Lifeboat Foundation

A new study has revealed that humans — along with all other mammals and reptiles — have the capability of producing venom. The study, published on Monday (March 29) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said humans apparently have a “tool kit” to produce venom.

According to a report in Live Science, humans already produce a key protein used in many venom systems.

It said kallikreins, a kind of protein that digest other proteins, are secreted in saliva and are a key part of many venoms. They are a natural starting point for theoretically venomous humans.

Using the full system, farmers could reduce costs by 40% and chemical usage by up to 95%.

Small Robot Company (SRC), a British agritech startup for sustainable farming, has developed AI-enabled robots – named Tom, Dick and Harry – that identify and kill individual weeds with electricity. These agricultural robots could reduce the use of harmful chemicals and heavy machinery, paving the way for a new approach to sustainable crop farming.

Continue reading “New agricultural robots kill individual weeds with electricity” »

Could this be the future of pizza?

Simply log onto the pizza maker’s mobile application, input the number and type of pizzas you want, and the machine will do the rest of the work.

Art illustration for upcoming Shenzhou-12 crewed flight mission for China’s space station.

Shenzhou-12, China’s first crewed space station mission, explained Graphic: Jin Jianyu, Xu Zihe/GT.

Scientists have successfully grown liver tissue capable of functioning for 30 days in the lab as part of NASA’s Vascular Tissue Challenge.

In 2016, NASA put forth this competition to find teams that could “create thick, vascularized human organ tissue in an in-vitro environment to advance research and benefit medicine on long-duration missions and on Earth,” according to an agency challenge description. Today (June 9), the agency announced not one, but two winners of the challenge.

The results of the study have been extremely encouraging, with 12 of the 13 patients showing signs of improved neurological functionality shortly after the treatment was administered. More than half of the patients showed significant improvement, including regaining the ability to walk, as well as regaining fine motor control (such as the ability to use their hands).

Unlike many stem cell treatments which have been successful in the past, this approach does not require the patient to have a reserve of stem cells available (such as cord blood cells), and instead relies on stem cells which are obtained directly from the patient. A bone marrow sample was extracted in order to first acquire a sample of stem cells (known as mesenchymal stem cells), which were then grown (expanded) in a laboratory for the number of weeks before being injected into the patient’s bloodstream via intravenous injection. These cells would then migrate to the spinal cord and repair the damaged tissue.



How might Earth’s atmosphere, land, and ocean systems respond to changes in carbon dioxide over time? — Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet.

Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Current news and data streams about global warming and climate change from NASA.

Amazon Web Services (AMZN.O) said it will open data centers in Israel, with the announcement coming weeks after Israel signed a deal with AWS and Google for a more than $1 billion project to provide cloud services for its public sector and military.

In April, AWS and Google (GOOGL.O) won a tender for the four phase project known as “Nimbus”. read more

“Today, Amazon Web Services Inc, an Amazon.com company, announced it will open an infrastructure region in Israel in the first half of 2023”, AWS said in a statement on Friday.

Dubbed “the Giant Arc,” the purported structure is much larger than expected in a cosmos where matter is thought to be evenly distributed.