Lifeboat Foundation

In today’s world, there is much to be admired in someone who refuses to make a profit out of a good idea for the greater good. David Edquilang invented a new type of finger prosthesis called Lunet that has earned him awards around the world but he plans on making the design open access to benefit those who need it most.

Helping the greatest number of people

“Not every good idea needs to be turned into a business. Sometimes, the best ideas just need to be put out there,” said Edquilang in a statement issued by his university. “Medical insurance will often not cover the cost of a finger prosthesis, since it is not considered vital enough compared to an arm or leg. Making Lunet available online for free will allow it to help the greatest number of people.”

Actor Suzanne Somers has died at the age of 76 after being diagnosed with breast cancer more than two decades ago, which ultimately was her cause of death.

Somers was best known for her roles in the hit sitcoms “Three’s Company” and “Step by Step,” and later in life for her health and fitness business ventures.

Somers died “peacefully at home” surrounded by her family on Oct. 15, one day before her 77th birthday, according to a statement to NBC News from Somers’ publicist on behalf of her family.

Nanozymes are synthetic materials that mimic the properties of natural enzymes for applications in biomedicine and chemical engineering. Historically, they are generally considered too toxic and expensive for use in agriculture and food science. Now, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a nanozyme that is organic, non-toxic, environmentally friendly, and cost effective.

In a newly published paper, they describe its features and its capacity to detect the presence of glyphosate, a common agricultural herbicide. Their goal is to eventually create an user-friendly test kit for consumers and agricultural producers.

“The word nanozyme is derived from nanomaterial and enzyme. Nanozymes were first developed about 15 years ago, when researchers found that iron oxide nanoparticles may perform catalytic activity similar to natural enzymes (peroxidase),” explained Dong Hoon Lee, a doctoral student in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE), part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) and The Grainger College of Engineering at U. of I.

At HLTH, Mayo Clinic Platform President John Halamka gave a window into how his health system is mitigating generative AI risks. Some of the measures Mayo is taking include running analyses on how well algorithms perform across various subgroups and training models only on internal de-identified data.

The rich dust clouds that are responsible for producing these giant stars are blocking the light from Hubble’s view. The star and the jet of material it is emitting are visible near the very center.

“The small, bright orange streak is a cavity in the dust carved out by the ferocity of the jet as it streams towards us. By breaking through its dusty cocoon, the jet reveals light from the protostar, but there is still so much dust that the light is “reddened” to a fiery orange. The massive protostar lies at the very lower-left tip of this cavity,” NASA wrote in a post.

Jet-setting through a star formation hotbed!The glimmering, star-forming region seen in this #HubbleFriday view is called G35.2–0.7N. The spectacular light show is caused by a powerful jet of matter ejecting from a very young star: https://go.nasa.gov/3twrzbE pic.twitter.com/hLEwFDqZCy — Hubble (@NASAHubble) October 13, 2023

Full episode with Joscha Bach (Jun 2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-2P3MSZrBM
Clips channel (Lex Clips): https://www.youtube.com/lexclips.
Main channel (Lex Fridman): https://www.youtube.com/lexfridman.
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Podcast full episodes playlist:

Continue reading “We exist inside the story that the brain tells itself (Joscha Bach)” »

If you want optimism about life extension, here is Bill Faloon at RAADFest with the latest.

Bill Faloon gave the keynote presentation at the RAADfest conference in September 2023. In his talk, he discussed many of the advances in longevity research over the past year and described the main barrier to faster advances in regenerative medicine.

As you might imagine for a scroll that has been buried under mounds of volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius for close to 2,000 years, the rolled-up papyrus excavated from the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum is rather difficult to open, let alone read – but AI has found a way.

Scholars from the University of Kentucky launched the Vesuvius Challenge in March, releasing thousands of X-ray images of charred, carbonized Herculaneum scrolls together with untrained artificial intelligence software that could be used to interpret the scans.

Now two students have claimed the first prizes to be awarded: Luke Farritor, a computer science student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Youssef Nader, a biorobotics grad student at the Free University of Berlin in Germany.

Around planets that have a magnetosphere, something magical happens.

If you listen with the right instruments, you can hear chirping and whistling, almost like the singing of birds at dawn and dusk. These so-called chorus waves have been recorded at Earth, and Jupiter, and Saturn; and observed at Uranus and Neptune.

Continue reading “Mysterious ‘Singing’ Plasma Waves Detected Around Mercury” »