Lifeboat Foundation

New version of this out: https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/01/02/americas-r…-cold-war/ #transhumanism #biohacking

Unlike other epic scientific advances…the immediate effect of genetic editing technology is not dangerous. Yet, it stands to be just as divisive to humans as the 70-year proliferation of nuclear weaponry.

The playing field of geopolitics is pretty simple: If China or another country vows to increase its children’s intelligence via genetic editing, and America chooses to remain “au naturel” because they insist that’s how God made them, a conflict species-deep will quickly arise.

Continue reading “America’s refusal to embrace gene editing could start the next Cold War” »

In a breakthrough for regenerative medicine, scientists have grown intestinal tissues with functional nerves in a laboratory setup using human pluripotent stem cells. The synthesized tissue was used to study Hirschsprung’s disease, a congenital condition where nerve cells are missing from the colon, causing complications in passing stool. The research is detailed in Nature Medicine.

A pluripotent stem cell is a precursor cell to all the other types of cells in the body. In a petri dish, the stem cells were treated in a biochemical bath that triggered the formation into intestinal tissue. The novel part of the study was the construction of a nervous system on the intestinal organoid. The researchers manipulated neural crest cells to grow a system of nerves. By putting together the neural crest cells and the intestinal tissue at the exact time, they successfully grew together into a complex functional system.

The tissues were transplanted into mice. They worked successfully and showed a structure “remarkably similar” to that of a natural human intestine.

Continue reading “Regenerative Medicine: Scientists Have Successfully Engineered Functioning Human Nerves” »

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet and the University of Gothenburg have generated a web-based software, Green Listed, which can facilitate the use of the CRISPR methodology. The software is published in the journal Bioinformatics and is freely available through greenlisted.cmm.ki.se where also information texts and films are available.

Cells are very small and builds up an organism. A human has about 100 times as many cells in its body as there are people on earth. Inside a vast majority of these cells are long chains of DNA. These DNA chains affects how different cells look and behave. CRISPR is a research method that can be used to rapidly study how different portions of the DNA directly affect cells. Using this method, researchers can gain insights to the cause of diseases and give suggestions for how they can be treated.

“We use the CRISPR methodology to study both immune cells and cancer cells. The goal is to develop new treatments for patients with diseases related to the immune system, such as arthritis, as well as cancer”, says Fredrik Wermeling at the Center for Molecular Medicine (CMM), Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet.

In Brief

• Kawasaki is developing AI for future bikes that will give it a personality with the hopes it will help reassure drivers.
• AI is constantly being developed in new ways, ranging from the novel to the revolutionary.

Automotive company Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. (KHI) is developing next-generation motorcycles with an AI controlled-system that not only ensures safer rides, but also develops an emotional connection with the user.

The bikes use a system called the “Emotion Generation Engine and Natural Language Dialogue System”, developed by robotics teams from cocoro SB Corp. The driver can talk to the bike and it will be able to pick up cues on the rider’s emotional state and intents. In their press release, Kawasaki said that this “will open the door to a new world of unprecedented riding experiences.”

Continue reading “Kawasaki is Going Full Knightrider With Their New AI Motorcycle” »

NASA researchers have a lot of problems to work through if they want astronauts to one day set foot on Mars. One of the biggest hurdles is where these early pioneers will sleep and live, and after a day of brainstorming, engineers might have come up with a solution – a conceptual ‘ice home’ design.

Yup, NASA is looking into creating inflatable domes covered in ice for astronauts to live and work in, providing them with protection from extreme temperatures and high-energy radiation.

“After a day dedicated to identifying needs, goals, and constraints we rapidly assessed many crazy, out of the box ideas and finally converged on the current Ice Home design, which provides a sound engineering solution,” said senior systems engineer Kevin Vipavetz, from NASA’s Langley Research Centre in Virginia.

Author and robot expert Dr. David Levy explains how marriage with robots will come in the next several decades as technological and societal transformations take place.

Join us in our femto satellite project to launch the smallest satellite in the world!

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Tiny electric airplanes could transform air travel.

On its own, swapping conventional aircraft engines for electric motors could have significant benefits, reducing the cost of air travel and emissions per flight. But the bigger opportunity here is to make air travel practical in situations where no one would think to take an airplane today.

Back in October, Uber published a white paper describing its vision of the future small VTOL aircraft could make possible. Uber envisions a network of on-demand aircraft carrying passengers among many landing spots distributed throughout a metropolitan area. For example, right now it takes at least an hour to drive from San Jose, California, to San Francisco — and closer to two hours during rush hour. In contrast, Uber estimates, the same trip could take 15 minutes in a VTOL airplane.

Continue reading “Why Google co-founder Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars” »

Struggling with your diet? Your microbiota could be to blame.

Your microbiota may not be on your side as you try improving your diet this New Year’s. In a study published December 29 in Cell Host & Microbe, researchers explore why mice that switch from an unrestricted American diet to a healthy, calorie-restricted, plant-based diet don’t have an immediate response to their new program. They found that certain human gut bacteria need to be lost for a diet plan to be successful.

“If we are to prescribe a diet to improve someone’s health, it’s important that we understand what microbes help control those beneficial effects,” says Jeffrey Gordon, Director of the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology at Washington University in St. Louis and senior author of the paper. “And we’ve found a way to mine the gut microbial communities of different humans to identify the organisms that help promote the effects of a particular diet in ways that might be beneficial.”

Continue reading “Your microbiota’s previous dining experiences may make new diets less effective” »