Summary: Chemical compound mimics the beneficial effects of exercise, including fat burning and increasing stamina, a new study reports.
Source: Salk Institute.
Continue reading “‘Exercise in a Pill’ Boosts Athletic Endurance” »
For those who can only speak one language, people who have the ability to speak multiple are often a source of fascination. What language do they think in? Can they switch mid-way through? Do they only dream in one language or both?
It turns out, these questions are not without merit as people who can speak two languages actually experience time in a different way.
A study from Lancaster University and Stockholm University, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, found that people who are bilingual think about time differently depending on the language context in which they are estimating the duration of events.
Another futurist, Dave Evans, founder and CTO of Silicon Valley stealth startup Stringify, gave his thoughts about Kurzweil’s nanobot idea in an interview with James Bedsole on February.
Evans explained that he thinks such a merging of technology and biology isn’t at all farfetched. In fact, he described three stages as to how this will occur: the wearable phase (where we are today), the embeddable phase (where we’re headed, with neural implants and such), and the replaceable phase.
Continue reading “Kurzweil: By 2030, Nanobots Will Flow Throughout Our Bodies” »
Researchers invented the fastest camera in the world called Frequency Recognition Algorithm for Multiple Exposures or FRAME. This camera can capture five trillion frames per second. ( Kennet Ruona | Lund University )
Taking the art of photography a notch higher, researchers at Sweden’s Lund University developed a camera, which can capture five trillion images in a second or moments as short as 0.2 trillionths of a second.
These extraordinary capabilities of the new camera dubbed FRAME or Frequency Recognition Algorithm for Multiple Exposures, has earned it the title of the fastest camera in the world.
Continue reading “World’s Quickest Camera Can Film 5 Trillion Images In A Second” »
Men and women differ in obvious and less obvious ways—for example, in the prevalence of certain diseases or reactions to drugs. How are these connected to one’s sex? Weizmann Institute of Science researchers recently uncovered thousands of human genes that are expressed—copied out to make proteins—differently in the two sexes. Their findings showed that harmful mutations in these particular genes tend to accumulate in the population in relatively high frequencies, and the study explains why. The detailed map of these genes, reported in BMC Biology, provides evidence that males and females undergo a sort of separate, but interconnected evolution.
Several years ago, Prof. Shmuel Pietrokovski and Dr. Moran Gershoni of the Weizmann Institute’s Molecular Genetics Department asked why the prevalence of certain human diseases is common. Specifically, about 15% of couples trying to conceive are defined as infertile, which suggested that mutations that impair fertility are relatively widespread. This seems paradoxical: Common sense says that these mutations, which directly affect the survival of the species by reducing the number of offspring, should have been quickly weeded out by natural selection. Pietrokovski and Gershoni showed that mutations in genes specific to sperm formation persist precisely because the genes are expressed only in men. A mutation that is problematic for only half the population, no matter how detrimental, is freely passed on to the next generation by the other half.
In the present study, the researchers expanded their analyses to include genes that, though not necessary for fertility, are still expressed differently in the two sexes. To identify these genes, the scientists turned to the GTEx project—a very large study of human gene expression recorded for numerous organs and tissues in the bodies of close to 550 adult donors. That project enabled, for the first time, the comprehensive mapping of the human sex-differential genetic architecture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-6-T_StYM8
From 2014, a docu focusing on Aubrey and Bill Andrews.
Live forever… or die trying
The power of somebody believing in you and your ideas is unbelievable. It gives me exceptional strength. I will wake up 6am and crash 1am, working relentlessly in between. Just recently, the mere fact of somebody becoming a PumpkinDB sponsor gave me a lot of confidence in our success and continuing inspiration to dedicate big chunks of my spare time to this work.
In the grand scheme of things, the amount of money the project receives so far is rather insignificant, it just covers some of our associated expenses. So why is it that important?
Well, words are cheap. Many people said they like what we are working on, but the shelf life of the inspiration coming from this kind of feedback is rather short. Having somebody continuously use your work is the best type of validation.
But in the absence of something immediately useful (as it is often the case with any new, non-trivial project), there are two things that rock: contributions (as in “sweat” or “pull requests”) and money. Both time and money are painful to part with, so when somebody parts with either, you know you’re onto something.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to start launching satellites into orbit in 2019 to provide high-speed internet to Earth.
In November, the company outlined plans to put 4,425 satellites into space in a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filing. But the document gave little detail on the timeline.
However on Wednesday, Patricia Cooper, SpaceX’s vice president of satellite government affairs, said later this year, the company will start testing the satellites themselves, launch one prototype before the end of the year and another during the “early months“ of 2018. Following that, SpaceX will begin its satellite launch campaign in 2019.
Vomit.
It might be wise to look away now if you are eating or have a weak stomach, but scientists have discovered that ingesting bogies is good for teeth, and overall health.
Scientists at a number of universities including Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say parents should not discourage their children from picking their noses because they contain ‘a rich reservoir of good bacteria.’
Continue reading “Eating bogies is good for teeth and overall health, scientists conclude” »
What are the bottlenecks in developing a rejuvenation biotechnology industry? LEAF takes a look at some of the main problems we are facing in creating that industry.
One of the most frequent questions we get from the general public is when will rejuvenation therapies arrive? Whilst young people can wait for a few more decades, those in middle age are much more concerned. According to statistics, new drug development takes 17 years on average, but the countdown only begins at the moment when the underlying mechanisms are investigated well enough – which cannot be said about the mechanisms of aging.
We have made great progress in understanding aging in the last decade thanks to the march of technology. One solution to an aging process is entering human clinical trials this year: a therapy to remove aged damaged cells to promote tissue repair and reduce chronic inflammation. This is of course fantastic news but progress is still too slow.
Continue reading “Bottlenecks to the Development of Rejuvenation Biotechnology” »
