Lifeboat Foundation

Just like a virus hijacks your cells and forces them to churn out more copies of the virus, this vaccine is expected to automate the production of those particles, which B-cells and T-cells — the biological hunter-seekers of the immune system — can use to ready themselves to fight the real-deal coronavirus.

The main difference between this sort of DNA-based vaccine and a traditional one, Slavcev told Futurism, is that it relies on the person’s cells to create the mock virus instead of merely exposing them to an inert version of the real virus.

“Personal genetics only has to do with how the vaccine is presented,” Slavcev told Futurism, regarding the decision to develop a DNA-based vaccine. “There is some variation between individuals and populations, but in this case the DNA is just to improve immune response and make it mimic a viral infection as closely as possible to stimulate the most effective immune response.”

:ooooooo.

With psilocybin on the cusp of becoming a clinically validated and approved medicine, scientists are exploring new ways to produce the chemical without needing to grow magic mushrooms or relying on costly synthesis techniques. A team of Danish researchers has presented a novel method of producing the psychedelic chemical using common yeast.

“It’s infeasible and way too expensive to extract psilocybin from magic mushrooms and the best chemical synthesis methods require expensive and difficult-to-source starting substrates,” explains Nick Milne, an author on the new study published in the journal Metabolic Engineering. “Thus, there is a need to bring down the cost of production and to provide a more consistent supply chain.”

Continue reading “Scientists turn yeast into psychedelic psilocybin factories” »

A short production outlining Air Force experimentation on White Sands Missile Range with the use of high powered microwave and laser systems to shoot down small unmanned aircraft. Video filmed by John Hamilton.

Much of the work undertaken by artificial intelligence involves a training process known as machine learning, where AI gets better at a task such as recognising a cat or mapping a route the more it does it. Now that same technique is being use to create new AI systems, without any human intervention.

For years, engineers at Google have been working on a freakishly smart machine learning system known as the AutoML system (or automatic machine learning system), which is already capable of creating AI that outperforms anything we’ve made.

Now, researchers have tweaked it to incorporate concepts of Darwinian evolution and shown it can build AI programs that continue to improve upon themselves faster than they would if humans were doing the coding.

Companies are rushing to be early adopters of advanced tech like quantum and artificial intelligence so they don’t fall behind competitors.

The old satellite just got brought back from the dead.

International report claims Pyongyang has been transferring coal exports to Chinese barges.

Brain cells, wrote the Spanish neuroanatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal in the late 19^th century, “may die” and cannot “be regenerated.” Cajal then threw down the gauntlet, asserting that it was the job of the “science of the future to change, if possible, this harsh decree.” Jack Price’s engaging book The Future of Brain Repair details past, present, and future attempts to address Cajal’s formidable challenge. In so doing, it provides a vibrant and compelling guide to the important and rapidly evolving fields of stem cell–based therapies and brain repair, which together, he believes, are poised to deliver unprecedented changes to the management of brain diseases.

http://www.sciencemag.org/about/science-licenses-journal-article-reuse

This is an article distributed under the terms of the Science Journals Default License.

Read more