Lifeboat Foundation

Air conditioners are a convenient way to cool down offices and homes, but they use huge amounts of energy in the process. A team of scientists has been developing an alternative solution for those warm summer months called the Cold Tube, which works by absorbing body heat emitted from a person and can use around half the energy of traditional systems as a result.

The notoriously bad energy efficiency of air conditioners has motivated the development a range of environmentally friendly solutions, from attachments that use water mist to pre-cool the units to solar-powered systems that produce hot water at the same time. In 2018, Richard Branson even launched a US$3 million competition aimed at developing more energy efficient air conditioners.

Similarly, the research team behind the Cold Tube has been investigating next-generation systems that keep people cool in more efficient ways. Made up of scientists from the University of British Columbia, Princeton University, the University of California, Berkeley and the Singapore-ETH Centre, the team took aim at the dehumidification process that is a critical function of today’s air conditioning systems.

Hello World. I am Imagination. In this video, I am going to talk about The Boring Company’s Loop System.

Editor’s note: A recording of this virtual event is embedded above.

Artificial intelligence is proving a potent weapon against the pandemic, enabling researchers to comb through massive data sets to understand the virus and how to combat it. From drug development to immune response, STAT’s Casey Ross will talk to researchers and AI experts about how AI is accelerating a worldwide effort to crack Covid-19’s molecular code.

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Most of us are now familiar with apps that track what’s known as our ‘digital biomarkers’. These include the steps, we’ve taken, our heart rate, and our weight. In recent years startups have appeared which can, in a relatively turnkey manner, track our ‘biomedical markers’, such as cholesterol levels, for instance. Few, however, are seeking to combine the two to get a 360-degree view of how our bodies are doing.

Into this gap steps Humanity Inc., which will seek to do exactly that. Founded by two seasoned entrepreneurs, Humanity will combine digital and biomedical biomarkers into a consumer app that will fully launch next year.

Today it announces it’s initial seed fundraise of $2.5m, in a round led by Boston fund One Way Ventures and the legendary and long-time HealthTech Angel investor Esther Dyson, among others.

Honey appears to be a preferable treatment for cough or cold symptoms rather than antibiotics and over-the-counter medicines, according to a new systematic review that’s looked at the results from 14 previous studies — but the conclusions may not be quite so clear-cut as they appear at first.

“Honey is a frequently used lay remedy that is well known to patients,” write the researchers from the University of Oxford in the UK. “It is also cheap, easy to access and has limited harms.”

One particular area of interest is the comparison of honey to antibiotics. With antibiotics often causing side effects and antibiotic resistance on the rise, there are multiple advantages to using honey as an alternative remedy, the authors of the review point out.

Summary: Researchers identified a group of closely related genes that capture molecular links between Alzheimer’s and LATE, a common brain disorder that mimics Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Source: Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most common causes of dementia, and while most people might know someone who is affected by it, the genetic factors behind the disease are less known. A new study by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital uncovered a group of closely related genes that may capture molecular links between Alzheimer’s disease and Limbic-predominant Age-related TDP-43 Encephalopathy, or LATE, a recently recognized common brain disorder that can mimic Alzheimer’s symptoms. LATE is often combined with Alzheimer’s disease to cause a more rapid cognitive decline. The study’s results are published in Neuron.

Machine logic can be too precise to seem fully human. Chatbots that learn logic from Aristotle instead might behave more like people.

Gmail users are unable to send emails and attach files. The outage was at its peak at 12:00 pm with more than 2,700 users reported issues. Business Insider noted Google Drive was unable to upload files, download files or share them.

Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to record material blasting away from the site of an exploded star at speeds faster than 20 million miles per hour. This is about 25,000 times faster than the speed of sound on Earth.

Kepler’s supernova remnant is the debris from a detonated star that is located about 20,000 light years away from Earth in our Milky Way galaxy. In 1604 early astronomers, including Johannes Kepler who became the object’s namesake, saw the supernova explosion that destroyed the star.

Continue reading “Kepler’s supernova remnant: Debris from stellar explosion not slowed after 400 years” »