Lifeboat Foundation

For most of us, figuring out the value of something that we want, comes from research. If you want a new set of wine glasses, you check the price online. Perhaps you consult a catalog. If the set of 8 stemware goblets that you like are a current model from a major company, there are probably many places to buy them. If there are multiple Ebay sellers and many recently completed sales, then you can establish the value with precision.

I’ve written a lot of Bitcoin articles on this Lifeboat Blog and elsewhere, so, let’s dig a bit deeper this time. Let’s talk about from where value really comes.

Supply and Demand

In the end, an item’s value is a direct result of supply and demand. It’s no different with a currency. And let’s be clear: Despite a raging debate, Bitcoin is a currency and not just a payment instrument. How can I be certain? Try this mental exercise—

Continue reading “What gives Bitcoin Value?” »

Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen performed the breath-taking experiment in which he placed a peg into a very tight hole on Monday under the careful control of the European Space Agency.

While orbiting some 400 kilometres (250 miles) above Earth, Mogensen took control of the Interact Centaur rover which has a pair of arms for delicate, high-precision work.

The blue-and-white fibreglass robot, which cost less than 200,000 euros ($224,000) to build, also has a camera on its head which allows the controller to directly see the task it is performing.

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Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures and Citigroup’s Citi Ventures have backed a New York-based startup that lets retail investors place orders for securities on news websites, financial blogs and mobile apps, as investments in young financial-technology companies continue to grow.

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Exclusive trailer for Syfy’s mini series “Childhood’s End”, starring among others Mike Vogel (Under the Dome), Charles Dance (Game of thrones) and Daisy Betts (Last resort).

Syfy: http://www.syfy.com/
Syfy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/syfy

Continue reading “Syfy's Childhood's End HQ | Trailer 2015” »

First major story on Immortality Bus from embedded journalist with Vox:

His campaign’s ’70s RV that’s been rebuilt to look like a giant coffin.

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And Can We Use Them To Improve Health and Longevity

Junk DNA may play a critical role in the creation of new DNA.

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In April 2015, a paper by Chinese scientists about their attempts to edit the DNA of a human embryo rocked the scientific world and set off a furious debate. Leading scientists warned that altering the human germ line without studying the consequences could have horrific consequences. Geneticists with good intentions could mistakenly engineer changes in DNA that generate dangerous mutations and cause painful deaths. Scientists — and countries — with less noble intentions could again try to build a race of superhumans.

Human DNA is, however, merely one of many commercial targets of ethical concern. The DNA of every single organism — every plant, every animal, every bacterium — is now fair game for genetic manipulation. We are entering an age of backyard synthetic biology that should worry everybody. And it is coming about because of CRISPRs: clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.

Discovered by scientists only a few years ago, CRISPRs are elements of an ancient system that protects bacteria and other single-celled organisms from viruses, acquiring immunity to them by incorporating genetic elements from the virus invaders. CRISPRs evolved over millions of years to trim pieces of genetic information from one genome and insert it into another. And this bacterial antiviral defense serves as an astonishingly cheap, simple, elegant way to quickly edit the DNA of any organism in the lab.

Continue reading “Gene Editing Is Now Cheap and Easy—and No One Is Prepared for the Consequences” »

Using a double layer of lipids facilitates assembly of DNA origami nanostructures, bringing us one step closer to future DNA nanomachines, as in this artist’s impression (credit: Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences)

Kyoto University scientists in Japan have developed a method for creating larger 2-D self-assembling DNA origami nanostructures.

Current DNA origami methods can create extremely small two- and three-dimensional shapes that could be used as construction material to build nanodevices, such as nanomotors, in the future for targeted drug delivery inside the body, for example. KurzweilAI recently covered advanced methods developed by Brookhaven National Laboratory and Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute.

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Intel Corporation introduced the 6th Generation Intel® Core™ processor family, the company’s best processors ever. The launch marks a turning point in people’s relationship with computers. The 6th Gen Intel Core processors deliver enhanced performance and new immersive experiences at the lowest power levels ever and also support the broadest range of device designs – from the ultra-mobile compute stick, to 2 in 1s and huge high-definition All-in-One desktops, to new mobile workstations.

There are over 500 million computers in use today that are four to five years old or older. They are slow to wake, their batteries don’t last long, and they can’t take advantage of all the new experiences available today.

Built on the new Skylake microarchitecture on Intel’s leading 14nm manufacturing process technology.

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