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Jul 27, 2018
Siberian Worms Frozen In Permafrost For Up To 42,000 Years Defrosted Back To Life
Posted by Matthew White in category: food
After tens of thousands of years of being trapped in Siberian permafrost, two female nematodes were successfully defrosted. Researchers say they are showing signs of life, moving and eating.
Jul 27, 2018
Finally, a Problem Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: computing, quantum physics
Computer scientists have been searching for years for a type of problem that a quantum computer can solve but that any possible future classical computer cannot. Now they’ve found one.
Jul 27, 2018
Hayabusa2 descends from Home Position to take its first close look at Ryugu
Posted by Alberto Lao in category: space
Last week, Hayabusa2 approached to within 6000 meters of the surface of Ryugu, taking new photos. The team has developed a set of terminology to describe Hayabusa2’s navigational positions around the asteroid.
Jul 27, 2018
Changes in Sperm RNA May Shape Future Generations, Scientists Warn
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, ethics, satellites
While the rest of the world debates the ethics of designer babies, a team at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMass) have shown that we might not need CRISPR to change the genes of future generations. Their paper, released this week in the journal Developmental Cell, shows that things like diet and stress might affect some crucial genetic components of sperm, and that these tiny changes have real effects on how babies develop.
The same way rockets bound for outer space contain “payloads” like satellites, or astronauts who battle giant balls of urine, sperm are also like little rockets containing their own cargo: “small RNAs.” This study found that not only do RNA sequences play a crucial role in how genes get expressed early on in human development, but they can also be radically changed by the lifestyles of fathers. Things like diet, and in particular, stress can change the makeup of this crucial RNA cargo and lead to observable changes in offspring, says researcher Colin Conine, Ph.D., at UMass Medical School’s Rando Lab.
“Labs all over the world have been able to link changes in dad’s lifestyle to changes in RNA in the sperm, and then that leads to phenotypes in the offspring,” Conine tells Inverse. “Our study was one of the first to really look at how changes small RNAs affect early development. We wanted to ask, what are the first steps that lead to these phenotypes down the road?”
Jul 27, 2018
Artificial intelligence has learned to probe the minds of other computers
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: information science, robotics/AI
Jul 27, 2018
The 2018 Conference on Artificial Life
Posted by Marcos Than Esponda in category: robotics/AI
Had fun reading some papers from the just finished Artificial Life Conference. Reading about adversarially-trained neural networks engaging in coevolutionary interactions for example.
Harvesting plants in microgravity with resident farmer, astronaut Ricky Arnold, studying tiny organisms and their big role in astronaut health and uncovering how the crew catches 💤’s aboard the International Space Station. For all this and more, watch the latest episode of NASA’s Space to Ground:
Jul 27, 2018
Uc Berkeley Aging Research And Technology Innovation Summit
Posted by Steve Hill in categories: innovation, life extension
August 17th sees our friends at UC Berkeley hosting an aging research summit which is shaping up to be pretty interesting.
Please join us for a day of speakers, awards, poster sessions, and valuable networking focused on cutting-edge aging research and technologies. Our aim is no less than to reimagine aging and elder care. A percentage of the proceeds from this event will support scholarships for students interested in research on aging & elder care…