Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, have developed an approach to regenerate heart muscle using stem cells. Their method for priming stem cells to become heart tissues could potentially enable heart regeneration stem cell therapies, according to their study published in the journal Cell Reports.

The self-regeneration of human following injury is extremely limited. Scientists have been studying techniques to prompt different kinds of stem to differentiate into cell precursors, which could then help rebuild heart muscle fibres. However, their approaches have not yet met regulations set forth by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency for regenerative therapies.

Dr. Lynn Yap, a Senior Research Fellow at Duke-NUS’ Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders (CVMD) Programme and the study’s first author, explained, “Regulatory authorities specifically require these stem-cell-derived precursors be prepared from human-only cells and in cultures that use clearly defined chemicals and no animal components. The method must be reproducible, and the cells must have clear characteristics while not leading to adverse side effects when injected.”

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By Rohit Talwar, Steve Wells, April Koury, and Alexandra Whittington

Image https://pixabay.com/images/id-4045661/ by geralt is licensed under CC0

Can human roles in retail survive the relentless march of the robots? Much of the current debate on automation focuses on the possible demise of existing jobs and the spread of automation into service and white-collar sectors – and retail is certainly one industry poised to follow this automation path in pursuit of the next driver of profits. From the advent of the steam engine and mechanisation of farming, through to the introduction of personal computing — jobs have always been automated through the use of technology. However, as new technologies have come to market, human ingenuity and the ability to create new products and services have increased the scope for employment and fulfilment. Retail has enjoyed enormous benefits from technology tools, but has the time come when automation poses a threat to jobs? Here we present two possible scenarios for retail 2020–2025: one where automation eliminates the majority of retail jobs and a second which sees the emergence of new paid roles in retail.

Scenario One: Robo-Retail Rules

By 2020, in-store robots

Continue reading “Robo-Retail vs. Humanity at a Price? Two Possible Futures for Retail” | >

The presence of senescent cells has been implicated in a wide range of age-related diseases and even conditions such as T1 diabetes. Today, we want to draw your attention to a new publication that explores the relationship between senescent cells and intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD).

It was already known that senescent cells increase during the progression of IDD, but it was not known if they were a driver or a consequence of IDD.

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A century ago, the periodic table looked much different than it does today! It had blank spots throughout, and the entire bottom row – the actinides – were not even part of the table as most of those elements did not exist in nature and had not been created in the lab. But researchers theorized their existence. And starting in the 1930s scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – or, the Rad Lab, as it was called then – began building the big machines and assembling the teams of scientists and engineers to chase those elements down.

Over the next several decades Berkeley Lab researchers were credited with discovering, Lab researchers were credited with discovering, or creating collaboratively with other labs, #16elements. Read more here.

In this video, Berkeley Lab scientists Lee Bernstein, Barbara Jacak, Jose Alonso, Jacklyn Gates, Rebecca Abergel, and Frances Houle tell the story of these incredible scientific discoveries.

Full story » https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2019/01/28/16-elements-berkeley-l…dic-table/

Explore more » http://periodictable.lbl.gov

Do you have a favorite element? Tweet your selfie video to us using #MyFaveElement to tell us your story!

Continue reading “16 Elements: Berkeley Lab’s Contributions to the Periodic Table” | >

Today’s efforts in AI are somewhat less flashy, though still potentially revolutionary, and all seem to recognize one vital lesson: treating patients is both art and science. Rather than attempting to replace the physicians in medical practice, AI can, and should, say more experts, become a valuable tool in enhancing what doctors do.

Here’s where AI in medicine excels — and where it doesn’t yet measure up.

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Hot off the press…

Barnes & Noble Press releases a new non-fiction book The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution by Alex M. Vikoulov as Hardcover (Press Release, San Francisco, CA, USA, March 22, 2019 11.00 AM PST)

Named “The Book of the Year” by futurists and academics alike, “# 1 Hot New Release” in Amazon charts in Physics of Time, Phenomenology, and Phenomenological Philosophy, the book has now been released by Barnes & Noble Press as hardcover in addition to ebook and paperback released earlier this year. In one volume, the author covers it all: from quantum physics to your experiential reality, from the Big Bang to the Omega Point, from the ‘flow state’ to psychedelics, from ‘Lucy’ to the looming AI Singularity, from natural algorithms to the operating system of your mind, from geo-engineering to nanotechnology, from anti-aging to immortality technologies, from oligopoly capitalism to Star-Trekonomics, from the Matrix to Universal Mind, from Homo sapiens to Holo syntellectus.

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NEW ORLEANS—Exposure to the widely used chemical bisphenol A (BPA) during pregnancy, even at levels lower than the regulated “safe” human exposure level, can lead to changes in circadian rhythms, according to a mice study to be presented Monday at ENDO 2019, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in New Orleans, La. The researchers report these changes may be a contributing factor in hyperactivity seen in BPA-exposed mice.

“The hypothalamus, which we have identified as a brain region that is particularly susceptible to developmental disruption by BPA, contains the site of the clock cells that govern daily rhythms throughout the body,” said researcher Deborah Kurrasch, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Canada. “We have shown in previous research that BPA exposure in utero can cause defects to the development of hypothalamic nuclei and hyperactivity, and here we explored whether a shift in circadian biology might explain why the animals moved more.”

BPA is a chemical that is added to many commercial products, including water bottles, paper receipts, can liners and food storage containers. It is known as an endocrine-disrupting chemical—a chemical that interferes with the body’s hormones.

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