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Sep 15, 2021

The Kidney Project successfully tests a prototype bioartificial kidney

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, mobile phones

The Kidney Project’s implantable bioartificial kidney, one that promises to free kidney disease patients from dialysis machines and transplant waiting lists, took another big step toward becoming reality, earning a $650,000 prize from KidneyX for its first-ever demonstration of a functional prototype of its implantable artificial kidney.

KidneyX is a public–private partnership between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) founded to “accelerate innovation in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of kidney diseases.”

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Sep 15, 2021

Saliva test for COVID-19 outperforms commercial swab tests

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, surveillance

In the early days of the pandemic, with commercial COVID tests in short supply, Rockefeller University’s Robert B. Darnell developed an in-house assay to identify positive cases within the Rockefeller community. It turned out to be easier and safer to administer than the tests available at the time, and it has been used tens of thousands of times over the past nine months to identify and isolate infected individuals working on the university’s campus.

Now, a new study in PLOS ONE confirms that Darnell’s test performs as well, if not better, than FDA-authorized nasal and oral swab tests. In a direct head-to-head comparison of 162 individuals who received both Rockefeller’s “DRUL” test and a conventional swab test, DRUL caught all of the cases that the swabs identified as positive—plus four positive cases that the swabs missed entirely.

“This research confirms that the test we developed is sensitive and safe,” says Darnell, the Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neuro-Oncology. “It is inexpensive, has provided excellent surveillance within the Rockefeller community, and has the potential to improve safety in communities as the pandemic drags on.”

Sep 15, 2021

COVID Virus May Prompt Body to Attack Itself

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Jan. 29 2021 — An international team of researchers studying COVID-19 has made a startling and pivotal discovery: The virus appears to cause the body to make weapons to attack its own tissues.

The finding could unlock a number of COVID’s clinical mysteries. They include the puzzling collection of symptoms that can come with the infection; the persistence of symptoms in some people for months after they clear the virus, a phenomenon dubbed long COVID; and why some children and adults have a serious inflammatory syndrome, called MIS-C or MIS-A, after their infections.

“It suggests that the virus might be directly causing autoimmunity, which would be fascinating,” says lead study author Paul Utz, MD, who studies immunology and autoimmunity at Stanford University in Stanford, CA.

Sep 15, 2021

Armed Forces to trial laser weapons for the first time

Posted by in category: military

Trials will take place in 2023 of laser and radio frequency weapons mounted on a Type-23 frigate and a Wolfhound vehicle, Jeremy Quin will say. Full capabilities are expected to be in service within 10 years.


British Army and Royal Navy will mount high-tech weapons on Wolfhound vehicle and Type-23 frigate, with aim of full capabilities in 10 years.

Sep 15, 2021

Spot Release 3.0: Flexible autonomy and repeatable data capture

Posted by in category: futurism

Learn More.

Boston Dynamics.

We’re excited to announce Spot 3.0! This release adds flexible autonomy and repeatable data capture, making Spot the dynamic solution for real-world sensing.

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Sep 15, 2021

COVID-19 nasal vaccine candidate

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, engineering

September 15 2021 — Breathe in, breathe out. That’s how easy it is for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to enter your nose. And though remarkable progress has been made in developing intramuscular vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 such as the readily available Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, nothing yet – like a nasal vaccine – has been approved to provide mucosal immunity in the nose, the first barrier against the virus before it travels down to the lungs.

But now, we’re one step closer.

Navin Varadarajan, University of Houston M.D. Anderson Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and his colleagues, are reporting in iScience the development of an intranasal subunit vaccine that provides durable local immunity against inhaled pathogens.

Sep 15, 2021

Electric car with extension and expandable solar offers a glimpse of future RV life

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, sustainability, transportation

A new electric solar car project with a living extension and expandable solar panels is giving us a glimpse into what the future might hold for RV/van life.

Solar Team Eindhoven, a group of engineering students from the Technical University of Eindhoven (Netherlands), is probably the most famous team that has competed in the World Solar Challenge, a competition to create super-efficient solar cars.

The people behind Lightyear came up from that team, and now they are trying to use the knowledge acquired through the creation of the original Stella and Stella Lux solar cars to bring to market a road-legal solar car.

Sep 15, 2021

Jaron Lanier — Is Consciousness an Ultimate Fact?

Posted by in categories: computing, neuroscience, virtual reality

Is there something special about consciousness? Can our inner subjective experience—the sight of purple, smell of cheese, sound of Bach—ever be explained in purely physical terms? Even in principle? Most scientists see consciousness as a science problem to solve. Some philosophers claim that consciousness can never be explained in terms of current science.

Free access to Closer to Truth’s library of 5,000 videos: http://bit.ly/376lkKN

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Sep 15, 2021

West Vancouver student video explains how we could warp to Alpha Centauri

Posted by in categories: physics, space travel

Theoretical physics video nominated for international award.

A West Vancouver student may have the keys to interstellar travel. He just needs a few votes and a whole lot of mass.

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Sep 15, 2021

WATCH: SpaceX Inspiration4 first all civilian launch! — Livestream

Posted by in category: space travel

Tune in at 5:00pm PT / 8:00pm ET on Wed. Sept 15 for SpaceX’s first all-civilian mission to space. SpaceX coverage of pre-launch activities starts at 12:45pm PT / 3:45pm ET.