Lifeboat Foundation

Oh Japan, how I love your beautiful insanity. wink

If you’re a fan of virtual musicians with computer-generated bodies and voices, and you live in North America, then do I have news for you.

Hatsune Miku, Japan’s “virtual pop star,” is coming to the US and Canada next year for a seven-city, synth-filled tour—her first tour in this neck of the woods. Miku herself may be a digital illusion, but her unique impact on the music industry is very real.

Continue reading “Hologram Pop Star Hatsune Miku ‘Announces’ 2016 US and Canada Tour” »

Biotech company Editas Medicine is planning to start human trials to genetically edit genes and reverse blindness.

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No driver? No ticket.

That, at least, was the result when a police officer pulled over one of Google’s self-driving cars Thursday in Mountain View, California.

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Yesterday, Facebook introduced the ability to upload and watch 360-degree videos on all devices. Join tech editor Michael Nuñez and social media editor Jason Lederman for a 360-degree virtual walk through Times Square (video shot on a Ricoh Theta S).

Thumbnail: reynermedia/Flickr/CC-By-2.0 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/89228431@N06/11285512973/sizes/l/in/photostream/)

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This animation depicts the CRISPR-Cas9 method for genome editing – a powerful new technology with many applications in biomedical research, including the potential to treat human genetic disease. Feng Zhang, a leader in the development of this technology, is a faculty member at MIT, an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and a core member of the Broad Institute. Further information can be found on Prof. Zhang’s website at http://zlab.mit.edu.

Images and footage courtesy of Sputnik Animation, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Justin Knight and pond5.

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Treating the brain often requires invasive surgery, but a new technique involving ultrasound and air bubbles has now shown promise at delivering drugs through the blood-brain barrier.

One of the biggest challenges of medicating brain tumours is actually getting drugs into the organ. Your brain is well protected from invasion by untoward substances or life forms, and this protection limits what will enter from the bloodstream. There have been previous efforts to open up the barrier, but they often involve a surgical approach that is far from ideal.

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New article for Vice Motherboard on why society should support legalization of all drugs–and a short video of the Immortality Bus in Arkansas talking to marijuana supporters (a state where it’s totally illegal):

The “Mount Rushmore of the Drug War” featuring founding prohibitionists Harry Anslinger, Billie Holiday, and Arnold Rothstein. Image: Donkey Hotey/Flickr

Continue reading “Legalization of Drugs Should Be Part of a Transhumanist Agenda” »

Astrophysicists have concluded the yet most precise search for the gravitational wave background created by supermassive black hole mergers. But the expected signal isn’t there.

Last month, Lawrence Krauss rumored that the newly updated gravitational wave detector LIGO had seen its first signal. The news spread quickly – and was shot down almost as quickly. The new detector still had to be calibrated, a member of the collaboration explained, and a week later it emerged that the signal was probably a test run.

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Entropy caused by quantum fluctuations measured at the molecular level.

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