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Aug 18, 2019

Liane Russell, Who Studied Radiation’s Effects on Embryos, Dies at 95

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

For example, the embryos of mice that had been impregnated at the same time and then irradiated at the same time all developed the same foot deformity. The embryos that were radiated a day later all had a different foot deformity. A third group of mice, radiated on a different day, all had short tails.

Through extrapolation, Dr. Russell determined that in humans, developing fetuses were most vulnerable to radiation during the mother’s first seven weeks of pregnancy. Because women generally don’t know right away whether they are pregnant, Dr. Russell recommended that non-urgent diagnostic X-rays be taken in the 14 days after the onset of a woman’s menstrual period. Women don’t ovulate for those two weeks, so Dr. Russell reasoned that they could not become pregnant and doctors could avoid potentially causing harm to a fetus by using radiation.

That recommendation was adopted around the world and is the reason doctors, before taking X-rays, ask women of childbearing age if they are pregnant or if they think they might be pregnant.

Aug 18, 2019

Asteroid warning: Space rock comparable to dinosaur killer is heading Earth’s way

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

A MASSIVE asteroid comparable to the massive space rock which brought the dinosaurs’ reign on Earth to an end is hurtling towards Earth, and scientists have confirmed it is “potentially hazardous”.

Aug 18, 2019

Transhumanist philosophers hold that since all assumptions about what others experience are fallible, and that therefore all attempts to help or protect beings that are not capable of correcting what others assume about them no matter how well-intentioned are in danger of actually hurting them, all beings deserve to be sapient.

Posted by in category: transhumanism

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t

Aug 18, 2019

Can CRISPR–Cas9 Boost Intelligence?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

A letter was recently published in Nature on 329,000 young people identifying 74 genetic variants—spelling mistakes in single nucleotides in the six billion letter human genome—which can be used to predict nearly 20 percent of the variation in school years completed, a quantitative trait of fortitude which is correlated to general intelligence, and which you can learn about by sequencing your own genome.

Staple that to your college application.

Even before the “molecular age,” we were on guard for the slightest tips that show we are more or less valued than our peers. But there was also caution from the academics that there was actually very little we could do to leverage our biology for improvement. In 1924, the Harvard geneticist William Castle quipped that “we are scarcely as yet in a position to do more than make ourselves ridiculous in this matter. We are no more in a position to control eugenics than the tides of the ocean.”

Aug 18, 2019

Small towns in India are powering the global race for artificial intelligence

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, employment, robotics/AI

One day, who knows when, artificial intelligence could hollow out the job market. But for now, it is generating relatively low-paying jobs. The market for data labeling passed $500 million in 2018 and it will reach $1.2 billion by 2023, according to the research firm Cognilytica. This kind of work, the study showed, accounted for 80% of the time spent building AI technology.

Is the work exploitative? It depends on where you live and what you’re working on. In India, it is a ticket to the middle class. In New Orleans, it’s a decent enough job. For someone working as an independent contractor, it is often a dead end.

There are skills that must be learned — like spotting signs of a disease in a video or medical scan or keeping a steady hand when drawing a digital lasso around the image of a car or a tree. In some cases, when the task involves medical videos, pornography or violent images, the work turns grisly.

Aug 18, 2019

Vegetable-rich Diet lowers Fatigue in Multiple Sclerosis patients

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Fatigue affects majority of MS patients, impacting quality of life and ability to work full time. Higher levels of blood high-density lipoprotein (HDL) may improve fatigue in multiple sclerosis patients, according to a new University at Buffalo-led study.

The pilot study, which investigated the effects of fat levels in blood on fatigue caused by multiple sclerosis, found that lowering total cholesterol also reduced exhaustion.

The results, published recently in PLOS ONE and led by Murali Ramanathan, PhD, professor in the UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, highlight the impact that changes in diet could have on severe fatigue, which impacts the majority of those with multiple sclerosis.

Aug 18, 2019

Chemists have created and imaged a new form of carbon

Posted by in category: particle physics

ONE RING Scientists have created a new form of carbon consisting of 18 atoms arranged in a ring, illustrated here with data from an atomic force microscope. Bonds between atoms are alternately longer and shorter, giving the ring nine sides.

Aug 18, 2019

UPS Has Been Secretly Delivering Mail in Self-Driving Trucks for Months

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

This is already happening on a small testing scale; the Big roll out is coming in 4 or 5 years.


UPS has been delivering a new kind of automated mail — and it’s not via email.

Continue reading “UPS Has Been Secretly Delivering Mail in Self-Driving Trucks for Months” »

Aug 18, 2019

Amutha Boominathan presenting at Undoing Aging 2019

Posted by in category: life extension

Accelerating rejuvenation therapies to repair the damage of aging.…

Aug 18, 2019

Broccoli in focus when new substance against diabetes has been identified

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

University of Gothenburg NEWS: JUN 15, 2017.


Researchers have identified an antioxidant – richly occurring in broccoli – as a new antidiabetic substance. A patient study shows significantly lower blood sugar levels in participants who ate broccoli extract with high levels of sulforaphane.

Continue reading “Broccoli in focus when new substance against diabetes has been identified” »