Lifeboat Foundation

Assistive technology services are integrating OpenAI’s GPT-4, using artificial intelligence to help describe objects and people.

In January 2021, EPFL engineers announced in Advanced Science their concept of a novel cardiac assist device that is devoid of rigid metallic components. It consists of a soft, artificial muscle wrapped around the aorta that can constrict and dilate the vessel, ultimately enhancing the aorta’s natural function and aiding the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body.

Now June 2021, EPFL engineers led by Yves Perriard of the Laboratory of Integrated Actuators in collaboration with University of Bern, have successfully implanted their first artificial tubular muscle, in vivo, in a pig. During the 4-hour long operation, their cardiac assist device maintained 24 000 pulsations, of which 1,500 were activated artificially by the augmented aorta.

More information with downloadable pdf:

Continue reading “Researchers successfully implanted the first artificial tubular muscle in vivo” »

More earbuds, these from Waverly Labs. They also have the pilot. The Interpreter arrives as a pair of over-the-ear headphones, one for your right ear and one for your friend’s. You download the Ambassador mobile app—where all the translation work gets done—and pair both headphones to your phone using Bluetooth.

Ambassador has three operational modes. Converse mode is a two-way system: You both pick one of the 20 languages and 42 dialects available, and the app translates your language to his and his to yours. (Up to four people at once can talk this way through the app, if you have enough earphones.) Lecture mode is a one-way system that translates your speech and streams it through your smartphone’s speaker in another tongue. Listen mode goes the other way, listening for the language of your choice, translating it into your own language, and piping it into your earpiece.

The Ambassador app-connected earphones translate human speech into multiple tongues, enabling multilingual conversations.

Artificial intelligence algorithms, such as the sophisticated natural language processor ChatGPT, are raising hopes, eyebrows and alarm bells in multiple industries. A deluge of news articles and opinion pieces, reflecting both concerns about and promises of the rapidly advancing field, often note AI’s potential to spread misinformation and replace human workers on a massive scale. According to Jonathan Chen, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, the speculation about large-scale disruptions has a kernel of truth to it, but it misses another element when it comes to health care: AI will bring benefits to both patients and providers.

Chen discussed the challenges with and potential for AI in health care in a commentary published in JAMA on April 28. In this Q&A, he expands on how he sees AI integrating into health care.

The algorithms we’re seeing emerge have really popped open Pandora’s box and, ready or not, AI will substantially change the way physicians work and the way patients interact with clinical medicine. For example, we can tell our patients that they should not be using these tools for medical advice or self-diagnosis, but we know that thousands, if not millions, of people are already doing it — typing in symptoms and asking the models what might be ailing them.

A genetic editing system similar to CRISPR-Cas9 has been uncovered for the first time in eukaryotes – the group of organisms that include fungi, plants, and animals. The system, based on a protein called Fanzor, can be guided to precisely target and edit sections of DNA, and that could open up the possibility of its use as a human genome editing tool.

The research team, led by Professor Feng Zhang at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, began to suspect that Fanzor proteins might act as nucleases – enzymes that can chop up nucleic acids, like DNA – during a previous investigation.

Continue reading “Newfound CRISPR-Like System In Animals Could Be Used To Manipulate Human Genomes” »

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help people shop, plan, and write—but not cook. It turns out humans aren’t the only ones who have a hard time following step-by-step recipes in the correct order, but new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing could change that.

Danish architect Bjarke Ingels has collaborated with clothing brand Vollebak to design an entirely self-sufficient, off-grid island home in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Planned for an island within Jeddore Harbour, the house is designed to exemplify the clothing brand’s ideals and Ingels’ studio BIG’s “philosophy of hedonistic sustainability”.

“Vollebak is using technology and material innovation to create clothes that are as sustainable and resilient as they are beautiful,” said Ingels.

The arrangement of electrons in matter, known as the electronic structure, plays a crucial role in fundamental but also applied research, such as drug design and energy storage. However, the lack of a simulation technique that offers both high fidelity and scalability across different time and length scales has long been a roadblock for the progress of these technologies.

Researchers from the Center for Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) in Görlitz, Germany, and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S., have now pioneered a machine learning–based simulation method that supersedes traditional electronic structure simulation techniques.

Their Materials Learning Algorithms (MALA) software stack enables access to previously unattainable length scales. The work is published in the journal npj Computational Materials.

Interesting discovery! I’d love to see it in action.

A new ferroelectric polymer that efficiently converts electrical energy into mechanical strain has been developed by Penn State researchers. This material, showing potential for use in medical devices and robotics, overcomes traditional piezoelectric limitations. Researchers improved performance by creating a polymer nanocomposite, significantly reducing the necessary driving field strength, expanding potential applications.

A new type of ferroelectric polymer that is exceptionally good at converting electrical energy into mechanical strain holds promise as a high-performance motion controller or “actuator” with great potential for applications in medical devices, advanced robotics, and precision positioning systems, according to a team of international researchers led by Penn State.

Continue reading “Artificial Muscles Flex for the First Time: Ferroelectric Polymer Innovation in Robotics” »