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Jan 20, 2020

Belgian neurologist wins €1m prize for work on serious brain trauma

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Generet prize will fund more trials by Steven Laureys to help written-off ‘vegetative’ patients.

Jan 20, 2020

Human fetal lungs harbor a microbiome signature

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

The lungs and placentas of fetuses in the womb — as young as 11 weeks after conception — already show a bacterial microbiome signature, which suggests that bacteria may colonize the lungs well before birth. This first-time finding deepens the mystery of how the microbes or microbial products reach those organs before birth and what role they play in normal lung and immune system development.

A team led by University of Alabama at Birmingham researcher Charitharth Vivek Lal, M.D., found that a human fetal microbiome DNA signature is present in lungs as early as the first trimester. This fetal lung microbiome showed changes in diversity during fetal development, suggesting microbiome maturation with advancing gestational age. Finally, a placental microbiome was also present in human fetal tissue, and this microbiome signature showed some taxonomic overlap with the corresponding human fetal lung microbiome.

“We speculate that maternal-fetal microbial DNA transfer — and perhaps of other microbial products and whole live or dead bacteria — is a realistic possibility,” said Lal, an associate professor in the UAB Pediatrics Division of Neonatology. “This may serve to ‘prime’ the developing innate immune system of the fetus and help in establishment of a normal host-commensal relationship.”

Jan 20, 2020

Physics shows that imperfections make perfect

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Northwestern University researchers have added a new dimension to the importance of diversity.

For the first time, physicists have experimentally demonstrated that certain systems with interacting entities can synchronize only if the entities within the system are different from one another.

This finding offers a new twist to the previous understanding of how found in nature—such as fireflies flashing in unison or pacemaker cells working together to generate a heartbeat—can arise even when the individual insects or cells are different.

Jan 20, 2020

Japan Is Celebrating 40 Years of Gundam With a Huge Moving Robot

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Plans to construct a huge robot based on the Mobile Suit Gundam anime series that will be open to the public in October 2020 have been revealed.

Jan 20, 2020

The Killer Algorithms Nobody’s Talking About

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI

Activists fret about armies relying on killer robots, but some forms of artificial intelligence that don’t actually pull the trigger could still be a nightmare.

Jan 20, 2020

The Puzzling Search for Perfect Randomness

Posted by in category: futurism

Does objective, perfect randomness exist, or is randomness merely a product of our ignorance?

Jan 20, 2020

3D Bioprinted Organ Just Took Its First “Breath”

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, bioprinting, biotech/medical

3D bio-printed Lung tissue.


Rice University researcher’s bioprinting method could be scaled up to one day construct an entire organ and allow organs to be made using some of a patient’s own cells to prevent organ rejection. Researcher’s long term goals are to bioprint fully functioning organs. Synthetic organs can extend the waiting period of an average 3.6 years for a real organ.

Continue reading “3D Bioprinted Organ Just Took Its First ‘Breath’” »

Jan 20, 2020

Exclusive: Intel report warns U.S. troops in Germany face “possible imminent” threat of attack

Posted by in category: military

The U.S. military said “an unknown Jordanian extremist” who is “a loyalist to the Jordanian kinglet” may be plotting to attack Tower Barracks in Grafenwohr or Tower Barracks, Dulmen, according to a report seen by Newsweek.

Jan 20, 2020

Immune discovery ‘may treat all cancer’

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Research is at an early stage but scientists said it had huge potential for destroying cancers.

Jan 20, 2020

The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same: The Administrative Assistant of 2025

Posted by in categories: automation, business, futurism

Are Administrative/Executive Assistants (EA)/Personal Assistants (PA) already living in the future as new technology hits the workplace?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most disruptive technologies affecting today’s business environment. Explosive developments, funding and support for increasing the role of AI in all sectors, and across all job roles seem to be a key driver of the future of business. The impact of AI over the next decade is expected to completely transform the landscape, and no industry, or job, will be left untouched.

Jobs are among the chief concerns whenever the topic of AI is mentioned. Most people have by now heard that “robots are coming” for jobs, and that mass unemployment is “inevitable” in our collective future. But, some jobs could be transformed for the better with the rise of smart technologies making routine work easier, allowing people to focus on the job elements that they can really add value to. For that reason, we suggest that the Administrative/Executive Assistant (EA)/Personal Assistant (PA) of 2025 will not be replaced by technology, but rather, enhanced by it.

In many ways, the future is already here. Though the Admins/EAs/PAs are indeed job roles which are already being affected by AI, there is ample evidence to show that the future outlook is actually quite good as a benefit of smart technology.

Continue reading “The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same: The Administrative Assistant of 2025” »