Lifeboat Foundation

We often discuss clinical trials, research studies that evaluate the efficacy of new medical approaches. Necessary for both improving healthcare and advancing medicine, clinical trials make up a vital part of the medical process. Here, we will begin a series of articles to provide an overview of the clinical trial process, which will help you understand all the exciting studies you read about!

Doctors and researchers use clinical trials to develop new drugs to treat cancer (or other diseases). What may be a surprise is that not all clinical trials aim to cure disease; some work to improve the quality of life for patients living with an illness. Clinical trials can also help us improve screening and diagnostic methods. Additionally, some clinical trials access new approaches for preventing disease.

Arguably the most crucial component of any clinical trial is the volunteers. Clinical trial participants may have the disease in question, but this isn’t always the case because some clinical trials rely on healthy volunteers.

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Our search for extraterrestrial life assumes alien life based on water and carbon, but could there be biochemistries based on other substances?

NSS Townhall Registration & Q&A Submission: https://space.nss.org/nss-town-hall-july-20-with-nss-senior-leadership/

Continue reading “Ammonia-Based Lifeforms” »

Memories can be as tricky to hold onto for machines as they can be for humans. To help understand why artificial agents develop holes in their own cognitive processes, electrical engineers at The Ohio State University have analyzed how much a process called “continual learning” impacts their overall performance.

Continual learning is when a computer is trained to continuously learn a sequence of tasks, using its accumulated knowledge from old tasks to better learn new tasks.

Yet one major hurdle scientists still need to overcome to achieve such heights is learning how to circumvent the machine learning equivalent of memory loss—a process which in AI agents is known as “catastrophic forgetting.” As artificial neural networks are trained on one new task after another, they tend to lose the information gained from those previous tasks, an issue that could become problematic as society comes to rely on AI systems more and more, said Ness Shroff, an Ohio Eminent Scholar and professor of computer science and engineering at The Ohio State University.

Microscopic cracks vanish in experiments, revealing possibility of self-healing machines.

In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists have for the first time observed metal spontaneously healing its microscopic cracks, upending traditional material theories. This observation could lead to self-healing machines, significantly enhancing their safety and lifespan. The phenomenon, confirming a theory proposed in 2013, may pave the way for an engineering revolution, though further research is necessary to fully understand its practical applicability.

Discovery of Self-healing Metal Phenomenon.

Once this is added to a VR open world, like low-fi, I may never come out!

The Unreal Engine combined with the power of OpenAI’s GPT has opened up a lot of possibilities for the future of video games. This demo created by Replica Studios allows us to directly interact with NPCs. It’s surprisingly good, and gives some insight into where things might be heading.

Continue reading “AI-Powered NPCs: A Game-Changing FREE Demo” »

Amazon announced Thursday it is rolling out its pay-by-palm services in Whole Foods Market stores across the country, making it possible for customers to use their palms for purchases without a wallet or phone.

The palm recognition service, called Amazon One, will be available for payment and Prime membership benefits in all Whole Foods Market locations by the end of this year. Instead of traditional payment methods, Amazon One allows customers to hover their palm over an Amazon One device.

Customers who link their Prime membership with their Amazon One profile will also automatically receive savings once their palm is registered, according to the Seattle-based retail giant.

KUALA LUMPUR, July 20 (Reuters) — Malaysia has issued a license to Starlink, the satellite communications service started by Elon Musk, to provide internet services in the country, particularly in remote areas, its communications minister said on Thursday.

Minister Fahmi Fadzil said in a Facebook post that Starlink, which is operated by Musk’s SpaceX, would begin by providing its services to schools and higher education institutions.

The government was also prepared to work with satellite communications firms, including Starlink, to ensure 100 percent internet coverage in populated areas, Fahmi said.

Last night at 9:09 p.m. PT (04:09 UTC), SpaceX successfully launched 15 V2 mini Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Following a last-second aborted launch attempt the previous night, SpaceX teams performed checkouts of the Falcon 9 and determined another attempt to launch the next-gen satellites was good to go. During the previous attempt, the launch was held early in the countdown due to a “perceived leak” in the second stage, then eventually, the automated abort at T-minus 5 seconds.

Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/CzetVZFGbv

A plentiful supply of clean energy is lurking in plain sight. It’s the hydrogen that can be extracted from water (H₂O) using renewable energy. Researchers are on the hunt for cost-effective strategies to generate clean hydrogen from water, with an aim to displace fossil fuels and battle climate change.

Hydrogen is a potent source of power for vehicles, emitting nothing more than water. It also plays a crucial role in several industrial processes, particularly in the production of steel and ammonia. The use of cleaner hydrogen in these industries would be extremely beneficial.

A multi-institutional team led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has developed a low-cost catalyst for a process that yields clean hydrogen from water. Other contributors include DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as well as Giner Inc.