Lifeboat Foundation

Technology in today’s day and age progresses at an incredible speed! But did you know it moved THIS fast?

Forget 3D-printing, molding is where it’s at.

The program is reportedly ending due to “lackluster financial performance.”

When someone’s especially cooperative, don’t thank their easy-going nature, but give credit to their brain. A team of New York University psychologists hypothesized that cooperation depends on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DPC), an area of the brain in the frontal lobe involved in regulation control and goal pursuit; after all, cooperation often requires reigning in one’s naughty impulses to take everything for themselves. To test their theory, the researchers conducted an experiment involving participants with brain damage to the DPC—and discovered someone who would not cooperate at all.

For the study, published last year in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, the researchers recruited 26 healthy control participants alongside 33 participants with brain damage: eight who had frontal-lobe damage, 14 with amygdala damage, and 11 with damage in other areas of the brain. The participants were split into groups of four, and then put through 20 rounds of a decision-making scenario where each person was given $8 and told they could keep it for themselves, or share it equally with the group. After each round, the participants saw whether the others in their group chose to share. Overall, participants cooperated by sharing their money 38.5% of the time.

More interestingly, participants with damage to their DPC were more likely to keep the $8 for themselves. “Overcoming that intuition to be selfish requires them to regulate their response,” says Jay Van Bavel, a professor of psychology at NYU, and one of the study authors. “You just reach and grab for the money whenever you can take it. As people had more damage to their DPC, they were more likely to be selfish.”

Continue reading “A psychology experiment unexpectedly discovered a man who can’t cooperate because of brain damage” »

NASA has announced the 18 projects awarded funding in its NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) programme.

Almost one in ten heart attacks and strokes could be avoided if check-ups were targeted at high risk patients, new research has revealed.

People aged 40 and over in England and Wales are currently eligible to have their heart health assessed every five years.

Blood pressure, cholesterol, blood-sugar levels, smoker status, age and family history are factors considered by doctors when working out a person’s chance of having a heart attack or stroke.

Continue reading “Almost one in ten heart attacks could be prevented if high-risk patients were checked more” »

Seven months later, following stringent monitoring of signs of immunorejection, the team transplanted a fertilized embryo engineered with IVF into the donor uterus. By 35 weeks, the baby was delivered without complications through a C-section.

The woman was a lucky case. Others who underwent the same procedure experienced immunorejection that prevented them from keeping the womb. The team actually removed the transplanted womb following the successful childbirth, citing that they wanted to currently focus on giving infertile women their first child.

These are still early days for uterine transplants—dead or alive—but the proof-of-concept shows that women who had to previously rely on surrogates may have an alternative way. The team is looking to further refine the protocol, for example, for how much immunosuppressant to give and harvesting the organ as early as possible, to potentially increase success rates.

The work also raises a host of ethical issues. There was no evidence of any global electrical activity — the kind of higher-order brain functioning associated with consciousness. Nor was there any sign of the capacity to perceive the environment and experience sensations. Even so, because of the possibilities it opens up, the BrainEx study highlights potential limitations in the current regulations for animals used in research.

Researchers need guidance on animal use and the many issues opened up by a new study on whole-brain restoration, argue Nita A. Farahany, Henry T. Greely and Charles M. Giattino. Researchers need guidance on animal use and the many issues opened up by a new study on whole-brain restoration, argue Nita A. Farahany, Henry T. Greely and Charles M. Giattino.

The field of robotics is going through a renaissance thanks to advances in machine learning and sensor technology. Each generation of robot is engineered with greater mechanical complexity and smarter operating software than the last. But what if, instead of painstakingly designing and engineering a robot, you could just tear open a packet of primordial soup, toss it in the microwave on high for two minutes, and then grow your own ‘lifelike’ robot?

If you’re a Cornell research team, you’d grow a bunch and make them race.