Biodegradable devices that generate energy from the same effect behind most static electricity could help power transient electronic implants that dissolve in the body, researchers say.
However, when standard electronic implants run out of power, they need to be removed lest they eventually become sites of infection. But their surgical removal can result in potentially dangerous complications. Scientists are developing transient implantable electronics that dissolve once they are no longer needed, but these mostly rely on external sources of power, limiting their applications.
A study published in the journal Stem Cell Reports on March 23, led by Dr. Ryosuke Tsuchimochi and Professor Jun Takahashi, examined the effects of combining cell transplantation and gene therapy for axonal outgrowth in the central nervous system. The authors demonstrated the potential of this combinatorial therapy for promoting axonal regeneration in patients with central nervous system injuries.
Stroke and traumatic brain/spinal cord injuries often damage the corticospinal tract (CST), composed of descending axonal tracts from the motor cortex down the spinal cord, that innervates motor neurons to activate skeletal muscles for controlling voluntary movements. Pharmacological and surgical interventions, in conjunction with rehabilitation, can maintain some lost motor functions, but patients with such acute neural injuries often suffer from lifelong severe motor impairment.
Cell replacement therapy—the implantation of new neurons into damaged brain regions —is viewed as a last hope that could help patients recover sufficient motor functions to live a normal life. The research team previously demonstrated that brain tissues transplanted into injured mouse brains could find their way to the CST and spinal cord but believed that further optimization of the host environment was necessary to promote CST reconstruction and functional recovery.
Frequencies of light invisible to the human eye reveal a vast amount of information about our universe. But it took decades for scientists to learn how to view this hidden cosmos.
Help us welcome Anders Sandberg to the Foresight family! As a Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy, we are proud that he will be joining a fantastic group of Foresight Senior Research Fellows: https://foresight.org/about-us/senior-research-fellows/
Anders will present a cherry-picked selection of his epic Grand Futures book project: What is available in the “nearer-term” for life if our immature civilization can make it past the tech/insight/coordination hurdles? We’ll focus on post-scarcity civilizations to get a sense of what is possible just past current human horizons in the hope it may inspire us to double down on solving humanity’s current challenges to unlock this next level.
Based on our Zoom polls, cognitive enhancement features as high interest for many of you and is also one of Anders’ main research interests. Let’s add a brief tour through different cognitive enhancement scenarios, their ethical considerations, and how to make progress in the right directions. Join us with your questions and comments and let’s give Anders a warm welcome into the Foresight community!
About Anders: Anders Sandberg is a Foresight Senior Fellow and a Research Associate at the Future of Humanity Institute from the University of Oxford. Anders Sandberg’s research at FHI centers on management of low-probability high-impact risks, estimating the capabilities of future technologies, and very long-range futures. Topics of particular interest include global catastrophic risk, cognitive biases, cognitive enhancement, collective intelligence, neuroethics, and public policy.
Anders is a Senior Research Fellow on the ERC UnPrEDICT Programme. He is a research associate to the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics. He is on the advisory boards of a number of organizations and often debates science and ethics in international media.
We introduce quantum circuit learning (QCL) as an emerging regression algorithm for chemo-and materials-informatics. The supervised model, functioning on the rule of quantum mechanics, can process linear and smooth non-linear functions from small datasets (100 records). Compared with conventional algorithms, such as random forest, support vector machine, and linear regressions, the QCL can offer better predictions with some one-dimensional functions and experimental chemical databases. QCL will potentially help the virtual exploration of new molecules and materials more efficiently through its superior prediction performances.
Orion in March announced it has set out on a four-year project to build a cutting-edge ecosystem for pharmaceutical research in Finland.
Consisting of companies, universities and research institutes, the ecosystem will utilise artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to reduce the time required for studying and developing pharmaceutical products.
“Utilising data with the help of artificial intelligence is a competitive advantage for developing new innovative medicines because it expedites development and significantly increases the probability of success,” toldOuti Vaarala, director of innovative medicines at Orion.
Chinese researchers have successfully fabricated mechanical metamaterials with ultra-high energy absorption capacity using ion track technology. The results were published in Nature Communications as an Editor’s Highlight.
The study was conducted by the researchers from the Materials Research Center of the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and their collaborators from Chongqing University.
Mechanical metamaterials refer to a class of composite materials with artificially designed structures, which exhibit extraordinary mechanical properties that traditional materials do not have. Among them, energy absorption mechanical metamaterials can absorb mechanical energy more efficiently, which requires the material itself to equip both high strength and high strain capacity, which, however, hardly co-exist in general.
