Lifeboat Foundation

Life is usefully defined on the basis of process: Any set of entities that participates in the process of evolution by natural selection is alive. But how does evolution by natural selection—and thus life—get started? The answer is far from obvious. Lack of insight haunts origins of life research and plagues understanding of the major evolutionary transitions, including the transition from cells to multicellular life.

In a new paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, a team led by Paul Rainey at ESPCI Paris and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology provides a solution. Adopting a theoretical approach inspired from earlier and on-going experiments, Rainey and his team show how ecological circumstances can kick-start life, both from the get-go, and also at each of the major evolutionary transitions.

For entities to participate in the process of evolution by natural selection, entities need to be discreet and vary one to another, entities must replicate and offspring must resemble parental types. These basic Darwinian properties (variation, reproduction and heredity) are such fundamental features of life that it is easy to take their existence for granted. But as Black et al point out, Darwinian properties are derived and require evolutionary explanation. In the absence of any manifestation of heritable variance in fitness evolution is governed by chance alone and the road out of randomness difficult to conceive.

After being blind for 16 years, scientists have plugged a bionic eye directly into Bernardeta Gomez’s brain, allowing her to see again without using her biological eyes after she had a computer port surgically embedded into her skull.

The vision system is being honed by neuriengineer Eduardo Fernandez in his lab at the University of Miguel Hernandez, and it is comprised of a few different parts according to the publication in MIT Technology Review.

There is a pair of glasses that are fitted with a camera that connects to a computer which translates the live video feed into electronic signals that are then sent via a cable to the port which has been surgically embedded into the back of Gomez’s skull and connects to an implant in the visual cortex of her brain.

Circa 2019

Nature breaks everything down—eventually. It’s time to accelerate the process, by engineering enzymes or microbes to chop plastic polymers into bits.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=OMxfffqyDtc

Last week, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal grilled wireless industry representatives, who admitted the industry has done ZERO health & safety studies on 5G technology. Meanwhile, dozens of independent studies indicates that 5G is a risk to all biological life. Watch the video above, on YouTube here, or on Facebook here.

Antidepressant-soil.

Soil microbes have been found to have similar effects on the brain as prozac, without the negative side effects and potential for chemical dependency and withdrawal.

It turns out getting in the garden and getting dirty is a natural antidepressant due to unique microbes in healthy organic soil. Working and playing in soil can actually make you happier and healthier.

Continue reading “Antidepressant Microbes In Soil: How Soil Makes Your Brain Happy” »

Up to 1,000 times faster than traditional CPUs!

Codenamed ‘Pohoiki Beach,’ the new chip processes data like a biological brain by simulating a whole network of neurons, allowing the silicon to process information ‘up to 1,000 times faster.’

Circa 2016 o.o

Americans dump 251 million tons of trash annually into landfills. Bike seat ripped? Toss it. Hole in the old garden hose? Get rid of it. Spandex not tucking in your tummy? Loose it and replace it. This linear process of extracting a resource, processing it, selling it than discarding it is creating a mound of trash dangerously equivocal to the ball of trash in Futurama episode 8 season 1.

Continue reading “Plastic Eating Plants: Will they Save our Environment?” »

Bernardeta Gómez has been blind for 16 years. But using a bionic eye developed by Spanish neuroengineer Eduardo Fernandez, she was able to see again — without using her biological eyes at all.

The system, which Fernandez is honing at his University of Miguel Hernandez lab, comprises a few different parts, as detailed in a newly-published story in MIT Technology Review.

First, there’s a pair of glasses fitted with a camera that connects to a computer. The computer translates the camera’s live video feed into electronic signals. Those signals are then sent via a cable to a port that Fernandez surgically embedded in the back of Gómez’s skull. That port connects to an implant in the visual cortex of Gómez’s brain.