Lifeboat Foundation

Death, taxis and technology: titles in the running for this year’s Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year give a new twist to the old maxim about certainty.

The 17 books on the 2017 longlist include analyses of the implications of world-changing innovations, from the iPhone to drones; a lively account of the rise of Uber; and a sobering history of the role war, plague and catastrophe have played in shaping our economies.

Titles about the relentless march of technology dominate the FT/McKinsey annual prize.

Researchers have recently discovered two different types of memory use completely different processes in the same nerves, opening the way for a new pharmaceutical solution for treating anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The find challenges earlier research that had suggested memories of traumatic events used the same nerves in the same ways, making them impossible to physically distinguish.

A team of scientists from Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and McGill University analysed neurons from a marine snail called an Aplysia in order to test a hypothesis explaining why memories of incidents surrounding a bad experience can themselves trigger anxiety.

Continue reading “Scientists think they might soon be able to edit human memories” »

Abstract: Berg and Ulfberg and Amano and Maruoka have used CNF-DNF-approximators to prove exponential lower bounds for the monotone network complexity of the clique function and of Andreev’s function. We show that these approximators can be used to prove the same lower bound for their non-monotone network complexity. This implies P not equal NP.

Honey bees really are tiny hardworking superheroes of the insect world — not only do they keep our agriculture going by pollinating many of our crops, but they also produce a myriad of beneficial substances, like honey and beeswax.

For thousands of years honey has been prized for its topical antiseptic properties. But now researchers have discovered that its lesser-known cousin, royal jelly, has special molecules that speed up wound healing.

Royal jelly is the superfood worker bees secrete and feed all their larvae, especially the queen bees. While queens are developing, they basically float in a pool of this stuff, and humans have figured out how to stimulate queen larva production to then harvest the royal jelly.

Continue reading “This Molecule Found in Royal Jelly Is The Secret Ingredient to Speed Up Wound Healing” »

Famously described as ‘the deepest problem in solid state physics’ by Nobel Laureate, Philip Andersen, the glass transition, by which a liquid transforms into a solid without freezing, is shedding its mystique.

Until now, researchers’ understanding has been splintered at best, with mutually incompatible interpretations of the physical processes underlying the emergence of amorphous solids (glasses).

Now a team of scientists from the University of Bristol and Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz in Germany may have found the missing fragment, enabling the reconciliation of differing interpretations.

The research arm of the U.S. Department of Defense is marshalling an international effort to overcome what many say is the biggest obstacle to widespread adoption of artificial intelligence: teaching algorithms to explain their decision-making to humans.

http://cnnmon.ie/2vdmO6m

In addition to an upcoming virtual reality hub at NYU, New York City will also host its first VR-focused convention later this year. The NYVR Expo, which will take place at the Javits Center from Oct. 26th through 28th, aims to be the biggest virtual reality conference on the East Coast. It’ll be a place for both newcomers and existing VR professionals to explore what’s next in the burgeoning medium. And since the NYVR Expo will run alongside the PhotoPlus Expo at Javits, it will have easy reach to a wide audience of media enthusiasts.

According to Emerald Expositions, which organizes both shows, the new event came about after it noticed that PhotoPlus Expo attendees were increasingly interested in VR. While it considered creating a small virtual reality pavilion as part of the existing show, according to Senior Vice President John McGeary, the company realized it made more sense to start a completely new conference. Together, both the NYVR Expo and PhotoPlus Expo are expected to gather around 20,000 attendees.

As you’d expect, the virtual reality conference will show off how the technology can be used in a variety of sectors, including health care, education and entertainment. It’ll also take advantage of NYC’s unique position as a melting pot for a variety of industries.

Researchers have achieved a major turning point in the quest for efficient desalination by announcing the invention of a graphene-oxide membrane that sieves salt right out of seawater.

At this stage, the technique is still limited to the lab, but it’s a demonstration of how we could one day quickly and easily turn one of our most abundant resources, seawater, into one of our most scarce — clean drinking water.

The team, led by Rahul Nair from the University of Manchester in the UK, has shown that the sieve can efficiently filter out salts, and now the next step is to test this against existing desalination membranes.

Continue reading “Scientists Have Invented a Graphene-Based Sieve That Turns Seawater Into Drinking Water” »