Lifeboat Foundation

Could brain-zapping soon cure obesity?

At times, DNA testing can feel more like horoscopes than science. In many cases, we just don’t know enough about a gene to say what it means for our health. For this reason, the Food and Drug Administration has sought to protect consumers by preventing DNA testing companies from telling them whether or not they’re are at risk for a certain disease. Until now.

Croatian bioethicists say it should be compulsory.

News from Cambridge businesses. Network members upload news here about their products, services and achievements.

Speaking at the annual Space Symposium Bezos outlined his ambitious plans and said he was ‘super optimistic’ there would be a good market for this thrill-seeking trips starting in 2018.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed that he will be selling $1 billion (£800 million) of Amazon stock every year to fund his space travel company Blue Origin.

Continue reading “Jeff Bezos says Blue Origin will usher in a ‘golden age of space’” »

THE global investment bank Goldman Sachs has claimed mining asteroids for precious metals is a “realistic” goal.

It has released a report exploring the possibility of using an “asteroid-grabbing spacecraft” to extract platinum from space rocks.

Researchers from Vassar College expanded on efforts in evolutionary robots to include developmental factors for the first time. Robots were able to ‘reproduce’ to spur 10 generations.

The fast-advancing fields of neuroscience and computer science are on a collision course. David Cox, Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Computer Science at Harvard, explains how his lab is working with others to reverse engineer how brains learn, starting with rats. By shedding light on what our machine learning algorithms are currently missing, this work promises to improve the capabilities of robots – with implications for jobs, laws and ethics.

http://www.weforum.org/

© Sören Boyn / CNRS/Thales physics joint research unit.

Artist’s impression of the electronic synapse: the particles represent electrons circulating through oxide, by analogy with neurotransmitters in biological synapses. The flow of electrons depends on the oxide’s ferroelectric domain structure, which is controlled by electric voltage pulses.

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