Lifeboat Foundation

Optomechanics simulates graphene lattices.

Experts are warning that quantum computers could eventually overpower conventional encryption methods, a potentially dangerous fate for humanity that they’re evocatively dubbing the “quantum apocalypse,” the BBC reports.

Cracking today’s toughest encryption would take virtually forever today — but with the advent of quantum computers, they’re warning, the process could be cut down to mere seconds.

And that kind of number-crunching power could have disastrous consequences if it were to land in the wrong hands.

Logic gates in biology can be set up to lead to timing important biological events. How is this done?

Edit: at 4:00, not all pathways make use of this motif. This is just one way timing can happen in biology.

Continue reading “Decoding nature’s masterful engineering using math” »

Anatomical decision-making by cellular collectives: Bioelectrical pattern memories, regeneration, and synthetic living organisms.

A key question for basic biology and regenerative medicine concerns the way in which evolution exploits physics toward adaptive form and function. While genomes specify the molecular hardware of cells, what algorithms enable cellular collectives to reliably build specific, complex, target morphologies? Our lab studies the way in which all cells, not just neurons, communicate as electrical networks that enable scaling of single-cell properties into collective intelligences that solve problems in anatomical feature space. By learning to read, interpret, and write bioelectrical information in vivo, we have identified some novel controls of growth and form that enable incredible plasticity and robustness in anatomical homeostasis. In this talk, I will describe the fundamental knowledge gaps with respect to anatomical plasticity and pattern control beyond emergence, and discuss our efforts to understand large-scale morphological control circuits. I will show examples in embryogenesis, regeneration, cancer, and synthetic living machines. I will also discuss the implications of this work for not only regenerative medicine, but also for fundamental understanding of the origin of bodyplans and the relationship between genomes and functional anatomy.

How do our bodies know what to become?

There are no instructions in our genes that code for the exact 3D structure of our bodies. There’s no tiny human contained in our DNA. So, what powers the transformation of the first cell in the embryo to a full-blown organism?

Continue reading “#14 Michael Levin — Our Body is a Collection of Intelligent Organisms” »

How did complex systems emerge from chaos? Physicist Sean Carroll explains.

Summary: Findings support modern thought that neural networks store information by making short-term alterations to the synapses. The study sheds new light on short-term synaptic plasticity in recent memory storage.

Source: picower institute for learning and memory.

Between the time you read the Wi-Fi password off the café’s menu board and the time you can get back to your laptop to enter it, you have to hold it in mind. If you’ve ever wondered how your brain does that, you are asking a question about working memory that has researchers have strived for decades to explain. Now MIT neuroscientists have published a key new insight to explain how it works.

Lasers have been used to throw and catch extremely cold, single atoms. The technique could be used to assemble quantum computers in the future.

From cyborgs to the Sugababes, IT expert Robert Anderson talks about a world where the line between humans and machines becomes blurred. Drawing on his personal experiences of facing prejudices and bigotry while growing up, he shares his insight on how we can avoid repeating the mistakes of the past in order to create a society where humans and transhumans can live together in an open and equal manner. He urges us to take action now because as he says, “Transhumanism is coming and it’s coming sooner than you think. We cannot afford to have the fear of the other rule this world.“
Robert Anderson has been interested in how technology can improve humans’ lives ever since he can remember. He started programming computers at age 10 and has been working in IT for the past 20 years with blue-chip companies to develop IT strategies and roadmaps.

Robert says he likes how ‘TEDxFolkstone cares about developing a group of people who are speakers, not just about people who are doing TED talks.’

Continue reading “Avoiding prejudices in the future world of transhumanism | Robert Anderson | TEDxFolkestone” »