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Nov 13, 2019

The factory of the future?

Posted by in categories: business, robotics/AI

Ocado, a British online-grocery company, is using air-traffic-control systems and AI technology to co-ordinate 700 factory robots. Its use of technology has made it a challenger to Amazon’s grocery-delivery business https://econ.st/2oTjzAG

Nov 13, 2019

New Study: Sleep Is Literally a Deep Clean for Your Brain

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Sleep washes away toxic gunk that builds up in your brain. Do you really want to leave it there?

Nov 13, 2019

Can we live forever? | Death Land

Posted by in category: life extension

What if you could cheat death and live forever? To people in the radical life extension movement, immortality is a real possibility. Leah Green spends a long weekend at RAADfest, a meeting of scientists, activists and ordinary people who want to extend the human lifespan. So is reversing your age a real possibility? And what’s behind this wish to live forever?
This is the first episode in our Death Land series, with a new episode every Thursday at 12pm. Subscribe here so you don’t miss the next installment ► http://is.gd/subscribeguardian

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Nov 12, 2019

Who shrank the drug factory? Briefcase-sized labs could transform medicine

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics, military

Historically, the pharmaceutical industry has relied on economies of scale, mixing hundreds of litres of reagents in massive reaction chambers to make millions of doses of a single drug. Bio-MOD and related systems, however, cycle small amounts of chemicals through a series of thumb-sized chambers that can produce hundreds or thousands of doses of multiple drugs, all in less than 24 hours. Several teams have won support for this vision from the US military: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has handed out more than US$15 million to support these do-it-yourself drug-makers.


Engineers are miniaturizing pharmaceutical production in the hope of making it portable and inexpensive.

Nov 12, 2019

Simple brushless three-phase motor 24,000 RPM

Posted by in category: futurism

Music: Glen Canyon

Nov 12, 2019

Artificial wombs may soon become the future — but what are the risks?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, entertainment

The idea of growing babies outside the body has inspired novels and movies for decades.

Now, research groups around the world are exploring the possibility of artificial gestation. For instance, one group successfully grew a lamb in an artificial womb for four weeks. Australian researchers have also experimented with artificial gestation for lambs and sharks.

And in recent weeks, researchers in The Netherlands have received €2.9 million to develop a prototype for gestating premature babies.

Nov 12, 2019

Radioactive ‘Tomb’ in Pacific Filled With Nuclear Waste Is Starting to Crack

Posted by in categories: materials, military

In the Marshall Islands, locals have a nickname for the Runit Dome nuclear-waste site: They call it ‘The Tomb’.

The sealed pit contains more than 3.1 million cubic feet (87,800 cubic meters) of radioactive waste, which workers buried there as part of efforts to clean hazardous debris left behind after the US military detonated nuclear bombs on the land.

From 1977 to 1980, around 4,000 US servicemen were tasked with cleaning up the former nuclear testing site of Enewetak Atoll. They scooped up the contaminated soil, along with other radioactive waste materials such as military equipment, concrete, and scrap metal.

Nov 12, 2019

Research team discovers epigenetic pathway that controls social behavior in carpenter ants

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, genetics, neuroscience

Through early adulthood, exposure to new experiences—like learning to drive a car or memorizing information for an exam—triggers change in the human brain, re-wiring neural pathways to imprint memories and modify behavior. Similar to humans, the behavior of Florida carpenter ants is not set in stone—their roles, whether it is protecting the colony or foraging for food, are determined by signals from the physical and social environment early in their life. But questions remain about how long they are vulnerable to epigenetic changes and what pathways govern social behavior in ants.

Now, a team led by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that a protein called CoRest, a neural repressor that is also found in humans, plays a central role in determining the of . The results, published today in Molecular Cell, also revealed that called Majors, known as “brawny” soldiers that protect colonies, can be reprogrammed to perform the foraging role—generally reserved for their sisters, the Minor ants—up to five days after they emerge as an adult ant. However, the reprogramming is ineffective at the 10-day mark, revealing how narrow the window of epigenetic plasticity is in ants.

“How becomes established in humans is deeply fascinating—we know it’s quite plastic especially during childhood and early adolescence—however, of course, we cannot study or manipulate this experimentally,” said the study’s senior author Shelley Berger, Ph.D., the Daniel S. Och University Professor in the departments of Cell and Developmental Biology and Biology, and director of the Penn Epigenetics Institute. “Ants, with their complex societies and behavior, and similar plasticity, provide a wonderful laboratory model to understand the underlying mechanisms and pathways.

Nov 12, 2019

WORLD’S FIRST — SELF POWERED Q Beta Prototype with Silicon Crystal Graphite Powercells

Posted by in category: futurism

!!

Q beta prototype — with integrated power source. Silicon Crystal Graphite Powercells run this entire machine without external input.

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Nov 12, 2019

How Much Can We Delay Aging? A Gene Therapy Trial Is About to Find Out

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

The combination treatment reversed diabetes and obesity while improving heart and kidney function—even when those organs had already begun failing.