Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers with the Stanford University School of Medicine found in a study sponsored by Apple and released Saturday that the company’s smartwatches can detect irregular heart rhythms.

Of the approximately 400,000 participants using Apple Watches in the eight-month study, 0.5 percent, or about 2,000 people, were sent irregular heart rhythm notifications.

“The results of the Apple Heart Study highlight the potential role that innovative digital technology can play in creating more predictive and preventive health care,” Lloyd Minor, dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, said in a statement.

Continue reading “Major US study finds Apple Watch can detect heart issues” »

Researchers have found rocks on a small island between Madagascar and the eastern coast of Africa, a discovery that has been described as mysterious for one very important reason — they shouldn’t be there.

The rocks in question, quartzite, were discovered by researchers at Columbia University, thanks to a grant from the National Geographic Society. They had heard about them from a number of different media reports, but were finally able to confirm the presence of the quartzite, which is usually found in areas that have high temperatures and pressures, for themselves.

“This is contrary to plate tectonics,” said Cornelia Class, a geochemist at Columbia University, in a blog post. “Quartzite bodies do not belong on volcanic islands.”

Continue reading “‘Impossible’ discovery found on remote island off African coast: A ‘lost part of the world’” »

Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology teamed up with colleagues from the U.S. and Switzerland and returned the state of a quantum computer a fraction of a second into the past. They also calculated the probability that an electron in empty interstellar space will spontaneously travel back into its recent past. The study is published in Scientific Reports.

“This is one in a series of papers on the possibility of violating the second law of thermodynamics. That law is closely related to the notion of the arrow of time that posits the one-way direction of time from the past to the future,” said the study’s lead author Gordey Lesovik, who heads the Laboratory of the Physics of Quantum Information Technology at MIPT.

“We began by describing a so-called local perpetual motion machine of the second kind. Then, in December, we published a paper that discusses the violation of the second law via a device called a Maxwell’s demon,” Lesovik said. “The most recent paper approaches the same problem from a third angle: We have artificially created a state that evolves in a direction opposite to that of the thermodynamic arrow of time.”

Clumps of harmful proteins that interfere with brain functions have been partially cleared in mice using nothing but light and sound.

Research led by MIT has found strobe lights and a low pitched buzz can be used to recreate brain waves lost in the disease, which in turn remove plaque and improve cognitive function in mice engineered to display Alzheimer’s-like behaviour.

It’s a little like using light and sound to trigger their own brain waves to help fight the disease.

Continue reading “Scientists ‘Clear’ Alzheimer’s Plaque From Mice Using Only Light And Sound” »

Three fundamental beliefs guide Stanford’s new Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, co-directed by John Etchemendy and Fei-Fei Li : #AI technology should be inspired by human intelligence; the development of AI must be guided by its human impact; and applications of AI should enhance and augment humans, not replace them.

The new institute will focus on guiding artificial intelligence to benefit humanity.

Continue reading “Stanford University launches the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence” »

Another step towards organic ships?

Inspired by jellyfish, researchers have created an electronic skin that is transparent, stretchable, touch-sensitive, and repairs itself in both wet and dry conditions. The novel material has wide-ranging uses, from water-resistant touch screens to soft robots aimed at mimicking biological tissues.

Could a black hole delete the universe?

The skin is our first line of defense against invading pathogens, and scientists at UC San Francisco and the San Francisco Veterans Administration (VA) Health Care System believe that it may be a cause of inflammaging, the age-related chronic inflammation that encourages a number of age-related diseases to develop.

As we age, we generally experience a rise in this low-grade chronic inflammation, thus increasing our risk for developing a variety of age-related diseases. There are a number of proposed sources of inflammaging, including senescent cell accumulation, cell debris, immunosenescence, and increasing bacterial burden.

In a previous article, we talked about the potential role of bacterial burden in relation to the microbiota of the gut and the age-related failure of the gut membrane, which allows bacterial contamination to invade the body and increase bacterial burden and inflammation. The gut microbiota has been proposed to be an origin point of inflammaging, and researchers suggest that the skin could be another.

Continue reading “A Restorative Skin Cream May Reduce Inflammaging” »

Messed up is the right phrasing for it, I figure.

March 18 (UPI) — After a dead whale washed ashore in the Philippines, scientists pulled 88 pounds of plastic debris from the mammal’s intestines. The young Cuvier’s beaked whale died from gastric shock, according to biologists.

The necropsy was conducted by scientists at the D’ Bone Collector Museum. They were assigned by biologists with the Philippines Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.

Continue reading “Dead whale found with 88 pounds of plastic in stomach in the Philippines” »