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Feb 13, 2018

In startup, George Church bets cryptocurrency will boost DNA sequencing

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cryptocurrencies

Nebula Genomics aims to help people understand their genome and guarantees that individuals will retain permanent ownership of their DNA data, all paid for with a new cryptocurrency.

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Feb 13, 2018

The Shallowness of Google Translate

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

The program uses state-of-the-art AI techniques, but simple tests show that it’s a long way from real understanding.

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Feb 13, 2018

Reversing Aging — 2018 update

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics, life extension

What progress is being made in the field of reversing aging — the grand humanitarian project to extend healthy lifespan?

In this London Futurists online video conference, a number of healthspan extension researchers and activists from around the answered questions such as:
What do you know now, that wasn’t known, or which was less clear, back in January 2017?
What progress has encouraged you? And what disappointments have there been?
Overall, what have we learned? And what should the field do differently in the future?

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Feb 13, 2018

Science’s pirate queen

Posted by in categories: computing, law, neuroscience, open access, science

These campaigns could erode the base of the Legal Open Access movement: scientists’ awareness of their options for sharing research. Elbakyan, on the other hand, would be left unaffected. The legal campaigns against Sci-Hub have — through the Streisand effect — made the site more well-known than most mainstay repositories, and Elbakyan more famous than legal Open Access champions like Suber.

The threat posed by ACS’s injunction against Sci-Hub has increased support for the site from web activists organizations such as the EFF, which considesr the site “a symptom of a serious problem: people who can’t afford expensive journal subscriptions, and who don’t have institutional access to academic databases, are unable to use cutting-edge scientific research.”


In cramped quarters at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, shared by four students and a cat, sat a server with 13 hard drives. The server hosted Sci-Hub, a website with over 64 million academic papers available for free to anybody in the world. It was the reason that, one day in June 2015, Alexandra Elbakyan, the student and programmer with a futurist streak and a love for neuroscience blogs, opened her email to a message from the world’s largest publisher: “YOU HAVE BEEN SUED.”

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Feb 13, 2018

This people-moving drone has completed more than 1,000 test flights

Posted by in category: drones

The flying taxi could soon be spotted in Dubai and Las Vegas.

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Feb 13, 2018

Developed Its Own Mobile Chip to Help Smartphones Take Better Photos

Posted by in categories: computing, mobile phones

There’s a lot going on under the hood of your smartphone camera every time you push the button.

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Feb 13, 2018

Columbia Engineers Win $4.7M DARPA Grant to Revolutionize Augmented Reality Glasses

Posted by in category: augmented reality

An interdisciplinary team is working on a revolutionary lightweight glass that is able to dynamically monitor the wearer’s vision and display contextual images that are vision-corrected. Story Image.

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Feb 12, 2018

2017 Satellite Executive of the Year: Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO, SpaceX

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, satellites

It is 09:30 a.m. on her ranch in Texas, and we are talking to the 30th Via Satellite Executive of the Year, Gwynne Shotwell about everything from her history at SpaceX, her relationship with its founder and CEO, Elon Musk — the man she still calls “the boss” — and what it means for her to be the recipient of our award in its 30-year anniversary. Shotwell talks honestly, will answer the tough questions, and you feel like it is a genuine conversation, rather than a series of scripted answers that have gone through an entire communications department before you are allowed to be on the phone.

We know SpaceX is a great company. We know they are the “cool kids” of space right now and, while Elon Musk obviously takes a lot of credit for his vision and bravery to come up with SpaceX, in Shotwell he found the perfect executive to run it like a finely oiled machine. In 2016, SpaceX suffered a huge setback when a high-profile test failure led to the loss of the Spacecom satellite Amos 6, making headlines across the world. It is said we learn more about ourselves when we deal with adversity, and this would be the case with Shotwell and SpaceX. She fronted up, and led the team back from this demoralizing setback to unprecedented heights in 2017. She is one of the most admired and respected executives in our industry, and an inspiration for young women around the world. When it came to selecting our 30th Satellite Executive of the Year, there was really only one choice this time around, SpaceX President and COO, Gwynne Shotwell is our Satellite Executive of the Year 2017.

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Feb 12, 2018

Diabetes treating ‘SGLT2 inhibitors’ named among top advances for preventing heart disease

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

SGLT2 inhibitors, a promising class of diabetes drugs, were shown to significantly lower the rates of heart failure and death in the large CVD-REAL study.

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Feb 12, 2018

Researchers report breakthrough in human lung regeneration

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Summary: A team of scientists at Tongji University just announced a breakthrough in regenerating human lungs using stem cells, improving lung function in patients. [This article first appeared on the website LongevityFacts. Author: Brady Hartman. ]

A team of researchers from Tongji University in China announced what they say is a breakthrough in treating lung diseases by regenerating tissue using stem cell transplantation.

In a pilot clinical trial, the treatment proved effective at repairing the lung tissue of two patients suffering from lung diseases, who showed improvements in both symptoms and on CT scans, say the researchers. Zuo Wei is a Tongji University professor who led the research team and says.

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