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After less than eight months of development, the algorithms are helping intel analysts exploit drone video over the battlefield.

Earlier this month at an undisclosed location in the Middle East, computers using special algorithms helped intelligence analysts identify objects in a video feed from a small ScanEagle drone over the battlefield.

A few days into the trials, the computer identified objects — people, cars, types of building — correctly about 60 percent of the time. Just over a week on the job — and a handful of on-the-fly software updates later — the machine’s accuracy improved to around 80 percent. Next month, when its creators send the technology back to war with more software and hardware updates, they believe it will become even more accurate.

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Each year, Science’s editors and writers highlight a top research achievement as their Breakthrough of the Year. For 2017, the honor goes to the first full observation of a neutron-star merger, made possible by detecting gravitational waves created by the stars as they spiraled into each other. But there a lot of other advances to talk about, from the oldest ice to the newest ape. Check them all out in this video rundown.


A video compilation of some of the biggest advances of 2017.

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Many battery scientists are interested in the potential of lithium sulfur batteries because, at least in theory, they offer a high energy density at relatively low cost. However, lithium sulfur batteries face a number of challenges, including the low electrical conductivity of sulfur and the tendency of the cathode to expand significantly in size during the discharge cycle—a tendency that prevents the cathode material from being packed as densely in the battery as scientists would like.

To combat these problems and bring lithium sulfur batteries closer to reality, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Oregon State University have developed a new made of that is encapsulated by graphene.

To make the material, Argonne chemists Jun Lu and Khalil Amine heated and then exposed it to carbon disulfide gas, a common industrial solvent. The creation of lithium sulfide, as well as the graphene encapsulation, happened spontaneously.

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Currently have telomerase which can immortalize human cells in a petri dish. Currently we have stem cells and we can take regular cells even from someone who is 100 years old and we can deprogram the cells back to a pluripotent stem cell state. This is effectively de-aging the cells. There is an effort by some researchers (not Dr West) to achieve partial reprogramming of cells. This would be to use the reprogramming mechanisms to de-age cells while retaining differentiation.

Dr West mentions in the fifth video that he strongly disapproves of current stem cell treatment centers.

Dr. West notes that people did not believe that immortalizing human cells (even in a petri dish was possible). This was a belief held until the 1980s. Even Dr. Hayflick thought it was extremely unlikely to be achieved. Hayflick had found over 300 changes in the cells as they divided and reached their limit of division.

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From 2008–2011, Sandia National Labs and Northrop Grumman designed nuclear drones that would be able to fly for many months.

China has put $3.3 billion into making new highly compact nuclear reactors which would also use for nuclear powered drones.

The potential impact of nuclear-powered drones can be seen by comparing them with existing aircraft such as the MQ-9 Reaper, which is used extensively in Afghanistan and Pakistan in operations against insurgents. The Reaper presently carries nearly two tonnes of fuel in addition a similar weight of munitions and other equipment and can stay airborne for around 42 hours, or just 14 hours when fully loaded with munitions.

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Recently pharma firms have released new diabetes treatments, including one in the past week. What’s more, a promising new therapy that attacks the cause of type 2 diabetes at its roots is in the development pipeline.


Summary: Recently pharmaceutical firms have released new diabetes treatments, including one in the past week. Moreover, a promising new therapy that attacks the root cause of type 2 diabetes is in the development pipeline. [This article first appeared on the LongevityFacts.com website. Author: Brady Hartman. ]

The CDC recently shocked the public when they reported that 40% of Americans walking around today would develop type 2 diabetes.

Many people develop type 2 diabetes as they age because their body’s response to insulin – the hormone that controls sugar levels – gets weaker.

In a paradigm shift, scientists are starting to regard respiratory disease as a disease of aging and scientists at the Mayo Clinic reversed symptoms of a lung disease in mice using age-reversing senolytic compounds. In addition to senolytics, researchers are developing other treatments for respiratory conditions such as gene therapy.


Summary: In a paradigm shift, scientists are starting to regard respiratory disease as a disease of aging and scientists at the Mayo Clinic reversed symptoms of a lung disease in mice using age-reversing senolytic compounds. In addition to senolytics, researchers are developing other treatments for respiratory conditions such as gene therapy. [This article first appeared on the website LongevityFacts.com. Author: Brady Hartman.]

All of us – both smokers and non-smokers alike – will lose significant lung capacity as we age. Scientists at the Mayo Clinic have developed a promising treatment that rejuvenates the damaged lungs of mice using anti-aging compounds called senolytics.

The Mayo Clinic researchers showed evidence linking the biology of aging with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a disease of aging that impairs lung function and causes fatigue, shortness of breath, declining quality of life, and, ultimately, death. The Mayo Clinic team showed that the lungs of human IPF patients are full of senescent cells, and treatment with senolytics reversed symptoms of the lung disease in mice. Moreover, because senolytics have general age-reversing effects, the Mayo researchers hope to test the therapy on seniors with IPF as well as other lung diseases of aging.

Elizabeth Parrish is a proponent of controversial ideas. Rankled by barriers to trials on potential life-enhancing treatments, she used herself as a guinea pig and says the results have borne fruit – but she has irked the science community in the process.


Experimenting on herself didn’t go down well with scientists, but Elizabeth Parrish is convinced gene therapy can increase the length and quality of our lives, and wants early approval for treatments to stem ‘planet’s biggest killer’.

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