Lifeboat Foundation

In the heart of San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood, which not long ago was dirt lots and warehouses, Emily Leproust is cooking up what she — and $209 million worth of investor cash — believes is the future of DNA production.

Leproust is CEO of Twist Bioscience, a 5-year-old biotech company striving to make the production of synthetic DNA — which is used in fragrances, genetically modified foods and pharmaceutical drugs — cheaper, faster and smaller.

The same lab-manufactured DNA, Leproust hopes, could also transform the way data, from music to medical records, is stored.

Continue reading “Data storage on DNA: Where Silicon Valley meets biotech” »

Every day satellites are zooming through space, snapping incredible pictures of Earth, the solar system and outer space. Here are the highlights from this week.

A new estimate of the Hubble constant – the rate at which the universe is expanding – is baffling many of the finest minds in the cosmology community.

Hannah Devlin, Science correspondent.

The VULCAN system from Made In Space combines metal deposition with machining to create metal parts.

A discussion on whether or not extended lifespans might make us paranoid about every tiniest risk.

Some months back, I read “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari. It’s a really good book, though it did disappoint me significantly when, after discussing the past and the present of our species, the author began glancing towards possible futures. At that point, the impartiality required of a historian, which Harari had thus far managed to keep up more or less evenly throughout the book, gave way to a subtly implied pessimism pervading, among other things, his views on future rejuvenation biotechnology.

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting him to even touch upon the subject; I was pleasantly surprised, at least until I realized that his concerns, most of which were the usual ones you’d expect, seemed to make him inclined to see rejuvenation as a plague rather than a blessing.

Continue reading “On life extension and risk aversion” »

It won’t be cheap, but your holiday plans could include a trip to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere or beyond—before the end of this year. Several space tourism companies are zeroing in on their first launch.

Bob Smith, CEO of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, told CNBC: “We think we still have that possibility of getting that done this year.”

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson shared similar sentiments, revealing that the thing he was most excited about in 2018 was “hopefully going into space,” presumably in one of his own company’s ships. The news follows a recently restarted series of test flights after a tragic test flight crash in 2014.

Continue reading “5 Space Companies Zeroing in on First Launch of Tourists Into Orbit and Beyond” »

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Great suggestions for educators who want to implement SEL and mindfulness more effectively in their classrooms.

___ Social-emotional learning (SEL) teaches the key attitudes and skills necessary for understanding and managing emotions, listening, feeling and showing empathy for others, and making thoughtful, responsible decisions. For five years, I was an educator in the field teaching mindfulness and emotional skills to.

For an invited competition, Pickard Chilton and ARUP collaborated on the concept design for a Mega-Skyport – Uber’s vision for a next-generation urban aviation transport system. Dubbed “Sky Tower,” the project is intended to facilitate at least 1000 vehicle arrivals and 1000 departures per hour, with each vehicle accommodating up to five passengers.

Once the objective of the desired throughput was resolved, Pickard Chilton and ARUP endeavored to create an elegant yet highly engineered and sophisticated work of architecture that would support and augment the Uber brand. Due to the multi-faceted kit-of-parts and adaptability of the individual module, it can be applied both vertically and horizontally to suit any given context.

While the Sky Tower is conceptual, it is not science fiction. Based on a pragmatic and research-driven approach, the Sky Tower concept delivers to Uber a modular, extensible and sustainable solution that supports their vision for the future of intra-urban transportation.