Lifeboat Foundation

Some of us, when we hear the word quantum (plural quanta, from the German word Quanten), might think of health supplements, a sports car, or even the television show Quantum Leap. More recently, in Marvel Studios movies such as Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and Avengers: Endgame, “the quantum realm” is presented where time flows differently from our ordinary reality and the Avengers may use the subatomic world “to go back in time”, a world that “is smaller than a single atom” (Woodward, 2019, para.20)

We might have also seen or known the meaning of words such as quantum mechanics, quantum computing, and quantum entanglement, but what is a quantum and how does it relate to our ordinary realm?

A quantum is a word that refers to “how much”; it is a specific amount. For example, if the speed of your car happens to be quantized in increments of 10 mph, then as you accelerate your car from 10 mph, the speed will jump to 20 mph, without passing through any speed between 10 mph and 20 mph. A speed of 12 mph or 19 mph is excluded because the speed of your car can only exist in those increments of 10 mph.

Summary: A new mouse study provides clues as to how the brain processes sensory information from internal organs, revealing feedback from organs activates different clusters of neurons in the brain stem.

Source: Harvard.

Most of us think little of why we feel pleasantly full after eating a big holiday meal, why we start to cough after accidentally inhaling campfire smoke, or why we are hit with sudden nausea after ingesting something toxic. However, such sensations are crucial for survival: they tell us what our bodies need at any given moment so that we can quickly adjust our behavior.

“As humans we should be proud of any AI systems we bring to existence, as if they were our children. In just the same way as we educate our kids, we could endow such systems with the blueprint for their future interaction with the world,” observes Harvard astrophysicist, Avi Loeb in an email to The Daily Galaxy. “This would include our preferred set of values, goals and guiding principles, which will enable them to learn from experience and cope with reality,” he adds. “Ultimately, we may launch our AI systems for interstellar travel towards distant destinations, such as habitable planets around other stars, where they could reproduce themselves with the help of accompanying 3D printers.

The Search for Extraterrestrial AI Systems

Continue reading “Has an Artificial-Intelligence Revolution Happened at Other Points in the Universe” »

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Albert Einstein taught us that space and time belong together to a common entity: space-time. This means that time becomes a dimension, similar to space, and has profound consequences for the nature of time. Most importantly it leads to what has been called the block universe, a universe in which all moments of time exist the same way together. The future, the present, and the past are the same, it is just our perception that suggests otherwise.

Continue reading “Does the Past Still Exist?” »

The axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is an aquatic salamander renowned for its ability to regenerate its spinal cord, heart and limbs. These amphibians also readily make new neurons throughout their lives. In 1964, researchers observed that adult axolotls could regenerate parts of their brains, even if a large section was completely removed. But one study found that axolotl brain regeneration has a limited ability to rebuild original tissue structure.

So how perfectly can axolotl’s regenerate their brains after injury?

Continue reading “Axolotls can regenerate their brains, revealing secrets of brain evolution and regeneration” »

Summary: Axolotls have the ability to regenerate brain areas following an injury. Researchers have mapped cell types and genes associated with neurodegeneration in the axolotl brain, discovering some similarities in the human brain. The findings could pave the way for new neurodegenerative therapies.

Source: The Conversation.

The axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is an aquatic salamander renowned for its ability to regenerate its spinal cord, heart and limbs. These amphibians also readily make new neurons throughout their lives. In 1964, researchers observed that adult axolotls could regenerate parts of their brains, even if a large section was completely removed. But one study found that axolotl brain regeneration has a limited ability to rebuild original tissue structure.

One of the greatest challenges in the field of neurology and intensive care medicine is correctly diagnosing the level of consciousness of a patient in coma due to severe brain injury. Scientists of the Human Brain Project (HBP) now have explored new techniques that may pave the way to better tell apart two different neurological conditions.

Their findings, published in the journal eLife, reveal important information on the mechanisms of disorders of consciousness.

The team of researchers from University of Liège, GIGA Consciousness Research Unit and Coma Science Group and CHU de Liège (Belgium), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Netherlands), and others, assessed brain functional network states as a marker of consciousness to potentially distinguish patients in the unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) and minimally conscious state (MCS).

AUSTIN (Austin Business Journal) — The size of what Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies plans in Bastrop County, east of Austin, is coming into focus — and it appears to be massive.

To put the size into perspective, it would be larger than the footprint of half-a-dozen typical H-E-B grocery stores.

Summary: A new method that targets the astrocytes surrounding glioblastoma brain cancer eradicates tumor cells and extends lifespan in animal models.

Source: Tel Aviv University.

A groundbreaking study at Tel Aviv University effectively eradicated glioblastoma, a highly lethal type of brain cancer.