Lifeboat Foundation

AI has finally come full circle.

A new suite of algorithms by Google Brain can now design computer chips —those specifically tailored for running AI software —that vastly outperform those designed by human experts. And the system works in just a few hours, dramatically slashing the weeks-or months-long process that normally gums up digital innovation.

At the heart of these robotic chip designers is a type of machine learning called deep reinforcement learning. This family of algorithms, loosely based on the human brain’s workings, has triumphed over its biological neural inspirations in games such as Chess, Go, and nearly the entire Atari catalog.

Harvard & Smithsonian, where she directs the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division. She is a past President of the American Astronomical Society and holds degrees from Wellesley College and Harvard University. Her interest in the star Betelgeuse began in the mid-80’s with measurements from satellites that documented the 420-day pulsation period of Betelgeuse. She also led the extraordinary team that captured the first image of a star other than the Sun – an image of Betelgeuse taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in ultraviolet light – revealing its brightly varying surface.

Obstructive sleep apnea is widely “underrecognized and underdiagnosed.” But individuals with moderate to severe sleep apnea have a notable elevated risk of mortality from cancer and stroke compared to individuals without. People with obstructive sleep apnea and parasomnia have higher risks of breast cancer. The same study finds that parasomnia also increases the risk of oral cancer.

Update 8/23/2021: This post has been updated since we originally published it in October 2020. I evaluated additional top sleep trackers and apps for 2,022 added Biostrap, updated the post to reflect most recent pricing, and added additional commentary on my reviews. The post has been cleaned up and links were made current.

I didn’t used to have a harmonious relationship with sleep. In fact, sleep used to be a source of anxiety for me. I have parasomnia, an amalgam of disorders that, occasionally, give me hypnopompic hallucinations Severe hallucinations when waking up from a deep sleep. 0 night terrors Nightmares that lead the dreamer to wake up screaming and thrashing without recollection of the dream itself 0 and, most dangerously, somnambulism The fancy word for ‘sleepwalking.’ 0 which has led me to drive while sleeping and scare the living piss out of my poor husband after we watched Paranormal Activity together (it didn’t help that I was mutely standing over him at 4:15 AM with my eyes wide open).

Continue reading “9 Best Sleep Trackers and Apps for Longevity in 2022” »

Dravet syndrome (DS) is a developmental and epileptic encephalopathy with an increased incidence of sudden death. Evidence of interictal breathing deficits in DS suggests that alterations in subcortical projections to brainstem nuclei may exist, which might be driving comorbidities in DS.

Summary: Researchers have identified a circuit within the brain that may be responsible for respiratory dysfunction and sudden death associated with Dravet syndrome.

Source: Vanderbilt University

Continue reading “Sudden Death From Deep in the Brain?” »

Craig Montell is a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who helped lead the research. He said in a statement that by removing the two eye receptors, the team was able to “eliminate CO2-induced target recognition without causing blindness.”

Female Aedes aegypti search out blood meals in humans to develop eggs. They use several different senses to find those meals. One of the main identifying tools is the smell of carbon dioxide (CO₂). When a human breathes out CO₂, the mosquitoes become more active and begin looking for targets to bite.

The research team said this search generally begins with the mosquito flying toward the direction of the released CO₂. When seeking out targets, the insects search for dark objects. Once the mosquitoes are within close range, they can also sense heat from skin and additional skin smells to help guide them to a human.

Continue reading “Gene Editing Used to Block Mosquitos’ Ability to Identify Targets” »

Summary: Retrofitting wireless earbuds to detect neural signals and relaying the data back to smartphones via Bluetooth, researchers say the new earEEG system could have multiple applications, including health monitoring.

Source: UC Berkeley.

From keypads to touch screens to voice commands – step by step, the interface between users and their smartphones has become more personalized, more seamless. Now the ultimate personalized interface is approaching: issuing smartphone commands with your brain waves.

NASA’s Near-Earth Asteroid Scout is tucked away safely inside the agency’s powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The solar sailing CubeSat is one of several secondary payloads hitching a ride on Artemis I, the first integrated flight of the agency’s SLS and the Orion spacecraft.

Startups in Germany, China, Israel, and elsewhere are following the path blazed by GPT-3—with local twists.

You’re working from home. Your colleagues are too. Facebook wants to bring you together — sort of — with virtual reality. The company is launching “Horizon Workrooms,” a VR app aimed at reinventing virtual office spaces.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated the product Thursday in an exclusive interview with “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King. Both Zuckerberg and King wore headsets for what Zuckerberg said was his first interview in VR.

Zuckerberg said that as far back as middle school, he thought about how to create an immersive system where people could feel like they were together playing games or exploring – part of something called the “metaverse.”