Lifeboat Foundation

What if “life in prison” could mean 100 or 200 or 400 years? Does that change the way that sentences are doled out? What happens when a person gets out of prison?

For all of you who’ve written in asking me to do an episode about longevity, this episode is for you. But instead of looking at the usual living forever stuff, we’re specifically going to talk about what happens when it gets applied to the prison system.

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Two-hit model of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (credit: ILSI Europe)

In an open-access paper in the British Journal of Nutrition, a coalition of 17 experts explain how elevated unresolved chronic inflammation is involved a range of chronic diseases, and how nutrition influences inflammatory processes and helps reduce chronic risk of diseases.

According to the authors, “the nutrition status of the individual with for example a deficiency or excess of certain micronutrients (e.g. folate, vitamin B12, vitamin B6, vitamin 1, vitamin E, zinc) may lead to an ineffective or excessive inflammatory response.

Continue reading “Controlling inflammation to reduce chronic disease risk” »

The left-brain hemisphere of a normal mouse shows the normal level and cellular distribution of the Pax6 gene expression in the developing neocortex. The right-brain hemisphere shows a sustained, primate-like Pax6 expression pattern in the neocortex of a double transgenic mouse embryo. These animals have more Pax6-positive progenitor cells and a higher Pax6 expression level in the germinal layer close to the ventricle in the right hemisphere. (credit: © MPI of Molecular Cell Biology & Genetics)

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics have created a transgenic mouse in which a gene called Pax6, during embryonic development, is highly expressed in a specific group of brain cortical cells called neural progenitor stem cells (the cells that generate all cells that make up the brain).

The resulting mouse brain generated more neurons than normal and exhibited primate-like features — notably those in the top layer, a characteristic feature of an expanded neocortex.

Continue reading “How to create a genius mouse” »

A reminder: HUMANS premieres in the U.S. Sunday June 28, 2015 at 9PM EDT on AMC.

This eight-part drama series takes place in a parallel present, featuring the Synth — a highly developed, artificially intelligent android servant.

Having seen the first two episodes, I’m totally hooked. I found the show surprisingly believable. It (almost) fills the void left after Almost Human and Fringe.

Continue reading “Hit TV show Humans on intelligent android servants” »

AI-controlled armed, autonomous UAVs may take over when things start to happen faster than human thought in future wars. From Call of Duty Black Ops 2 (credit: Activision Publishing)

The open letter from the Future of Life Institute (FLI) calling for a “ban on offensive autonomous weapons” is as unrealistic as the broad relinquishment of nuclear weapons would have been at the height of the cold war.

A treaty or international agreement banning the development of artificially intelligent robotic drones for military use would not be effective. It would be impossible to completely stop nations from secretly working on these technologies out of fear that other nations and non-state entities are doing the same.

Continue reading “The proposed ban on offensive autonomous weapons is unrealistic and dangerous” »

At the end of last year, Made In Space made what was a huge achievement for 3D printing in space by sending their Zero G 3D printer, capable of 3D printing without gravity, to the International Space Station. There, it has 3D printed numerous components, including a now famous wrench and twenty-three other prints that have since returned to Earth for lab analysis. The ability to 3D print without gravity restraints will allow those aboard the ISS to 3D print tools and parts using raw material, preventing the need for direct shipments of such objects from Earth. This ability is an exciting one, but the true goal of NASA and Made In Space has been to 3D print in vacuum of space itself. Today, Made In Space has announced that such a feat has now been proven possible through a series of tests performed here on Earth.

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It’s generally assumed that we will eventually find signs of life in the galaxy. But rarely do we consider searching for advanced civilizations that have destroyed themselves. Here’s how we could do it—and what the search for dead aliens could tell us about our own future.

Typically, astrobiologists and SETI enthusiasts are in the business of searching for signs of active extraterrestrial civilizations. Proposed signatures that could be detected by astronomical instruments on Earth include radio and optical signals, megascale engineering objects (such as Dyson Spheres) radiating in the far infrared, artificial illumination, and abnormal levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide suggestive of a post-industrial age civilization.

But a new study by a research team from Cornell University’s Carl Sagan Institute suggests we should also look for signs of alien civilizations that have destroyed themselves. It would be a grim task, but the ability to detect extinct civilizations would not only tell us something about the prospect of intelligent life in the galaxy, it might also tell us something about our own fate as well.

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Brace yourselves: winter is coming. And by winter I mean the slow heat-death of the Universe, and by brace yourselves I mean don’t get terribly concerned because the process will take a very, very, very long time. (But still, it’s coming.)

Based on findings from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) project, which used seven of the world’s most powerful telescopes to observe the sky in a wide array of electromagnetic wavelengths, the energy output of the nearby Universe (currently estimated to be ~13.82 billion years old) is currently half of what it was “only” 2 billion years ago — and it’s still decreasing.

“The Universe has basically plonked itself down on the sofa, pulled up a blanket and is about to nod off for an eternal doze,” said Professor Simon Driver from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western Australia, head of the nearly 100-member international research team.

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As 3-D printing gains steam and moves beyond plastics, it could be applied to many other industries, revolutionising medicine on the way.

An Ohio based pharmaceutical company Aprecia has now developed a 3-D printing technology which creates a more porous pill structure — allowing higher dose pills to dissolve quicker and making them easier to swallow for some patients. The same technology also allows precise doses to be layered in the same structure. A UCL team have also developed a technique for printing different shapes, which affects drug release.

“For the last 50 years, we have manufactured tablets in factories and shipped them to hospitals, for the first time, this process means we can produce tablets much closer to the patient.”

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