Lifeboat Foundation

Circa 2019

Technology has long been helping to hack world hunger. These days most conversations about tech’s impact on any sector of the economy inevitably involves artificial intelligence—sophisticated software that allows machines to make decisions and even predictions in ways similar to humans. Food waste tech is no different.

Continue reading “Food Waste Is a Serious Problem. AI Is Trying to Solve It” »

• Some everyday things are near-impossible for astronauts to do in space.
• Common items like salt and bread are banned from the International Space Station due to fears that they’ll send floating pieces everywhere and potentially damage space equipment or accidentally get inhaled by astronauts.
• Basic eating, sleeping, and showering habits must also be modified.

Astronauts make a lot of sacrifices when they venture off of Earth.

Besides the dangers of space travel and time away from family, microgravity comes with a whole new set of rules that dictates many facets of everyday life.

The X tractor is being presented in commemoration of Kubota’s 130th year in business.

According to agricultural machinery manufacturer Kubota, there are now fewer farmers in Japan, trying to manage increasingly large amounts of land. With that problem in mind, the company recently unveiled a concept for helping those farmers out – a driverless tractor.

Known as the X tractor (a play on “cross tractor”), the vehicle was designed as part of Kubota’s Agrirobo automated technology program. It made its public debut earlier this month, at an exhibition in the city of Kyoto.

Continue reading “Kubota unveils autonomous electric tractor in Japan” »

The coronavirus currently sweeping across China has all these characteristics. It can pass directly from one human to another. It takes up to 14 days to fully incubate. And, according to Chinese authorities, long before an individual becomes symptomatic, he or she is contagious.

There are also other facts concerning this virus that should give us pause. The only bio lab in China at which work can be done on viruses of this type is located just outside the city of Wuhan – the epicenter of the growing epidemic. The coronavirus is also known to be of interest to Chinese bio-researchers, and, in fact, last year Chinese intelligence personnel were implicated in the theft of coronavirus from a Canadian lab and the transport of the organism to China.

None of that is conclusive. None of that tells us definitively that the virus is manmade or even that humans had any part in its release. The leading theory is that the virus entered the human population from a market in Wuhan where animals known to carry the coronavirus are sold as food. That remains, as of this writing, the most likely explanation for what is now happening.

Researchers have discovered a nutrient in certain fruits and vegetables they call a “geroprotector,” a new term for something that protects against the root causes of aging. And they believe this geroprotector does such […].

People with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are often confused about which foods may ease symptoms and which ones may make them worse. Based on medical research, there’s no single plan that definitively offers relief. But a recent study on a new diet called the IBD-AID diet has shown that it may help.

The diet focuses on correcting gut bacteria balance with probiotic and prebiotic foods.

Circa 2019 Event 201, hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, envisions a fast-spreading coronavirus with a devastating impact.

Back in 2001, it was a smallpox outbreak, set off by terrorists in U.S. shopping malls. This fall, it was a SARS-like virus, germinating quietly among pig farms in Brazil before spreading to every country in the world. With each fictional pandemic Johns Hopkins experts have designed, the takeaway lesson is the same: We are nowhere near prepared.

Continue reading “Pandemic simulation exercise spotlights massive preparedness gap” »

A new randomized, controlled trial suggests that eating walnuts everyday as part of a healthful diet could improve gut health and protect the heart.

Probiotics are live microorganisms, usually bacteria, that can be consumed to offer health benefits.

The ability of certain microbes to confer health benefits on their host was recognized more than 100 years ago. In 1904, Elie Metchnikoff, a scientist at the Pasteur Institute, claimed that Bulgarian peasants lived longer by eating yogurt made from bacteria that served to ferment the milk. Parisians rushed out to buy yogurt in response.

However, the huge variety of bacteria living on the planet was not appreciated back then. More recently, the development of technology that identifies organisms from their DNA has allowed scientists to show that plants, animals, insects and humans can be hosts for many different types of microorganisms.