Lifeboat Foundation

The overall response rate in the trial population was 40% (95% CI 29%-51%). Median duration of response was 11.1 months (95% CI 6.9-not evaluable), with nearly two-thirds of patients having a duration of response of at least 6 months.

The FDA approved amivantamab-vmjw (Rybrevant) on Friday as the first treatment for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations.

Amivantamab is a bispecific antibody that targets EGFR and mesenchymal-epithelial transition factor pathways. EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations occur in approximately 2% to 3% of NSCLC patients, and are associated with rapid cell growth.

Continue reading “FDA OKs Bispecific Antibody for Rare Lung Cancer Subtype” »

Tesla began sending out over-the-air software updates for its long-awaited “Full Self-Driving” beta version 9, the definitely-not-autonomous-but-certainly-advanced driver assist system.

As promised by Elon Musk, the software update (2021.4.18.12) began uploading after midnight on Friday, giving thousands of Tesla owners who have purchased the FSD option access to the feature, which enables drivers to use many of Autopilot’s advanced driver-assist features on local, non-highway streets.

Rapid Motor Adaptation-enabled test robot traverses various types of terrain. (Images courtesy Berkeley AI Research, Facebook AI Research and Carnegie Mellon University)

Not only could the robot adjust to novel circumstances, but it could also do so in fractions of a second rather than in minutes or more. This is critical for practical deployment in the real world.

Continue reading “New AI strategy enables robots to rapidly adapt to real world environments” »

Planets which are tilted on their axis, like Earth, are more capable of evolving complex life. This finding will help scientists refine the search for more advanced life on exoplanets. This NASA-funded research is presented at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference.

Since the first discovery of exoplanets (planets orbiting distant stars) in 1992, scientists have been looking for worlds that might support life. It is believed that to sustain even basic life, exoplanets need to be at just the right distance from their stars to allow liquid water to exist; the so-called “Goldilocks zone.” However, for more advanced life, other factors are also important, particularly atmospheric oxygen.

Oxygen plays a critical role in respiration, the chemical process which drives the metabolisms of most complex living things. Some basic life forms produce oxygen in small quantities, but for more complex life forms, such as plants and animals, oxygen is critical. Early Earth had little oxygen even though basic life forms existed.

Detecting ‘technosignatures’ such as hypothetical Dyson spheres in space could lead us to extraterrestrial life, and now NASA is funding the search.

Ageing is an incredibly complicated process, so much so that we do not yet understand exactly how complicated it is. It is in fact so complicated, that it could actually be incredibly simple. Confused? Well, imagine if you were a structural engineer who was trying to understand why a building collapsed. From an initial inspection of the rubble, it may be extremely difficult to work out exactly what went wrong. Was the building made from inferior materials? Was it built incorrectly? Was its destruction deliberate? Did it just fall apart due to age? All of these are possible, but what was the true cause for its destruction? Well, that is the same mystery we are trying to solve in longevity research. We can see the damage that is caused by ageing, but what is the cause? Is it a general accumulation of damage, or are there single points of failure which have knock on effects that affect the entire body? A cascade failure if you will.

Of the many different changes that occur during the ageing process, one of the most well-known and understood is the decreased capacity for our body to produced chemical energy, which has a knock-on effect throughout the body. This results in a general decrease in our ability to carry out cellular functions and will therefore effective everything from muscle strength to DNA replication and repair. This decrease in energy output has been linked to defects in our mitochondria, but in addition to these physical defects that occur in these small organisms, we now know that they also suffer a decreased capacity to carry out their function due to lacking a critical coenzyme called Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). Anyone who has taken a high school level biology class will probably recognise this enzyme as part of the electron transport chain in respiration.

Cutting-edge technology enables people to “feel” with prosthetic limbs they move remotely with their brains.

Stephen Colbert and Khalid will be on the livestream.

Wondering how to watch Virgin Galactic launch Richard Branson and a crew of three employees to space? The company’s livestream will begin at 9AM ET on July 11th and be hosted by Stephen Colbert, followed by a live performance from Khalid.

When Oumuamua, the first interstellar object ever observed passing through the Solar System, was discovered in 2017, it exhibited some unexpected properties that left astronomers scratching their heads. Its elongated shape, lack of a coma, and the fact that it changed its trajectory were all surprising, leading to several competing theories about its origin: was it a hydrogen iceberg exhibiting outgassing, or maybe an extraterrestrial solar sail (sorry folks, not likely) on a deep-space journey? We may never know the answer, because Oumuamua was moving too fast, and was observed too late, to get a good look.

It may be too late for Oumuamua, but we could be ready for the next strange interstellar visitor if we wanted to. A spacecraft could be designed and built to catch such an object at a moment’s notice. The idea of an interstellar interceptor like this has been floated by various experts, and funding to study such a concept has even been granted through NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. But how exactly would such an interceptor work?

A new paper released on ArXiv on June 27^th explores one possible mission design. Derived from the NIAC study, the proposal suggests combining solar sail technology with the ability to miniaturize space probes to small, lightweight sizes.