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The hemispheres in autistic people’s brains are more symmetrical than those of their typical peers, according to the largest imaging study to explore this relationship1. It is unclear what this difference means, however.

Typical people’s brains show a slight asymmetry between the left and right hemispheres, especially in regions associated with language. These differences are less pronounced in autistic people, the new study found.

The unusual symmetry seems to affect nine regions, mostly in the cerebral cortex. The results suggest that altered development of the brain’s left and right hemispheres contributes to autism.

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The blood-borne signs of aging – and indeed, perhaps the causes of aging – make three big shifts around the ages of 34, 60 and 78, a new Stanford-led study has discovered, potentially leading to new diagnostic tests and avenues of anti-aging research.

The study measured levels of nearly 3,000 individual proteins in the plasma of small blood samples from 4,263 people aged between 18 and 95, and found that 1,379 of these proteins varied significantly with a subject’s age. Indeed, with information about levels of just 373 of these proteins, the researchers found they could predict a subject’s age “with great accuracy,” and an even smaller subset of just nine proteins could do a “passable” job.

Proteins are the body’s workhorses, carrying out instructions from all the body’s cells. Changes in their levels in our blood reflect the starting, stopping and changing of different biological processes. The researchers found that these changes were often quite sudden – levels of a protein would remain stable in the blood for years, and then rapidly plunge or leap, rather than showing a steady increase or decline.

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The ONE Mini is a Swiss Army knife of translation tech, interpreting 12 different foreign languages with a host of features. The audio recorder captures speech, then uses cutting-edge neural machine AI to produce highly accurate text or verbal translations. If you’re in a foreign country, ONE Mini can literally be your voice as you navigate the culture.

ONE Mini also provides premium live interpreter service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for conversations that require more complex interaction. With a single button push, ONE Mini connects via Bluetooth with a qualified interpreter able to offer full nuanced communication so important details don’t get lost in translation.

ONE Mini even works great as a wireless music player, clipping neatly to your clothes for hands-free use anywhere.

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Israeli startup Sight Diagnostics said on Wednesday the US Food and Drug Administration had cleared its device that can process results for the most commonly needed blood test in about ten minutes. The regulator’s nod means that laboratories that run relatively lesser tests on a day to day basis may also be able to conduct the complete blood count (CBC) test with just two drops of blood.

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Just before the 14 minute mark: “I believe that most people today have a respectable chance of living to 1,000, or indeed any other number you might think of.”

The Talk Spot is an interview show where we have guests of all backgrounds on. This episode features author and biomedical gerontologist, Aubrey de Grey.

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VR and Interstellar Travel

Crew members in route to a distant planet may best be accommodated by full immersion VR. The actual spaceship could be reduced to a relatively simple, small, well-shielded vehicle. Inside the crew’s biological material could be supported by a simplified nutrition, waste and maintenance system. Their minds could inhabit a fully immersive VR environment that would provide them with all the luxuries of vast, diverse spaces and experiences — complete with simulated gravity, simulated pleasant nature-like and artificial environments, and simulated meals.

They could also engage in simulating the type of society they intend to build once they arrive in their new physical environment, using similar constraints to the ones they will encounter. This could allow many years for actual human experiences to test and refine what they will build and how they will interact in their new home.

Advances in maintaining biological material may even allow a single generation to survive the entire journey. They may adopt their own conventions for simulating death and birth for reasons related to simulating their new home or for maintaining psychological well-being over many centuries. Simulated death and reincarnation may allow a single crew to experience many childhoods and parenting situations without the need for actual procreation.

Another concern that this addresses is the need for massive funding for research and development as well as resource provisioning when building conventional spacecraft intended to deliver things like artificial gravity, agriculture and pleasant living spaces for large multigenerational populations — all while shielding them from radiation. Funding the development of fully immersive VR seems like a relatively easier to fund activity that has immediate uses here on earth and elsewhere. The types of ships that would be sufficient for sustaining and shielding humans living mostly in immersive VR would be so simplified that most of the fundamental research that would be specific to designing such crafts may have already occurred.

Continue reading “Scientists Are Contemplating a 1,000-Year Space Mission to Save Humanity” | >

The national artificial intelligence strategy, which was unveiled in November, will focus on five key sectors — transport and logistics, smart cities and estates, safety and security, healthcare, and education.

Read the full story: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/tapping-ai-to-deliver…ect-issues

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Continue reading “Singapore’s human-centric artificial intelligence strategy | The Straits Times” | >