Lifeboat Foundation

What a tough time for Cyberpunk 2077 to be launching. The newest graphics cards are unavailable unless you’re willing to overpay a scalper, and older GPUs are also hard to buy at a reasonable price because of the shortage of new ones.

The good news is that the official Cyberpunk 2077 minimum specifications are surprisingly modest, especially if you’re OK with playing at 1080p. If you want to slide everything to high at that resolution, then you’re looking at a Core i7 4790 or AMD Ryzen 3 3200G, with a GeForce GTX 1060/1660 Super or Radeon RX 470, and 12GB of RAM. That’s really not too demanding, especially from the processor perspective.

Circa 2018

Scientists have created an ultrathin, flexible film that can emit laser light — and successfully tested it on a contact lens, demonstrating the possibility of laser eye-beams.

Before you rush out and buy a Cyclops-style visor, it’s not even close to powerful enough to cause damage. Instead, the researchers say, the technology has potential for use as wearable security tags, or even as a type of laser barcode.

Continue reading “Finally, a Contact Lens That Actually Beams Lasers From Your Eyes” »

Researchers at Oregon State University are making key advances with a new type of optical sensor that more closely mimics the human eye’s ability to perceive changes in its visual field.

The sensor is a major breakthrough for fields such as image recognition, robotics and artificial intelligence. Findings by OSU College of Engineering researcher John Labram and graduate student Cinthya Trujillo Herrera were published today in Applied Physics Letters.

Previous attempts to build a human-eye type of device, called a retinomorphic sensor, have relied on software or complex hardware, said Labram, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science. But the new sensor’s operation is part of its fundamental design, using ultrathin layers of perovskite semiconductors—widely studied in recent years for their solar energy potential—that change from strong electrical insulators to strong conductors when placed in light.

O,.o.

Livescience.com | By LIVESCIENCE

A high-tech model with the look and feel of actual human tissue helps medical professionals train to perform surgery on the real thing.

Invisible troops are closer than you think! Check out the next-gen ‘artificial skin’ of future warfare.

Scientists from around the world are developing robotic skin that helps machines gain the sense of touch. It’s estimated that robots will displace 20 million human workers by 2030.

Part of my series to give a good grounding in the basics surrounding the subject of human health and longevity, for anyone interested, this week it is Sirtuins.

Are they one of the keys to the door towards ending aging?

Continue reading “Sirtuins Activation — What They Can Offer Longevity & How they May Help Extend Life” »

The novel coronavirus is challenging genome sequencing technology and data processing like never before by.

Claire Jarvis, special to C&EN.

Coronaviruses are enveloped, positive-stranded RNA viruses with a genome of approximately 30 kb. Based on genetic similarities, coronaviruses are classified into three groups. Two group 2 coronaviruses, human coronavirus OC43 (HCoV-OC43) and bovine coronavirus (BCoV), show remarkable antigenic and genetic similarities. In this study, we report the first complete genome sequence (30,738 nucleotides) of the prototype HCoV-OC43 strain (ATCC VR759). Complete genome and open reading frame (ORF) analyses were performed in comparison to the BCoV genome. In the region between the spike and membrane protein genes, a 290-nucleotide deletion is present, corresponding to the absence of BCoV ORFs ns4.9 and ns4.8. Nucleotide and amino acid similarity percentages were determined for the major HCoV-OC43 ORFs and for those of other group 2 coronaviruses. The highest degree of similarity is demonstrated between HCoV-OC43 and BCoV in all ORFs with the exception of the E gene. Molecular clock analysis of the spike gene sequences of BCoV and HCoV-OC43 suggests a relatively recent zoonotic transmission event and dates their most recent common ancestor to around 1890. An evolutionary rate in the order of 4 × 10⁻⁴ nucleotide changes per site per year was estimated. This is the first animal-human zoonotic pair of coronaviruses that can be analyzed in order to gain insights into the processes of adaptation of a nonhuman coronavirus to a human host, which is important for understanding the interspecies transmission events that led to the origin of the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak.

Coronaviruses are large (120- to 160-nm), roughly spherical particles with a linear, nonsegmented, capped, and polyadenylated positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome that is encapsidated in a helical nucleocapsid. The envelope is derived from intracellular membranes and contains a characteristic crown of widely spaced club-shaped spikes that are 12 to 24 nm long. The genus Coronavirus (International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses database [ICTVdb], virus code 03.019.0.1) belongs to the family Coronaviridae in the order Nidovirales (7, 8).

Before the 2002-to-2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic, coronaviruses were somewhat neglected in human medicine, but they have always been of considerable importance in animal health. Coronaviruses infect a variety of livestock, poultry, and companion animals, in whom they can cause serious and often fatal respiratory, enteric, cardiovascular, and neurologic diseases (25). Most of our understanding about the molecular pathogenic properties of coronaviruses has been achieved by the veterinary virology community.