Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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CRISPR gene editing already promises to fight diseases that were once thought unassailable, but techniques so far have required injecting the tools directly into affected cells. That’s not very practical for some conditions. However, there’s just been a breakthrough. NPR reports that researchers have published results showing that you can inject CRISPR-Cas9 into the bloodstream to make edits, opening the door to the use of gene editing for treating many common diseases.

The experimental treatment tackled a rare genetic disease, transthyretin amyloidosis. Scientists injected volunteers with CRISPR-loaded nanoparticles that were absorbed by the patients’ livers, editing a gene in the organ to disable production of a harmful protein. Levels of that protein plunged within weeks of the injection, saving patients from an illness that can rapidly destroy nerves and other tissues in their bodies.

The test involved just six people, and the research team still has to conduct long-term studies to check for possible negative effects. If this method proves viable on a large scale, though, it could be used to treat illnesses where existing CRISPR techniques aren’t practical, ranging from Alzheimer’s to heart disease.

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Ut ohh.

The middle and working classes have seen a steady decline in their fortunes. Sending jobs to foreign countries, the hollowing out of the manufacturing sector, pivoting toward a service economy and the weakening of unions have been blamed for the challenges faced by a majority of Americans.

There’s an interesting, compelling and alternative explanation. According to a new academic research study, automation technology has been the primary driver in U.S. income inequality over the past 40 years. The report, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, claims that 50% to 70% of changes in U.S. wages, since 1980, can be attributed to wage declines among blue-collar workers who were replaced or degraded by automation.

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence Has Caused A 50% To 70% Decrease In Wages—Creating Income Inequality And Threatening Millions Of Jobs” | >

When an 87-year-old Californian man was wheeled into an operating room just outside Phoenix last year, the pandemic was at its height and medical protocols were being upended across the country.

A case like his would normally have required 14 or more bags of fluids to be pumped into him, but now that posed a problem.

Had he been infected with the coronavirus, tiny aerosol droplets could have escaped and infected staff, so the operating team had adopted new procedures that reduced the effectiveness of the treatment but used fewer liquids.

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A new space race is now underway.

In both cases, the language is an attempt to call forth the spirit of the Outer Space Treaty. However, as many critics have stated, the Artemis Accords suffer from the fact that they are tied to a specific space agency and program. This was certainly the basis of Rogozin and Russia’s resistance when the Accords were first announced, hence why Russia and China have come together to do the same.

In short, they have decided to establish a set of bilateral agreements that would allow others to participate in their program of lunar exploration. While it’s not clear what the long-term implications of this will be, it could possibly lead to tensions and territorial disputes down the road. After all, one of the hallmarks of the current era of space exploration is its plurality, where multiple space agencies (and commercial space) are involved instead of two competing superpowers.

Continue reading “Russia and China are racing to beat NASA back to the Moon” | >

Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the early state of our Universe. At the beginning of the universe, ordinary space and time developed out of a primeval state, where all matter and energy of the entire visible universe was contained in a hot, dense point called a gravitational singularity. A billionth the size of a nuclear particle.

While we can not imagine the entirety of the visible universe being a billion times smaller than a nuclear particle, that shouldn’t deter us from wondering about the early state of our universe. However, dealing with such extreme scales is immensely counter-intuitive and our evolved brains and senses have no capacity to grasp the depths of reality in the beginning of cosmic time. Therefore, scientists develop mathematical frameworks to describe the early universe.

Neil deGrasse Tyson also mentions that our senses are not necessarily the best tools to use in science when uncovering the mysteries of the Universe.

It is interesting to note that in the early Universe, high densities and heterogeneous conditions could have led sufficiently dense regions to undergo gravitational collapse, forming black holes. These types of Primordial black holes are hypothesized to have formed soon after the Big Bang. Going from one mystery to the next, some evidence suggests a possible Link Between Primordial Black Holes and Dark Matter.

Continue reading “The Early Universe Explained by Neil deGrasse Tyson” | >

Kerbal Space Program has now been out for a full 10 years, progressing alongside the space industry and the various people that operate within it. This documentary-style video takes a look at the people that have been influenced, inspired, and introduced to the wonder of space exploration by this bizarre game about little green beings, created by a small group of developers in Mexico City.

We want to thank you, the community, for helping us turn KSP into the launchpad for the next generation of space explorers!

https://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/game/kerbal-space-program/

Don’t miss another KSP launch!

Continue reading “The Kerbal Effect” | >

Now, in a medical first, researchers have injected a CRISPR drug into the blood of people born with a disease that causes fatal nerve and heart disease and shown that in three of them it nearly shut off production of toxic protein by their livers.

Novel treatment using messenger RNA sharply cuts production of mutant liver protein, although it’s too early to show patients with rare condition benefit.

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👏😄We are rapidly approaching — from multiple directions of attack (pharmaceutical, nanotechnology, gene manipulation, etc) — the end of all forms of cancer, inherited diseases, even aging itself. It’s a great time to be alive IF you can live long enough to live forever(ish)! Which makes EVERY death that occurs in the meantime to be all the more of a punch to the gut and slap to the face. PARTICULARLY the 600 000 + people here in the US alone! It’s also another reason t… See More.

If the gene-editing tool CRISPR/Cas9 continues to show such promise it will herald a new era for the treatment of many genetic diseases.

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In August last year, Unity released interim results showing that its drug was probably ineffective in treating study patients suffering from osteoarthritis.

Its stock price plummeted as a consequence, but Dr de Grey remains hopeful that “soon we might have drugs that actively cause these cells to die”.

While Dr de Grey is excited to see much of the life extension research he helped develop come to fruition, some thinkers are raising concerns about the implications of an extended human lifespan.

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The results of the study demonstrated that the mechanisms for visual perception change drastically in the second half of the first year of life, from the bottom-up system to the system incorporating top-down processing.

Summary: Study reveals very young infants can perceive objects that older infants, children, and adults can not see due to a phenomenon called visual backward masking.

Source: Chuo University

We can generally recognize an object, even if it is presented for a very brief time. However, if another object appears immediately following the first object, the perception on the first object is impaired such that we do not notice its existence.

Continue reading “Babies Can See Things That Adults Cannot” | >