Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Sugar poses one of the most pressing health problems in the modern world – not least because it’s just so delicious. Rather than quitting sweets cold turkey, low-calorie alternatives to sucrose could make tasty treats that are at least less bad for us. And now, researchers from Tufts University have developed a more efficient method for producing one such sweetener, using farms of bacteria.

The sugar in question is called tagatose, which the FDA says is “generally regarded as safe.” It’s 92 percent as sweet as sucrose – regular old table sugar – but because the human digestive system doesn’t metabolize as much of it, it only has 38 percent of the calories. That, in turn, means tagatose has a much smaller effect on blood glucose and insulin, making it safe for diabetics. And to cap it off, tests show that it doesn’t contribute to cavities or tooth decay.

But, of course, there’s a catch – tagatose is a little complicated to produce. Normally, it’s done by hydrolyzing lactose to make galactose, which is then isomerized into tagatose, which then needs to be purified and crystallized into a solid, usable form. Yields from this process are low, at less than 30 percent.

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When you hear the word “cyborg,” scenes from the 1980s films RoboCop or The Terminator might spring to mind. But the futuristic characters made famous in those films may no longer be mere science fiction. We are at the advent of an era where digital technology and artificial intelligence are moving more deeply into our human biological sphere. Humans are already able to control a robotic arm with their minds. Cyborgs —humans whose skills and abilities exceed those of others because of electrical or mechanical elements built into the body —are already among us.

But innovators are pushing the human-machine boundary even further. While prosthetic limbs are tied in with a person’s nervous system, future blends of biology and technology may be seen in computers that are wired into our brains.

Our ability to technologically enhance our physical capabilities—the “hardware” of our human systems, you could say—will likely reshape our social world. Will these changes bring new forms of dominance and exploitation? Will unaltered humans be subjected to a permanent underclass or left behind altogether? And what will it mean to be human—or will some of us be more than human?

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Can you actually make a disease disappear? Dr Rangan Chatterjee thinks you can. Often referred to as the doctor of the future, Rangan is changing the way that we look at illness and how medicine will be practised in years to come. He highlighted his methods in the groundbreaking BBC TV show, Doctor In The House, gaining him much acclaim from patients, his contemporaries and the media.

He is the author of the international bestseller, The 4 Pillar Plan — http://amzn.to/2yGfpuB which has been released in the USA and Canada under the title, How to Make Disease Disappear — https://amzn.to/2GstJf6 Rangan’s 15 years of clinical experience in the NHS includes internal medicine, immunology and general practice. A pioneer in the emerging field of progressive medicine, he also uses techniques from other disciplines he has studied including movement kinetics and functional medicine.

His own journey of learning was accelerated when family members fell ill and now Rangan is helping people to take control of their health by addressing the root causes of their illnesses, something which is often not achieved in 21st century health care, evidenced by a steady increase in the rates of chronic disease.

Rangan is a super-generalist, looking at as many factors as possible which can create wellness or illness. His talk is testament to how our thinking around the concept of disease needs to change to help form a map for future healthcare.

Continue reading “How to make diseases disappear | Rangan Chatterjee | TEDxLiverpool” | >

A typical but existentially terrifying feature of almost every galaxy is a monster lurking at its center: A supermassive black hole which can be hundreds or even billions of times the mass of our sun. The supermassive black hole sucks in dust and gas from the surrounding galaxy, leaving an empty spheroid shape right in the middle of the galaxy from which not even light can escape.

Very occasionally, astronomers spot not one but two of these hungry giants moving together, typically when they observe two galaxies merging. But now, researchers have spotted something utterly unprecedented: A galaxy with three supermassive black holes at its heart.

Dr. Peter Weilbacher, one of the researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, underlined the significance of this finding: “Up until now, such a concentration of three supermassive black holes had never been discovered in the universe,” he said.

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A bullet train which ‘floats’ above the tracks using magnetic levitation could soon hit 373mph in China — making it faster than travelling by plane.

A prototype body of the science fiction vehicle was shown off in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao this week.

The machine, designed by China’s China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC), is slated to go into production in 2021.

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AI (artificial intelligence) opens up a world of possibilities for application developers. By taking advantage of machine learning or deep learning, you could produce far better user profiles, personalization, and recommendations, or incorporate smarter search, a voice interface, or intelligent assistance, or improve your app any number of other ways. You could even build applications that see, hear, and react to situations you never anticipated.

Which programming language should you learn to plumb the depths of AI? You’ll want a language with many good machine learning and deep learning libraries, of course. It should also feature good runtime performance, good tools support, a large community of programmers, and a healthy ecosystem of supporting packages. That’s a long list of requirements, but there are still plenty of good options.

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