Lifeboat Foundation

Domestic cats exhibit abundant variations in tail morphology and serve as an excellent model to study the development and evolution of vertebrate tails. Cats with shortened and kinked tails were first recorded in the Malayan archipelago by Charles Darwin in 1868 and remain quite common today in Southeast and East Asia. To elucidate the genetic basis of short tails in Asian cats, we built a pedigree of 13 cats segregating at the trait with a founder from southern China and performed linkage mapping based on whole genome sequencing data from the pedigree. The short-tailed trait was mapped to a 5.6 Mb region of Chr E1, within which the substitution c. 5T C in the somite segmentation-related gene HES7 was identified as the causal mutation resulting in a missense change (p. V2A). Validation in 245 unrelated cats confirmed the correlation between HES7-c. 5T C and Chinese short-tailed feral cats as well as the Japanese Bobtail breed, indicating a common genetic basis of the two. In addition, some of our sampled kinked-tailed cats could not be explained by either HES7 or the Manx-related T-box, suggesting at least three independent events in the evolution of domestic cats giving rise to short-tailed traits.

The majority of vertebrate species, with the remarkable exceptions of humans and apes, possess a visible tail throughout their lifespans. The animal tail is an important appendage to the torso and plays adaptive roles in locomotion, balance, communication, thermoregulation and even energy storage¹. In vertebrates, tails vary dramatically in color, size, shape and mobility and represent different evolutionary histories, including multiple independent events of shortening or loss of the tail in distinct lineages. Understanding the genetic causes of intraspecific tail length polymorphism would be one essential step toward elucidating the mechanisms underlying the development and evolution of tails. In laboratory mice, genetic studies of axial skeleton development have identified multiple genes and mutations involved in caudal vertebra development that have pleiotropic effects on fertility, somitogenesis, and meiotic recombination, thus shedding light on vertebrate evolution^2,3,4,5.

This concrete can heal itself, saving billions in construction costs.

Finally!

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will soon issue new guidance clarifying that Americans can be tested for the coronavirus subject to a doctor’s orders.

Vice President Pence previewed the guidance during an off-camera briefing with reporters at the White House Tuesday evening, explaining that some local officials were given the false impression that tests could only be administered to patients who were more than mildly symptomatic.

Continue reading “CDC to issue guidance that patients can get coronavirus test with doctor’s orders” »

My most recent post, “Living in a Computer Simulation,” elicited some insightful comments from a reader skeptical of the possibility of mind uploading. Here is his argument with my own brief response to it below.

My comment concerns a reductive physicalist theory of the mind, which is the view that all mental states and properties of the mind will eventually be explained by scientific accounts of physiological processes and states … Basically, my argument is that for this view of the mind, mind uploading into a computer is completely impractical due to accumulation of errors.

In order to replicate the functioning of a “specific” human mind within a computer, one needs to replicate the functioning of all parts of that specific brain within the computer. [In fact, the whole human body needs to be represented because the mind is a product of all sensations of all parts of the body coalescing within the brain. But, for the sake of argument, let’s just consider replicating only the brain.] In order to represent a specific human brain in the computer, each neuron in the brain would need a digital or analog representation, instantiated in hardware, software or a combination of the two. Unless this representation is an exact biological copy (clone), it will have some inherent “error” associated with it. So, let’s do a sort of “error analysis” (admittedly non-rigorous).

Another patent leak shows that Samsung is bringing unexpected tech to the Galaxy Note 20 phablet.

Circa 2019

Google claims it has designed a machine that needs only 200 seconds to solve a problem that would take the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to figure out.

The speed achieved by the computer represents a breakthrough called “quantum supremacy,” according to a blog post from the company and an accompanying article in the scientific journal Nature.

Continue reading “Google claims its quantum computer can do the impossible in 200 seconds” »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjnrGzUelhg&feature=youtu.be

I interviewed the director of recently released movie ‘2030’, about the life of transhumanist pioneer FM-2030, about his film and what it was like knowing FM-2030 personally — full video here:

My interview with Johnny Boston about his film 2030, which focuses on the life of FM-2030 (born Fereidoun M. Esfandiary) — a noted transhumanist and futurist thinker.

Continue reading “FM-2030 film ‘2030’ — director Johnny Boston interview” »

Circa 2015

University of Utah engineers have taken a step forward in creating the next generation of computers and mobile devices capable of speeds millions of times faster than current machines.

The Utah engineers have developed an ultracompact beamsplitter—the smallest on record—for dividing light waves into two separate channels of information. The device brings researchers closer to producing silicon photonic chips that compute and shuttle data with light instead of electrons. Electrical and computer engineering associate professor Rajesh Menon and colleagues describe their invention today in the journal Nature Photonics.

Continue reading “Computing at the speed of light: Team takes big step toward much faster computers” »

A planetary alignment provides a window to visit Uranus and Neptune — but time is tight.