Lifeboat Foundation

Synthetic biological circuits are promising tools for developing sophisticated systems for medical, industrial, and environmental applications. So far, circuit implementations commonly rely on gene expression regulation for information processing using digital logic. Here, we present a different approach for biological computation through metabolic circuits designed by computer-aided tools, implemented in both whole-cell and cell-free systems. We first combine metabolic transducers to build an analog adder, a device that sums up the concentrations of multiple input metabolites. Next, we build a weighted adder where the contributions of the different metabolites to the sum can be adjusted. Using a computational model fitted on experimental data, we finally implement two four-input perceptrons for desired binary classification of metabolite combinations by applying model-predicted weights to the metabolic perceptron. The perceptron-mediated neural computing introduced here lays the groundwork for more advanced metabolic circuits for rapid and scalable multiplex sensing.

Hmmmm.

ATTENTION owners of truly massive, human-built tunnels and subterranean complexes: The US military’s secretive research agency urgently needs your underground lair for some undisclosed experiments.

DARPA tweeted on Wednesday that within the next 48 hours it must find a “human-made underground environment spanning several city blocks with complex layout & multiple stories, including atriums, tunnels & stairwells. Spaces that are currently closed off from pedestrians or can be temporarily used for testing are of interest.”

Continue reading “US Military Urgently Seeking Enormous Underground Complex for Undisclosed Experiments” »

Police in a small Texas community have recommended that residents temporarily vacate their homes on Monday while Elon Musk Elon Reeve MuskUS Space Command: A vision for the final frontier The paradox of superstars Hillicon Valley: US, France reach deal on tech tax | FEC vice chair resigns | Move leaves agency unable to vote on actions | Groups seek net neutrality pledge from 2020 Dems | Australia eyes blocking extremist content MORE ’s SpaceX attempts an experimental launch of a Mars rocket prototype.

A public safety notice was issued to residents of Boca Chica, a town on the southern tip of Texas with houses within two miles of SpaceX’s launch pad for the Starhopper rocket, Business Insider reported on Sunday.

A county sheriff reportedly went door-to-door on Saturday to deliver the notice to approximately 20 households, warning of possible shattered windows and “potential risk to health and safety.”

Just imagine what types of treatments, human enhancements, and other disorders could be solved with this technique. No more invasive GBM surgeries, Dystonia is finally treated and no longer a problem as well as other diseases and disorders that are located in areas like the basal ganglia area of the brain.

By Chris Stokel-Walker

A tiny robotic worm can wiggle its way through a model brain. It could eventually be used to make brain surgeries less invasive.

Continue reading “Worm robot could wiggle its way through arteries in the brain” »

During his year in space, Scott Kelly was zapped relentlessly by radiation — the equivalent of 10 chest X-rays a day for more than 11 months starting in March of 2015. The onslaught damaged the astronaut’s DNA and affected his immune system while raising his risk for cancer. And Kelly was aboard the International Space Station, whose tight orbit around Earth lies within the magnetic field that surrounds our planet and blocks the most damaging forms of radiation.

Astronauts who travel to Mars or other destinations in deep space will leave Earth’s protective cocoon for months or years at a time. And a new NASA-funded study suggests that chronic exposure to radiation could harm astronauts’ minds as well as their bodies — potentially affecting space flyers’ moods and even their ability to think.

That could be a big deal.

One of the most difficult challenges in treating the brain cancer glioblastoma is that few drugs can pass through the blood-brain barrier. Scientists at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles have developed a system to circumvent this hurdle—one that combines a powerful immuno-oncology drug with a polymer-based delivery vehicle that can cross the blood-brain barrier.

The researchers showed that this “nano-immunotherapy” treatment crossed the blood-brain barrier in mouse models of glioblastoma, and that it stopped tumor cells from multiplying. They published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

The Cedars-Sinai team used the polymer scaffold to deliver two types of immune checkpoint inhibitors, blocking either CTLA-4 or PD-1. When injected into the bloodstream of mice, the drugs quickly infiltrated brain tumors, but not healthy brain tissue, the researchers reported.

https://youtu.be/qyQNZMPZLtU

The heaviest mantle of bees weighed 62.1 kg (136 lb 14.51 oz) and was achieved by Ruan Liangming (China) in Fengxin County, Jiangxi Province, China, on 6 May 2012.

Each week, we bring you jaw dropping records both old and new from our Guinness World Records video archive!

Continue reading “MAN COVERED IN BEES! — Classics” »

The #USOpen starts today! Can you imagine a spacecraft the size of a tennis court? To see infrared light from faraway objects, the James Webb Space Telescope needs to be extremely cold! Enter Webb €™s sunshield (~21x14 meters in size), which will provide shade and keep Webb operating at less than ~50 Kelvin (−370 °F or −223 °C).

https://go.nasa.gov/2zfNzYP

Researchers have successfully created a model of the Universe using artificial intelligence, reports a new study.

Researchers seek to understand our Universe by making model predictions to match observations. Historically, they have been able to model simple or highly simplified physical systems, jokingly dubbed the “spherical cows,” with pencils and paper. Later, the arrival of computers enabled them to model complex phenomena with numerical simulations. For example, researchers have programmed supercomputers to simulate the motion of billions of particles through billions of years of cosmic time, a procedure known as the N-body simulations, in order to study how the Universe evolved to what we observe today.

“Now with machine learning, we have developed the first neural network model of the Universe, and demonstrated there’s a third route to making predictions, one that combines the merits of both analytic calculation and numerical simulation,” said Yin Li, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, University of Tokyo, and jointly the University of California, Berkeley.