telomerase activation and telomere elongation; thus reversing one of the hallmarks of aging: ‘the presence of short telomeres’.

“We have found that when you induce cell dedifferentiation in an adult organism, the telomeres become longer, which is consistent with cellular rejuvenation”, explains María A. Blasco, head of the CNIO Telomeres and Telomerase Group and leader of this research. This lengthening of the telomeres is an unequivocal sign of cell rejuvenation, which has been quantified for the first time here in a living organism.

Blasco and her colleagues have worked with the so-called “reprogrammable mice” –created by Manuel Serrano, also a CNIO researcher, whose group is also involved in this project. Broadly speaking, the cells of these transgenic animals carry the four Yamanaka factors (OSKM) whose expression is turned on when an antibiotic is administered. In doing so, the cells regress to an embryonic-like state, a condition known as known as pluripotency.

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I have been slowly trying to evolve everyone’s thinking and knosledge about what Quantum is and its significant impact it is bringing to all industries as it relates to technology and health/ bio sciences.

My interest in Quantum Biology began when I was 12 years old although Quantum Bio then wasn’t even considered a reality. I had to at my age out of necessity as in my own father’s family had a Neuro and electrode defect impacting their hearts and muscle movements. So, being by nature, a person who dives deep into an interest I study thoroughly the neuro sensory pathways, the heart, the entire sensory pathways where the body continuously sends electro charges.

After many decades of my own research and studying on the side, I knew how much the impact quantum brings to the biological environment.

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The Pentagon’s plan to bring A.I. to the military is taking shape as Chinese researchers assert themselves in the nascent technology field. And that shift is reflected in surprising commercial advances in artificial intelligence among Chinese companies.

Robert O. Work, the veteran defense official retained as deputy secretary by President Trump, calls them his “A.I. dudes.” The breezy moniker belies their serious task: The dudes have been a kitchen cabinet of sorts, and have advised Mr. Work as he has sought to reshape warfare by bringing artificial intelligence to the battlefield.

Last spring, he asked, “O.K., you guys are the smartest guys in A.I., right?”

No, the dudes told him, “the smartest guys are at Facebook and Google,” Mr. Work recalled in an interview.

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Nice new algorithm for humanoid systems.

A person dissipates various kind of emotion during the daily conversation. The expression actually depends on the statement of the narrator but, sometimes it is very difficult to perceive someone’s sentiment behind the speech. To unveil the emotion behind someone’s speech, scientists created an artificial intelligence algorithm.

A research team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s(MIT) from Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) built a wearable app that is programmed with the algorithm. It could be a perfect alternative of polygraph because polygraphs are not really reliable because it has a lot of errors. Their invention was first officially introduced in the official press release of MIT News.

Ph.D. candidate Mohammad Ghassemi, lead researcher of this program said in a statement, “Our work is a step in this direction, suggesting that we may not be that far away from the world where people can have an AI social coach right in their pocket”. Ghassemi and his team equipped a fitness tracker with the app that collects physical and speech data to examine the tonal characteristics.

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AI that is too sensitive by a person’s tone; hmmm.

As a participant tells a story, the system can analyse audio, text transcriptions and physiological signals to determine the overall tone of the story with 83 per cent accuracy.

Using deep-learning techniques, the system can also provide a “sentiment score” for specific five-second intervals within a conversation.

“As far as we know, this is the first experiment that collects both physical data and speech data in a passive but robust way, even while subjects are having natural, unstructured interactions,” said Mohammad Ghassemi, PhD candidate at MIT.

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