Lifeboat Foundation

Pheochromocytoma is a rare tumor, with an incidence of three to eight cases per million population per year. The work published today, Feb 28, on Rare Disease Day 2023, in Nature Communications, is the largest study on this cancers’ molecular causes and focuses on patients with metastatic pheochromocytomas, which account for 20% of all cases. Survival of patients with metastatic pheochromocytoma is 20–60% at five years.

Mercedes Robledo, head of the Hereditary Endocrine Cancer Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) and one of the two researchers who led the study, has been studying these tumors since 1996. He says, “One of the difficulties of working with rare diseases is to recruit large series of patients to reach robust conclusions. And this study stands out because the number of samples we worked with was outstanding.” The CNIO belongs to the Spanish network of Rare Diseases (CIBERER).

CNIO researcher and co-author Bruna Calsina explains, “The number of patients with metastatic disease that our study gathers corresponds to a population of 100 million people.” This has been possible thanks to the collaboration between 16 centers from six countries around the world, with which the CNIO has been collaborating for the last decade.

OAKLAND, Calif. Feb 28 (Reuters) — Intel Corp (INTC.O) on Tuesday released a software platform for developers to build quantum algorithms that can eventually run on a quantum computer that the chip giant is trying to build.

The platform, called Intel Quantum SDK, would for now allow those algorithms to run on a simulated quantum computing system, said Anne Matsuura, Intel Labs’ head of quantum applications and architecture.

Quantum computing is based on quantum physics and in theory can perform calculations quicker than conventional computers.

Elon Musk’s third master plan will get revealed.

A team of researchers led by Northwestern University has achieved a breakthrough by producing the most mature neurons to date from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). This advancement opens up new avenues for medical research and the possibility of transplantation therapies for conditions such as neurodegenerative diseases and traumatic injuries.

Previous efforts to turn stem cells into neurons have resulted in functionally immature neurons that resemble those from the early stages of development. The limited maturation achieved through current stem cell culture methods restricts their potential for studying neurodegeneration.

The study was recently published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

Space just gets weirder and weirder as now scientists have detected a mysterious ‘heartbeat’ from the sun at the centre of our solar system. Yes that’s right — the sun is emitting a signal that sounds eerily like a heartbeat. The sun is emitting a ‘heartbeat’ every ten to twenty seconds.

During almost two-years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the growth of telemedicine and new ways of reaching people has changed and developed. In October 2021, NASA flight surgeon Dr. Josef Schmid, industry partner AEXA Aerospace CEO Fernando De La Pena Llaca, and their teams were the first humans “holoported” from Earth into space.

Using the Microsoft Hololens Kinect camera and a personal computer with custom software from Aexa, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet had a two-way conversation with live images of Schmid and De La Pena placed in the middle of the International Space Station. This was the first holoportation handshake from Earth in space.

Holoportation is a type of capture technology that allows high-quality 3D models of people to be reconstructed, compressed and transmitted live anywhere in real time.

Continue reading “Innovative 3D Telemedicine to Help Keep Astronauts Healthy” »

Check out all the on-demand sessions from the Intelligent Security Summit here.

Data management and integration veteran Talend today debuted the winter ‘23 release of its core platform, providing enhanced observability, automation and connectivity for enterprises’ data assets. The update comes over a month after the company announced it is being acquired by Qlik in a transaction set to close in the first half of 2023.

Talend started in 2004 as a data integrator, but gradually expanded to offer Talend Data Fabric, a unified solution that works across any cloud, hybrid or multicloud environment. The solution combines enterprise-grade data discovery, integration, quality (automatic cleaning and profiling) and governance capabilities. It’s is intended to reduce the effort involved in working with data, while providing teams with clean and uncompromised information for decision-making.

Looks like Meta is also getting into the AI action.

The tech giant will be creating a new “top-level product group” focused on generative AI — AI that can create content — to focus on “building delightful experiences around this technology into all of our different products,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Monday.

“Over the longer term, we’ll focus on developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways,” he said, adding Meta is exploring AI experiences with text in WhatsApp and Messenger, and with images in Instagram.

Continue reading “After losing billions of dollars on the metaverse, Mark Zuckerberg’s launching a ‘top-level’ team at Meta to develop AI products for WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram” »

The war is on. 😃

Elon Musk has approached AI researchers in recent weeks about forming a new research lab to develop an alternative to OpenAI ‘s ChatGPT, the Information reported on Monday, citing people with direct knowledge of the effort.

Tesla and Twitter chief Musk has been recruiting Igor Babuschkin, a researcher who recently left Alphabet’s DeepMind AI unit, the report said.

Continue reading “Elon Musk recruits team to develop OpenAI’s ChatGPT rival” »