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China’s state-owned Shenhua Group Corp. has just signed a memorandum of understanding with Santa Monica based SolarReserve, partnering to bring 1,000 MW of clean energy into China.

Green is going global. More and more countries are getting in on the green energy bandwagon, shifting their energy dependencies from fossil fuel burning to renewable energy. And the biggest recipient of this? Solar.

Countries are increasingly depending on the Sun to provide for their energy needs. And this means the building of bigger and better solar farms.

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Visit Singularity Hub for the latest from the frontiers of manufacturing and technology as we bring you coverage of Singularity University’s Exponential Manufacturing conference. Watch all the talks from the first day here and second day here.

The software startup launching out of a garage or a dorm room is now the stuff of legend. We can all name the stories of people who got together in a garage with a few computers and ended up disrupting massive, established corporations — or creating something the world never even knew it wanted.

Until now, this hasn’t really been as true for physical things you build from the ground up. The cost of tools and production has been too high, and for top quality, you still had to go at it the traditional manufacturing route.

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While CRISPR, nanobots and head transplants are making headlines as medical breakthroughs, a number of new technologies are also making progress tackling some of the toughest age-old diseases still plaguing millions of people in the poorest parts of the world.

In low income countries, over 75% of the population dies before the age of 70 due to infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS, lung infections, tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases, malaria, and increasingly, cardiovascular diseases. Over a third of deaths in low income countries are among children under age 14 primarily due to pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, malaria and neonatal complications. In the developed world, those living in extreme poverty, such as homeless populations, also die on average at age 48.

Over the last year, artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology have all generated a number of new solutions that have the potential to dramatically reduce these problems.

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Robotics with grace — hmmm.

A new type of hydrostatic transmission that combines hydraulic and pneumatic lines can safely and precisely drive robot arms, giving them the delicacy necessary to pick up an egg without breaking it.

This transmission has almost no friction or play, offering extreme precision for tasks such as threading a sewing needle.

Continue reading “Hybrid hydrostatic transmission enables robots with human-like grace and precision” | >

I still ponder on this question “Under current US laws, can I possibly win a suit against a law firm for poor representation because they used AI on my case and I lost my case that ended up causing me to lose millions and impacted my reputation? And, could this firm lose their license through the state board resulting from my claim & suit as well as others who claimed poor representation due to AI used on their case?” I believe they can under current laws.

Welcome to the firm, robot lawyers!

Last week, BigLaw firm BakerHostetler announced that it was partnering with ROSS Intelligence to bring artificial intelligence to its Bankruptcy, Restructuring, and Creditor Rights practice. ROSS will be used to help BakerHostetler’s non-robot lawyers research more quickly and intelligently. Will other firms follow their lead?

A New Kind of First Year Associate

Continue reading “BigLaw Firm Brings Artificial Intelligence on Board” | >

Nice read.

At the beginning of the movie 50/50, Adam Lerner is diagnosed with neurofibrosarcoma, a cancer of the spine’s nerve tissue. Adam sits in his doctor’s office while the doctor rattles off the word several times, but Adam has no idea what it means, or if there’s anything wrong with him at all. Eventually, his doctor uses the word “cancer,” and Adam’s perspective goes blurry, the doctor’s voice drowned out by a high-pitched ringing.

Many people have had real experiences like this one. Cancer is still one of the scariest words you can hear in a diagnosis. And chances are, you know someone who has heard it—almost 40 percent of adults are diagnosed with some form of it during their lifetime. Every patient’s story is different, and they don’t all have a happy ending. But because of decades of research into how cancer works, patients diagnosed with cancer today have a much better chance of survival than ever before.

Continue reading “How The Meaning Of Cancer Has Changed” | >

Interesting method in controlling energy sources and efficiencies via Quantum legos.

The chrome-plated bricks can conduct electricity, integrate active parts such as LED lights, motor blocks, and even sound, light and proximity sensors. The conductive bricks feature flexible side-arms that ensure electrical connection between two adjacent blocks, and the whole assemblies are powered by a Bluetooth-controlled 9V battery block. The built-in Bluetooth controller lets users change the current’s direction and voltage levels via a mobile application.

That means the Brixo bricks can not only be triggered by sound, light and touch, but also controlled by any Bluetooth connected device, taking the good old Lego bricks further into the IoT world (the Danish company has its entries in the cloud via its Mindstorms Lego series and the augmented reality-capable Nexo Knights toys.

The company is promising open 3D building instructions, an online library of models and hacks to its followers, encouraging a community of Brixo enthusiasts to share their models.

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Gene expression is the process by which genetic information is used to produce proteins, which are essential for cells to function properly and fulfil their many purposes. It takes place in two distinctive steps: first the transcription, which takes place in the nucleus, then the translation, in the cytoplasm. Control of gene expression is vital for cells to produce the exact proteins that are needed at the right moment. Until now, gene transcription and translation into proteins were thought to be two independent processes. Today, microbiologists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, and at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg (Germany) provide additional evidence that these two processes are intrinsically related and show that a protein complex called Ccr4-Not plays a key role in gene expression by acting as a messenger between the nucleus and the cytoplasm. Published in Cell Reports, these results shed light on the very mechanisms governing gene expression, a process that controls the life and death of our cells.

Gene expression refers to the biochemical processes through which the information that is stored in our genes is read like an instruction book to produce proteins that will make our cells function properly. Until now, gene expression was thought to take place in two distinctive steps: first transcription, which takes place in the nucleus, then translation, in the cytoplasm. Today, research led by UNIGE and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory shows that transcription and translation are intrinsically related and continuously influence one another. To do so, a very efficient communication within the cell, between the nucleus and the cytoplasm, is essential. This dialogue is made possible by a protein complex called Ccr4-Not, which globally determines the cell translational capacity.

Gene expression: a two-way street

Martine Collart and her team from the UNIGE Faculty of Medicine discovered in 2014 that the Ccr4-Not complex enables the cytoplasm to provide information to the nucleus during translation. Today, they prove that it is a two way-street communication as the nucleus also communicates information to the cytoplasm at all stages of gene expression, thanks to Ccr4-Not. This complex acts as a messenger between the nucleus and the cytoplasm to ensure that both transcription and translation levels are well adapted. It is also able to enhance translation to compensate for transcriptional stress, thus ensuring that gene expression remains well-balanced.

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