Lifeboat Foundation

Psilocybin startup Compass Pathways goes public at more than $1B. Here’s why Wall Street is starting to see the value in psychedelics.

For several years, investors and psychonauts have predicted that psychedelic medicine would become the next billion-dollar industry, with some value estimates as high as $100 billion. They said substances like MDMA or psilocybin mushrooms would follow a similar regulatory path that cannabis took to the mainstream, going from a Schedule 1 narcotic to a legal, regulated, and highly lucrative medicine.

Continue reading “Psychedelic Gold Rush? Compass Pathways Goes Public at More than $1B” »

Three United States DOE national laboratories – SLAC, Fermilab and Jefferson Lab – have partnered to build an advanced particle accelerator that will power the LCLS-II X-ray laser. Thanks to technology developed for nuclear and high-energy physics, the new X-ray laser will produce a nearly continuous wave of electrons and allow scientists to peer more deeply than ever before into the building blocks of life and matter.

Is it a new asteroid mini–moon or a human-made mini-moon? That’s the question about a small object approaching Earth, called 2020 SO. NASA’s Small Body Database predicts the object will captured by Earth’s gravity in October 2020 and temporarily be trapped in orbit.

But a few unusual characteristics of 2020 SO suggest it might not be a small asteroid, like the two previously known temporary mini-moons that have briefly orbited our planet. Instead, this new object might in fact be an old object from Earth—an old second-stage rocket part from the Surveyor 2 lunar lander mission, launched in 1966.

Mini-moons, or TCOs (Temporarily Captured Objects) have probably occurred more over history than we know, but only two have ever been confirmed: 2006 RH120, which hung out in Earth orbit from 2006 to 2007, and the one discovered earlier this year, 2020 CD3, in Earth orbit from 2018 to 2020. Those objects were definitely small space rocks.

Stem cells are a promising experimental treatment for a variety of diseases. Now researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that transplanting neurons grown from stem cells into the brains of mice with Parkinson’s disease repaired the damaged brain circuits, improving the animals’ motor skills.

In people afflicted with Parkinson’s, neurons that produce dopamine begin to break down and die. The disease gradually presents as tremors, involuntary movements, and trouble with walking, speaking and other actions. While it currently can’t be cured, studies are suggesting new ways to slow progression and reduce severity of symptoms through new drugs or repurposed old ones, deep brain stimulation or probiotic treatments.

But an emerging and potentially ground-breaking treatment involves stem cells. In several studies, researchers have used stem cells to grow new dopamine-producing neurons, and then transplant them into animals. And now the UW-Madison team’s work has shown that doing so can help restore brain circuits damaged by Parkinson’s.

Researchers have shown how to effectively transform one material into another using a finely shaped laser pulse.

A new bipartisan #congressionalreport calls for the #DefenseDepartment to get a lot more serious about the race to acquire #artificialintelligence and #autonomouscapabilities, modeling efforts to become dominant in these spheres after the “Manhattan Project” initiative to test and develop nuclear weapons in the 1940s.

On Tuesday, the House Armed Services Committee released the results of a yearlong review, co-led by Reps. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., and Jim Banks, R-Ind., aimed at assessing #U.S. #militarycapabilities and preparedness to meet current threats. The 87-page #Future of Defense Task Force Report contains some expected findings — #China and #Russia are identified as the top security threats to the U.S. and modernization is described as an urgent need — but there are surprising points of emphasis.

A bipartisan congressional report calls for the DoD to get more serious about the race to acquire artificial intelligence and autonomous capabilities, modeling efforts to become dominant in these spheres after the “Manhattan Project” initiative to test and develop nuclear weapons in the 1940s.

Continue reading “Congress Wants a ‘Manhattan Project’ for Military Artificial Intelligence” »

A two-in-one software module could improve many applications built on top of popular deep learning architectures.

The future of Transportation Earth 2 Eath suborbital crafts.

SpaceX also has big ambitions for Starship to send passengers around the world.
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Continue reading “How SpaceX Will Use Starship for Earth to Earth Travel” »

Gryphon provides digital engineering, analytics, cyber and cloud solutions to U.S. security organizations. It was awarded a $14million DARPA task order to support the development and demonstration of an uranium-based Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) System.

The system is a part of the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program and will enable the U.S. military to operate spacecraft in cislunar space, Gryphon said. The cislunar space is the region outside the Earth’s atmosphere and just beyond the Moon’s orbit.

“A successfully demonstrated NTP system will provide a leap-ahead in space propulsion capability, allowing agile and rapid transit over vast distances as compared to present propulsion approaches,” said Gryphon’s Chief Engineer Dr. Tabitha Dodson.

Continue reading “U.S. DARPA tasks Gryphon with nuclear thermal propulsion system” »