Lifeboat Foundation

“This research signifies an extraordinary advance in knowledge about the origin and evolution of CRISPR-Cas systems.”

An international research team reconstructed the CRISPR-Cas system for the first time, dating back to 26 billion years ago. Their findings imply that the revived systems are functional and more adaptable than the previous iterations.

Led by teams from the Spanish National Research Council, the University of Alicante, the Rare Diseases Networking Biomedical Research Center (CIBERER), the Ramón y Cajal Hospital-IRYCIS, and other national and international institutions are working with Ikerbasque research professor Rául Pérez-Jiménez of CIC nanoGUNE.

Bridge did not appear until roughly 35,700 years ago, fewer than 10,000 years before the last ice age peaked.

It is thought humans arrived in the Americas for the first time through the Bering Land Bridge. Now, researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz claim that Bering Land Bridge formed surprisingly late during the last ice age.

“Last Glacial Maximum grew after 46,000 years ago”

Continue reading “People may have crossed the Beringia much earlier than thought, new study claims” »

He was also a physicist and a night fighter pilot.

Walter Cunningham, NASA astronaut who flew on Apollo 7, an 11-day mission manned mission in 1968 that paved the way for the first human landing on the Moon, has died at the age of 90, NASA said on its website. Cunningham died of natural causes at a hospital in Houston on Tuesday.

Born in 1932, Walter Cunningham joined the U.S. Navy in 1951, where he served in the U.S. Marine Corps and flew 54 missions as a night fighter pilot In Korea before retiring at the rank of a colonel. He then graduated with Honors in Physics in 1960 and followed it up with a distinction in Physics a year later at the University of California at Los Angeles. astronaut Walter Cunningham, who flew into space on Apollo 7, the first flight with crew in NASA’s Apollo Program, died early Tuesday morning in Houston. He was 90 years old.

In 2021, one of the record years in biotechnology investments, about 50 drugs were approved by the FDA. 36 of these were small molecules. In my opinion, only about 5 of these were truly innovative targeting novel mechanisms and novel targets. The 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) contained 55,000 codes for diseases, injuries and conditions. Even if we assume that there are only 10,000 diseases, 50 FDA approvals per year seems to be an extraordinarily small number.

The reason for this small number of innovative and effective therapeutics is the long time, high cost, and low probability of success of drug discovery and development. On average, this process takes 12 years, costs over $2 Billion dollars and fails over 90% of the time. The most innovative therapeutics with novel targets have even higher probability of failure. To get these 50 drugs approved in 2021, the pharmaceutical companies globally spent over $100 Billion and over a decade.

The biotechnology industry is very different from any other industry and it is important to understand how it works, and the role China plays in delivering safe and effective medicines to suffering patients worldwide. Sharing risk, expenses, and infrastructure will result in acceleration of global biotechnology and increase the number of innovative drug approvals. Closer collaboration between the US and China in biotechnology would allow investors to share huge risks and returns while benefiting everyone on the planet and making this world a much better place.

“She cooks, she cleans, and she still finds time to play ball with Elroy,” George and Jane Jetsons’ six-and-a-half-year-old son. Set in the year 2062 and described in the 1960s animated sitcom The Jetsons as an “aluminum-encased, battery-powered robotic maid” who is the “perfect answer for any modern family,” Rosie the Robot takes care of chores around the house while also serving as friend and confidante of mother Jane. Sarcastic and funny, Rosie is a hardworking nanny and aunt figure to children Elroy and Judy.

While many technologies The Jetsons predicted for 2062 have become reality, such as video calls and smart watches, the full realization of robots as the 1960s ideal friend and helper who makes life easier has yet to be fulfilled. For twenty-five years, roboticist Daniel Theobald has been on a mission to create robots that can solve the world’s most pressing problems. But rather than focus solely on making robots be more human, his calling has been to use them to help humans be more human.

Continue reading “Meet The Roboticist Working To Make Robots Help Us Be More Human” »

Despite surges in fields like AI, medicine and nuclear energy, major advances in science and technology are slowing and are fewer and farther between than decades ago, according to a study published in Nature.

The researchers analyzed some 45 million scientific papers and 3.9 million patents between 1945 and 2010, examining networks of citations to assess whether breakthroughs reinforced the status quo or disrupted existing knowledge and more dramatically pushed science and technology off into new directions.

Across all major scientific and technological fields, these big disruptions—the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, which rendered earlier research obsolete, is a good example of such research—have become less common since 1945, the researchers found.

We can expect to the latest and greatest in gaming and computer hardware, audio visual, electric vehicles and smart home technologies.

Both the European Space Agency and NASA are planning to test even more sensitive sensors on future moon missions to try and hone in on satellite signals. If they can truly connect with sats back home, we could get closer to achieving autonomous moon travel. But eventually that won’t be enough. To help direct humans on the lunar surface, we’re going to need a fleet of satellites specifically around the moon. NASA calls its project LunaNet, and it’s part of the Gateway space station, which is the culmination of America’s plan to return to the moon. It needs to be designed to play well with ESA technology and, eventually, will be the source of high-speed internet on the moon.

Artemis I launched back in November, rounded the moon just 81 miles above the lunar surface and touched down Earth-side in December. Artemis II, which will carry astronauts around the moon in a similar trajectory, is slated to launch in late 2024, according to Space.com. Artemis III, which will be humanity’s first boots on the moon since 1972, could launch as early as 2025.

Ray Kurzweil, an American Jewish inventor and futurist, claims that within ten years, man will be able to defeat old age and death thanks to the accelerated development of technology.

My question in relation to Kurzweil’s statement is: What is so good about us constantly living all the time? Why live at all if we are never to die?

Continue reading “Ray Kurzweil Thoughts on Immortality — A Kabbalist’s Response” »