Lifeboat Foundation

Italian design outfit Lazzarini Design Studio is known for its larger-than-life concepts that give us a deep dive of transportation in the future. Their new concept design breaks all the confined barriers of propulsion on water and in the air, taking things to the next level with the Air Yacht.

This compressed helium-powered flying yacht (yes, an airborne yacht!) is targeted towards private owners who will stop at nothing, and push the envelope of adventure – laden in luxury and style. The mega yacht (or should I say a big catamaran) measuring 492 feet will be a revolution in the aviation industry with its twin airships filled with helium. These gigantic airships will be connected via a central carbon deck measuring 33 feet wide consisting of a master cabin, living area, and a large dining section. The outer edges of the airship have five en suite staterooms each, so taking along best buddies for the adventure of their lifetime is certain.

What is concept drift?

Concept drift occurs when there are changes in the distribution of the training set examples.

At the most basic level, concept drift causes data points that were once considered an example of one concept to be seen as another concept entirely over time.

Continue reading “Why Do Machine Learning Models Die In Silence?” »

Gene editing approaches promise to treat a range of diseases, but delivering editing agents to cells in animal models and humans safely and efficiently has proven challenging. Now, researchers led by a team at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have developed a way to get gene editing proteins inside cells in animal models with high enough efficiency to show therapeutic benefit.

In new work published in Cell, the team shows how they have engineered virus-like particles to deliver base editors — proteins that make programmable single-letter changes in DNA — and CRISPR-Cas9 nuclease, a protein that cuts DNA at targeted sites in the genome. In collaboration with ​​research teams led by Krzysztof Palczewski at the University of California, Irvine, and Kiran Musunuru at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the team used their particles, called engineered virus-like particles (eVLPs), to disable a gene in mice that can be associated with high cholesterol levels, and partially restored visual function to mice harboring a mutation that causes genetic blindness.

Researchers have developed virus-like particles that deliver therapeutic levels of protein to animal models of disease.

Continue reading “Engineered particles efficiently deliver gene editing proteins to cells in mice” »

An enormous asteroid more massive than two Empire State Buildings is heading our way, but unlike the so-called planet-killer comet in the recent movie “Don’t Look Up,” this space rock will zoom harmlessly past Earth.

The stony asteroid, known as (7482) 1994 PC1, will pass at its closest on Jan. 18 at 4:51 p.m. EST (2151 GMT), traveling at 43,754 mph (70,415 km/h) and hurtling past Earth at a distance of 0.01324 astronomical units — 1.2 million miles (nearly 2 million kilometers), according to NASA JPL-Caltech’s Solar System Dynamics (SSD).

In a new study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have identified the presence of a specific connection between a protein and an lncRNA molecule in liver cancer. By increasing the presence of the lncRNA molecule, the fat depots of the tumor cell decrease, which causes the division of tumor cells to cease, and they eventually die. The study, published in the journal Gut, contributes to increased knowledge that can add to a better diagnosis and future cancer treatments.

Where does it go from here?

Tesla has signed a new deal to source nickel for battery cell production from an upcoming new mine in the United States. It’s a landmark deal to start sourcing the critical battery material in the US and help boost upcoming new mining projects.

Over the last few years, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been pushing for nickel producers to boost production as he expects the resource could become a bottleneck for battery production.

The company gets its nickel overseas. Vale, the Brazilian mining giant, is Tesla’s main nickel supplier, and the company has recently done a big deal to secure nickel supply from New Caledonia. But, North American production of nickel is limited, and Tesla is not sourcing locally.

One of Europe’s top business schools recently released its Future Readiness Indicator study and focused on the automotive sector for its analysis.

Similar projects in Denmark have used recaptured heat from smaller structures, such as supermarkets, to supply a nearby building or two. The Facebook project scales the technology to a level not yet reached in the world by producing up to 25 MW per hour of usable heat.

“Facebook opened their new data center in Odense,” said Denmark’s Minister of Climate, Energy, and Utilities, Dan Jørgensen, on Instagram. “It’s based on renewable energy only (from their own wind farm) and feeds their surplus heat into the district heating system. Good news for the transition to green energy!”

As a nation, Denmark has set a goal to eliminate the use of coal by 2030. The heat recovery project supports Odense’s even more aggressive goal to phase out coal (which 30 percent of the city still depends on for heat) by 2023 — a modern feat for a city that just celebrated its 1,031st anniversary. Facebook’s data center is estimated to reduce Odense’s demand for coal by up to 25 percent.