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Jan 20, 2017

Team discovers how bacteria exploit a chink in the body’s armor

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Microbial burden is a real problem in aging and researchers are finding ways to boost our immune system to resist these microscopic enemies.


Microbial burden is a significant contribution to aging and our bodies are under daily attack from these microscopic invaders. The more completely we can remove these invaders the less impact they will have on the aging process.

“Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Newcastle University in the U.K. are investigating how infectious microbes can survive attacks by the body’s immune system. By better understanding the bacteria’s defenses, new strategies can be developed to cure infections that are currently resistant to treatments, the researchers said”

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Jan 20, 2017

Scientists Have a Plan to Bring Back the Caspian Tiger, Which Has Been Extinct for 50 Years

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, genetics

Caspian tigers were some of the largest cats ever to roam the Earth, but they went extinct in the 1960s. Now, some scientists want to bring them back.

A new study, published in the journal Biological Conservation, lays out the plan to reintroduce the tigers using a subspecies, the Siberian tiger, which is genetically similar to the Caspian tiger.

The authors write in their paper that the Siberians tiger’s “phenotype proves adaptable to the arid conditions of the introduction site”.

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Jan 20, 2017

Why Fear Our Own Greatness

Posted by in category: futurism

Why do we fear our own greatness?

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Jan 20, 2017

Violations of energy conservation in the early universe may explain dark energy

Posted by in categories: cosmology, quantum physics

(Phys.org)—Physicists have proposed that violations of energy conservation in the early universe, as predicted by certain modified theories of quantum mechanics and quantum gravity, may explain the cosmological constant problem, which is sometimes referred to as “the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics.”

The physicists, Thibaut Josset and Alejandro Perez at the University of Aix-Marseille, France, and Daniel Sudarsky at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, have published a paper on their proposal in a recent issue Physical Review Letters.

“The main achievement of the work was the unexpected relation between two apparently very distinct issues, namely the accelerated expansion of the universe and microscopic physics,” Josset told Phys.org. “This offers a fresh look at the cosmological constant problem, which is still far from being solved.”

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Jan 20, 2017

A new social experiment on Facebook reveals introverts open up more in VR

Posted by in category: virtual reality

The outward perception of VR to the less initiated is that the headsets foster a very isolated or anti-social experience.

Unbeknownst to those same people, virtual reality headsets are opening up worlds of potential when it comes to engaging with our fellow humans.

Facebook IQ is the social network’s window into the people that power social media; one that marketers can peek into to get a better idea of what makes people tick. A recent entry on the People Insight portion of the website tackles VR and how it facilitates a social connection.

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Jan 20, 2017

This Finnish guy gets a $600 per month ‘basic income’ for doing absolutely nothing

Posted by in category: economics

A new experiment conducted by the Finnish economic agency Kela gives 2,000 unemployed Finns a monthly income. One man shares how he expects it to go.

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Jan 20, 2017

Elon Musk: Moving Toward Universal Basic Income Due To Automation

Posted by in categories: economics, Elon Musk, robotics/AI

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk told CNBC on Friday that economies would most likely need a form of ‘universal basic income’ as more and more industries become automated.
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Jan 20, 2017

The Best Universal Basic Income Videos of 2016

Posted by in categories: economics, geopolitics

2017 is already shaping up to be a big year for the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI). The idea to build an unconditional income floor to cover the basic needs of each citizen has been gaining worldwide attention and traction. In just the first 10 days of 2017, Finland has already launched a trial, a nonprofit in India is preparing to launch their own, Scotland is seriously considering trials, and several South Korean presidential candidates are now calling for support for UBI.

But before we turn our focus to the latest happenings, I want to look back and highlight some of the best videos of 2016 that explained and advocated for Universal Basic Income.

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Jan 20, 2017

A New Device Could Make Memory Implants a Reality

Posted by in categories: biological, health, mathematics, neuroscience

In Brief

  • By mimicking the way neurons fire in the hippocampus during natural memory creation, a brain implant was used to successfully plant memories in the brains of rats.
  • Though human implementation is far off, this breakthrough in cracking the hippocampus’ mathematical “memory code” has very important implications for health and research.

Memories are the faintest, most ethereal wisps of our neurophysiology — somehow, the firing of delicate synapses and the activation of neurons combine to produce the things we remember. The sum of our memories make us who we are; they are us, in every way, and without them we cease to be.

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Jan 20, 2017

Insecticides mimic melatonin, creating higher risk for diabetes

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, health, information science

Synthetic chemicals commonly found in insecticides and garden products bind to the receptors that govern our biological clocks, University at Buffalo researchers have found. The research suggests that exposure to these insecticides adversely affects melatonin receptor signaling, creating a higher risk for metabolic diseases such as diabetes.

Published online on Dec. 27 in Chemical Research in Toxicology, the research combined a big data approach, using computer modeling on millions of chemicals, with standard wet-laboratory experiments. It was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Disruptions in human circadian rhythms are known to put people at higher risk for diabetes and other metabolic diseases but the mechanism involved is not well-understood.

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