Lifeboat News: The Blog – Safeguarding Humanity

Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.

Nov 21
2025

A New Bridge Links the Strange Math of Infinity to Computer Science

All of modern mathematics is built on the foundation of set theory, the study of how to organize abstract collections of objects. But in general, research mathematicians don’t need to think about it when they’re solving their problems. They can take it for granted that sets behave the way they’d expect, and carry on with their work.

Descriptive set theorists are an exception. This small community of mathematicians never stopped studying the fundamental nature of sets — particularly the strange infinite ones that other mathematicians ignore.

Their field just got a lot less lonely. In 2023, a mathematician named Anton Bernshteyn (opens a new tab) published a deep and surprising connection (opens a new tab) between the remote mathematical frontier of descriptive set theory and modern computer science.

Nov 21
2025

Widely tunable and narrow-linewidth violet lasers enabled by UV-transparent materials

Integrating UV lasers is of interest for portable optical clocks and ion-based quantum computers, but material absorption has impeded progress. Here, authors demonstrate a violet integrated laser using UV-transparent materials with mW-level output, narrow linewidth and precise frequency control.

Nov 21
2025

From Generative To Agentic: The New Era Of AI Autonomy In 2026

#artificialintelligence

Agentic AI is a form of artificial intelligence that does more than just generate; it will act, reason somewhat, collaborate, and execute on its own. Agentic AI transforms its role from a limited tool to that of a collaborative coworker.

This shift affects various sectors, including cybersecurity, national defense, healthcare, key infrastructure, finance, supply chains, and corporate automation. Additionally, it accelerates the integration of robotics, neuromorphic systems, sensor-driven edge computing, and artificial intelligence.

Systems with the ability to plan and pursue goals characterize Agentic AI. IIt combines APIs and tools, engages with dynamic environments, makes decisions, uses reasoning, and continues to learn and adapt.

Nov 21
2025

ENeuro Blog

These images have been selected to showcase the art that neuroscience research can create.

As described by the authors: The cacophony voltage-gated calcium channel serves as the primary conduit for the calcium that triggers neurotransmitter release at countless synapses across the fruit fly (Drosophila) nervous system. To support this role at different synapse types, alternate splicing confers different biophysical properties upon cacophony. However, conventional techniques that might discriminate splice isoforms, such as antibodies, toxins, and pharmacological agents, are poorly suited for identifying splice isoforms across multiple neurons in a living nervous system.

This image demonstrates the transgenic expression of a bichromatic fluorescent exon reporter in most neurons of the fly brain. Green fluorescent protein (GFP) fluorescence was particularly bright relative to red fluorescent protein (TagRFP) in the α, β, and γ lobes of the mushroom body (MB), indicating a bias towards the inclusion of exon 11 at the expense of exon 10. Differences were also evident between neurons of the optic lobes.

Nov 21
2025

Household humanoid robot trained on 10 million chores unveiled in US

Memo is trained on 10 million real-home routines collected from 500 families, giving it the intuition to handle unpredictable household chores.

Nov 21
2025

Large language models and research progress: Q&A with an aerospace engineer

The rapid expansion of large language models’ (LLMs) capabilities—including web search, code execution, data analysis and even hypothesis generation and experimental design—is outpacing critical reflection of how the technology fits into academic research.

This is the argument that Ricardo Vinuesa, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at U-M, and his co-authors made in the journal The Innovation.

Though they acknowledge that LLMs are helpful for generating a speedy first draft, adopting LLMs into every stage of the research process without proper guardrails creates risk of misconduct, such as data fabrication or biased experimental design.

Nov 21
2025

Cyberattacks’ harm to universities is growing — and so are their effects on research

Hackers are ramping up attacks on academic institutions to access valuable data and to demand ransoms.

Nov 21
2025

Ultrasound-responsive nanoparticles: Modulating the tumor microenvironment to advance cancer immunotherapy

Ultrasound-responsive nanoparticles (URNs) enable spatiotemporal activation of immunomodulators that can remodel the tumor microenvironment and strengthen immune responses. This review summarizes how URNs enhance immune checkpoint blockade, vaccines, T cell therapies, cytokine delivery, and innate immune modulators, while synergizing with strategies such as oxygenation, extracellular matrix depletion, metabolic reprogramming, and phototherapy. By offering precise control and reduced systemic toxicity, URNs represent a promising platform for the rational design of next-generation cancer immunotherapies.

Nov 21
2025

The “StemDif Sensor Test”: A Straightforward, Non-Invasive Assay to Characterize the Secreted Stemness and/or Differentiation Activities of Tumor-Derived Cancer Cell Lines

Cancer stem cells are a subpopulation of tumor cells characterized by their ability to self-renew, induce tumors upon engraftment in animals and exhibit strong resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. These cells exhibit numerous characteristics in common with embryonic stem cells, expressing some of their markers, typically absent in non-pathological adult differentiated cells. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of conditioned media from cancer stem cells to modulate the fate of Leukemia Inhibitory Factor (LIF)-dependent murine embryonic stem cells (mESCs) as a way to obtain a direct readout of the secretome of cancer cells. A functional assay, “the StemDif sensor test”, was developed with two types of cancer stem cells derived from grade IV glioblastoma (adult and pediatric) or from gastric adenocarcinoma.