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Feb 12, 2019

Researchers discover the signal that drives stem cells to form new bones

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

The discovery is the first step in developing a stem cell therapy to help patients recover from bone fractures, spinal fusion, and osteoporosis.

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Feb 12, 2019

The real purpose of Russia’s 100-megaton underwater nuclear doomsday device

Posted by in categories: existential risks, military

  • Russia is said to have built a new 100-megaton underwater nuclear doomsday device, and it has threatened the US with it.
  • The device goes beyond traditional ideas of nuclear warfighting and poses a direct threat to the future of humanity or life on Earth.
  • Nobody has ever built a weapon like this before, because there’s almost no military utility in so badly destroying the world.
  • But an expert on nuclear strategy told Business Insider the weapon might have a larger role in helping Russian President Vladimir Putin break down NATO with the threat of nuclear destruction.

Since 2015, when images of a Russian nuclear torpedo first leaked on state television, the world has asked itself why Moscow would build a weapon that could end all life on Earth.

While all nuclear weapons can kill thousands in the blink of an eye and leave radiation poisoning the environment for years to come, Russia’s new doomsday device, called “Poseidon,” takes steps to maximize this effect.

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Feb 12, 2019

Insects are dying off at record rates — an ominous sign we’re in the middle of a 6th mass extinction

Posted by in category: existential risks

Forty-one percent of the world’s insects are in decline as part of the sixth mass extinction. If the decline continues, Earth could be devoid of insects in 100 years.

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Feb 12, 2019

‘Air traffic control’ for driverless cars could speed up deployment

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

Combining human and artificial intelligence in autonomous vehicles could push driverless cars more quickly toward wide-scale adoption, University of Michigan researchers say.

That’s the goal of a new project that relies on a technique called instantaneous crowdsourcing to provide a cost-effective, real-time remote backup for onboard autonomous systems without the need for a human to be physically in the driver’s seat. The research is taking place at the U-M Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI).

The need for human safety drivers in vehicles like Waymo’s recently introduced autonomous taxis undermines their cost advantage compared to traditional ride sharing services, the researchers say. It also keeps the era of cars as autonomous rolling living rooms tantalizingly out of reach. And most researchers agree that machines won’t be able to completely take over driving duties for years or even decades.

Continue reading “‘Air traffic control’ for driverless cars could speed up deployment” »

Feb 12, 2019

New theory illustrates the development of the universe may be different than we thought

Posted by in categories: cosmology, particle physics

The history of the universe is predicated on the idea that, compared to today, the universe was hotter and more symmetric in its early phase. Scientists have thought this because of the Higgs Boson finding—the particle that gives mass to all other fundamental particles. The concept is that as one analyzes time back toward the Big Bang, the universe gets hotter and the Higgs phase changes to one where everything became massless. Now, physicists are presenting a new theory that suggests an alternative history of the universe is possible.

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Feb 12, 2019

Researchers closer to new Alzheimer’s therapy with brain blood flow discovery

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

By discovering the culprit behind decreased blood flow in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s, biomedical engineers at Cornell University have made possible promising new therapies for the disease.

You know that dizzy feeling you get when, after lying down for an extended period, you stand up a little too quickly?

That feeling is caused by a sudden reduction of blood flow to the , a reduction of around 30 percent. Now imagine living every minute of every day with that level of decreased blood flow.

Continue reading “Researchers closer to new Alzheimer’s therapy with brain blood flow discovery” »

Feb 12, 2019

An Interview with Kelsey Moody – Developing a Company to End Age-Related Diseases

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

We recently visited the Longevity Leaders Conference in London and had the opportunity to speak with Kelsey Moody, the CEO of Ichor Therapeutics, a company focused on targeting age-related diseases by targeting the aging processes themselves. We previously interviewed him back in 2017, so it was the ideal time to catch up on what had been happening with his company since then.

Ichor and its portfolio companies have been very busy over the last year, so I thought it was time that we caught up on progress. Can you tell us how things are going for the Ichor group?

Ichor really had a good year in 2018. We raised over $16 million across our portfolio, and that’s really allowed us to scale up all aspects of our operations. We’re at over 50 employees now, mostly bench scientists and research technicians, and we’re really delivering on our goal of being a vertically integrated biopharmaceutical company.

Continue reading “An Interview with Kelsey Moody – Developing a Company to End Age-Related Diseases” »

Feb 12, 2019

Lactate activates multiple genes that modulate neuronal activity

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

“We found that lactate stimulates synaptic activity-dependent genes in the short-term and genes involved in regulating neuronal excitability in the long-term,” explains the first author of the paper Michael Margineanu, a KAUST Master’s student.


Study illustrates the links between brain energy metabolism and neuronal activity.

A genome-wide study led by Dean Pierre Magistretti sheds light on the mechanisms through which lactate regulates long-term memory formation and neuroprotection.

Continue reading “Lactate activates multiple genes that modulate neuronal activity” »

Feb 12, 2019

Is It Good to Cooperate? Testing the Theory of Morality-as-Cooperation in 60 Societies

Posted by in category: ethics

There are, of course, minor variants, but it turns out that moral actions and principles are amazingly consistent across cultures. Anthropologists studied 60 different cultures and found seven rules that are common across cultures.

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Feb 12, 2019

A new stem cell derived tool for studying brain diseases

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Sergiu Pasca’s three-dimensional culture makes it possible to watch how three different brain-cell types – oligodendrocytes (green), neurons (magenta) and astrocytes (blue) – interact in a dish as …

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