Lifeboat Foundation

A single injection of a newly developed drug has been shown to reverse paralysis in mice with severe spinal cord injuries. By mimicking the extra-cellular matrix around the spine, the liquified drug promotes the regeneration of severed nerves and the repair of other vital tissues, allowing the rodents to regain the ability to walk within four weeks.

Describing this breakthrough in a new study in the journal Science, researchers explain how they injected synthetic nanofibers into the damaged tissue of mice 24 hours after making a cut in their spinal cords. Consisting of an array of peptides, these nanofibers quickly assemble into a gel around the wound and begin communicating with cells in order to promote healing.

A review of The Age of AI and Our Human Future by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher. Little, Brown and Company, 272 pages (November, 2021).

Potential bridges across the menacing chasm of incompatible ideas are being demolished by a generation of wannabe autocrats presenting alternative facts as objective knowledge. This is not new. The twist is that modern network-delivery platforms can insert, at scale, absurd information into national discourse. In fact, sovereign countries intent on political mischief and social disruption already do this to their adversaries by manipulating the stories they see on the Internet.

Continue reading “The Case Against the Case Against AI” »

An AgeX update. How iTR works starting at 12:14 and how it may be delivered.

Corporate update presentation from AgeX’s annual stockholder meeting in 2021, presented by Dr. Michael West and Dr. Nafees Malik.

Continue reading “AgeX 2021 Corporate Update” »

When China’s lunar rover first discovered it, the rock appeared cube-shaped.

A mysterious “moon hut” spotted by China’s lunar Yutu 2 rover is actually … an adorable rabbit-shaped rock.

The rock has been nicknamed “jade rabbit” by the Yutu 2 team, which announced its rover’s closer inspection of the object on Friday (Jan. 7). The nickname is apt, as the rover’s name, Yutu, also translates to “jade rabbit.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-Zk9N1ViGjc

China welcomed the New Year with a live stream from cameras outside the new Tianhe space station module.

In a new video from the China National Space Administration, livestreamed on New Year’s Day (Jan. 1), you can now see the beauty of the Earth below from the Tianhe module on China’s Tiangong space station. China Central Television began the stream (you can also watch it on Youtube) on the Sina Weibo social media platform, delivering three hours of live footage from the module.

KhalifaSat, the first entirely Emirati-made satellite, captured the impressively clear image, along with an array of other shots of some of Dubai’s most popular destinations.

Among the images released on Twitter included a full view of Downtown Dubai, with the shadow of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, cast over the Dubai Mall.

Several images of the Dubai Canal also featured among the snaps shared online on Friday.

JWST operating temperature is less than 50 degrees above absolute zero (−223° C or-370° F) and will be the largest telescope ever placed at that cold temperature (50 Kelvin).

Webb will be able to see what the universe looked like around a quarter of a billion years (possibly back to 100 million years) after the #BigBang, when the first stars and galaxies started to form. JWST will change our view of the cosmos by taking Baby Pictures of #Universe, looking back to big bang.

#JWST is going to be like “Magic spectacles” that allow you to see things that you can’t normally see.
which is the pictures of the infant universe.

Continue reading “Keeping an #infrared telescope at very cold operating temperatures isn’t an option, it’s an absolute necessity” »

Astronomers believe they have found the first-ever radio emission coming from a planet in the Boötes constellation.

Kiwi scientists have helped discover a new gene described as a potential game-changer for cloning in global agriculture.

The gene allows natural reproduction by cloning in plants, enabling highly desirable traits to be carried through to the next generation rather than lost when the plants reproduce through pollination.

Named PAR, the new gene has been found to control parthenogenesis, a process whereby plant egg cells spontaneously grow into embryos without fertilisation.

Continue reading “NZ scientists in ‘game-changing’ plant cloning discovery” »