Are you a background character or a protagonist in the game of life?
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Researchers develop new laser microscope that could be ‘revolutionary’ for treatment of diseases such as skin cancer. University of British Columbia researchers have developed a specialized microscope that has the potential ability to both diagnose diseases that include skin cancer and perform incredibly precise surgery – all without cutting skin.
University of British Columbia researchers have developed a specialized microscope that has the potential ability to both diagnose diseases that include skin cancer and perform incredibly precise surgery – all without cutting skin.
The researchers describe the technology in a study published today in Science Advances. “Our technology allows us to scan tissue quickly, and when we see a suspicious or abnormal cell structure, we can perform ultra-precise surgery and selectively treat the unwanted or diseased structure within the tissue – without cutting into the skin,” said Yimei Huang, co-lead author of the study and a former postdoctoral fellow at the department of dermatology and skin science at UBC and BC Cancer.
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The World Health Organization ranks Type 2 diabetes among the most common causes of death in the world. Current treatments can help the body use insulin at various stages of the disease, but they can also be expensive and subject patients to lifelong medication regimens and side effects. Thanks to new therapeutic ultrasound technology, one promising alternative looks to reshape how early Type 2 diabetes is managed.
A group of researchers from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., has used ultrasound therapy to stimulate insulin release from mice on demand. After exposing the pancreas, the body’s insulin production center, to ultrasonic pulses, the researchers saw measurable increases in the mice’s blood insulin levels.
The team will present their findings at the 177th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, which takes place from May 13–17, at the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky.
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Peter voss is a serial entrepreneur, engineer, inventor and a pioneer in artificial intelligence.
Peter started out in electronics engineering but quickly moved into software. After developing a comprehensive ERP software package, Peter took his first software company from a zero to 400-person IPO in seven years.
Fueled by the fragile nature of software, Peter embarked on a 20-year journey to study intelligence (how it develops in humans, how to measure it, and current AI efforts), and to replicate it in software. His research culminated in the creation of a natural language intelligence engine that can think, learn, and reason — and adapt to and grow with the user. He even coined the term ‘AGI’(Artificial General Intelligence) with fellow luminaries in the space.
Peter founded SmartAction.ai in 2009, which developed the first AGI-based call center automation technology. Now, in his latest venture, Aigo.ai, he is taking that technology a step further with the commercialization of the second generation of his ‘Conversational AI’ technology with a bold mission of providing hyper-intelligent hyper-personal assistants for everyone.
In 2018, researchers at the Biogerontology Research Foundation and the International Longevity Alliance submitted a joint proposal to the World Health Organization to re-classify aging as a disease. Months later, 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) officially introduced some aging-related conditions such as age-associated cognitive decline.
This matters because, for the first time in human history, the once natural process of aging is becoming recontextualized as a condition to be treated and prevented. This will gradually lead to pharmaceutical companies and governments redirecting funding to new drugs and therapies that not only extend human life expectancy but reverse the effects of aging entirely.
Thus far, people in developed nations have seen their average life expectancy rise from ~35 in 1820 to 80 in 2003. And with the advances you’re about to learn about, you’ll see how that progression will continue until 80 becomes the new 40. In fact, the first humans expected to live to 150 may have already been born.
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In the future, I can say with very high degrees of confidence, the American Army is probably going to be fighting in urban areas. We need to man, organize, train and equip the force for operations in urban areas, highly dense urban areas, and that’s a different construct. We’re not organized like that right now.
– Gen. Mark A. Milley, Chief of Staff of the Army.
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Finally, 130 years after it was established, the kilogram as we know it is about to be retired. But it’s not the end: tomorrow, 20 May 2019, a new definition will be put in place — one that’s far more accurate than anything we’ve had until now.
After the shift was unanimously voted in at the General Conference on Weights and Measures in Versailles at the end of last year, the change is now finally about to become official. Le kilogramme est mort, vive le kilogramme.
Most people don’t think about metrology — the science of measurement — as we go about our day. But it’s vastly important. It’s not just the system by which we measure the world; it’s also the system by which scientists conduct their observations.
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After flying past Pluto in 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft shifted course to encounter (486958) 2014 MU69, a much smaller body about 30 kilometers in diameter. MU69 is part of the Kuiper Belt, a collection of small icy bodies orbiting in the outer Solar System. Stern et al. present the initial results from the New Horizons flyby of MU69 on 1 January 2019. MU69 consists of two lobes that appear to have merged at low speed, producing a contact binary. This type of Kuiper Belt object is mostly undisturbed since the formation of the Solar System and so will preserve clues about that process.
Science, this issue p. eaaw9771.
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