Lifeboat Foundation

The ability to perform simple daily tasks can make a big difference in people’s lives, especially for those with spinal cord injuries. A UCLA-led team of scientists reports that six people with severe spinal cord injuries—three of them completely paralyzed—have regained use of their hands and fingers for the first time in years after undergoing a nonsurgical, noninvasive spinal stimulation procedure the researchers developed.

At the beginning of the study, three of the participants could not move their fingers at all, and none could turn a doorknob with one hand or twist a cap off a plastic water bottle. Each of them also had great difficulty using a cellphone. After only eight researcher-led training sessions with the spinal stimulation, all six individuals showed substantial improvements. The study participants had chronic and severe paralysis for more than one year, and some for more than 10 years.

From before the first session to the end of the last session, the participants improved their grip strength.

Continue reading “Noninvasive spinal stimulation method enables paralyzed people to regain use of hands, study finds” »

Nuclear power plants typically run either at full capacity or not at all. Yet the plants have the technical ability to adjust to the changing demand for power and thus better accommodate sources of renewable energy such as wind or solar power.

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently explored the benefits of doing just that. If nuclear plants generated power in a more flexible manner, the researchers say, the plants could lower electricity costs for consumers, enable the use of more renewable energy, improve the economics of nuclear energy and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The team explored technical constraints on flexible operations at nuclear power plants and introduced a new way to model how those challenges affect how power systems operate. “Flexible nuclear power operations are a ‘win-win-win,’ lowering power system operating costs, increasing revenues for nuclear plant owners and significantly reducing curtailment of renewable energy,” wrote the team in an Applied Energy article published online on April 24.

Hard to believe but some people are worried that when rejuvenation biotechnology is available they may be forced to use it.

Might rejuvenation become an imposition?

Suppose that, on a nice day not too far into the future, while everything is going reasonably well in your life and you are enjoying yourself, you walk into the doctor’s office for a regular checkup. The doctor finds nothing wrong with you, but in order to minimize your risk of developing diseases that are likely to strike people in your age range, she recommends that you undergo senolytic treatment. The treatment is safe, with no serious adverse effects, it is administered simply through injections, and it is either state-subsidized or otherwise affordable. In your opinion, what are the odds that you would refuse the doctor’s prescription and say that you’d rather take the risk of getting sick?

Continue reading “Some People Worry if Rejuvenation is Available they May be Forced to Use it” »

Rain Design isn’t the first company to fall victim to the aggressive techniques Amazon uses to achieve market dominance. Although its retail site is the most visible of its business strands, the $740bn company has quietly stretched its tentacles into an astonishing range of unrelated industries. Google and Facebook might have cornered the online advertising market, but Amazon’s business successes now include groceries, TV, robotics, cloud services and consumer electronics.

With its profound knowledge of its customers, Amazon can move into almost any sector – striking fear into the hearts of rivals. And the $740bn company is ‘just getting started’

By Olivia Solon and Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco

Continue reading “Jeff Bezos v the world: why all companies fear ‘death” »

News Brief: Researchers have created a miniaturized device that can transform electronic signals into optical signals with low signal loss. They say the electro-optic modulator could make it easier to merge electronic and photonic circuitry on a single chip. The hybrid technology behind the modulator, known as plasmonics, promises to rev up data processing speeds. “As with earlier advances in information technology, this can dramatically impact the way we live,” Larry Dalton, a chemistry professor emeritus at the University of Washington, said in a news release. Dalton is part of the team that reported the advance today in the journal Nature.

Is Facebook worth it?

The Facebook — Cambridge Analytica scandal has given us a lot to think about. Is our data safe with Facebook and is there something that we could do?

Brain in a vat technology?

If it were tried on a person, it might mean awakening in the ultimate sensory deprivation chamber.

Detailed images of the anti-ageing enzyme telomerase are a drug designer’s dream.

The EU wants to invest 20 billion euros in research by 2020.

By Marty Swant