Lifeboat Foundation

A supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy some 8.5 billion years way has ripped apart a nearby star, producing some of the most luminous jets ever seen.

When stars and other objects stray too close to a supermassive black hole they are destroyed by the black hole’s immense gravity.

These occurrences, known as tidal-disruption events (TDEs), result in a circling disk of material that is slowly pulled into the black hole and very occasionally, as in the case of supermassive black hole AT2022cmc, ejecting bright beams of material travelling close to the speed of light.

In a recent study published in Cell, researchers presented eight hallmarks of neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs), their in vivo biomarkers, and interactions to help categorize NDDs and specify patients within a specific NDD.

Despite being linked to rare genetic forms, all eight NDD hallmarks (cellular/molecular processes) also contribute to sporadic NDDs. In addition, they contribute to neuronal loss in preclinical (animal) models and NDD patients, manifesting as an altered molecular (hallmark) biomarker.

An NDD patient could have defects in multiple NDD hallmarks. However, the primary NDD hallmark depends on the NDD insult and the neuronal susceptibility and resilience, i.e., one’s ability to handle insults in the affected brain region.

Scientists have identified the exact point at which healthy brain proteins are shocked into the tangled mess that is commonly associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) are h opeful that the new laboratory technique behind the discovery can be used to directly study the ‘never-before-seen’ early stages of many neurodegenerative diseases.

Tau proteins are abundant in the human brain. At first, these proteins look like tiny pieces of string inside neurons. As they fold and bind together with structural elements called microtubules, however, they create a sort of skeleton for brain cells that helps them function properly.

With major advancements in space optics over the last 20 years, ultrahigh-bandwidth signals now regularly ping back and forth over great distances, providing a communications canopy that extends over the entire globe.

19 minutes in, “At this point I think things are going pretty damned well,” when talking about if the middle-aged will benefit.

Life-Extension pioneer Dr. Aubrey De Grey discusses the LEV & SENS foundations, the latest trends in anti-aging research, new animal trials anticipated to double or triple life expectancy, and increased social acceptance for the disease model of aging.

Continue reading “Aubrey de Grey — Longevity & Life-Extension” »

My last genAI experiment where I created a children’s (audio)book in more than 10 languages within a few days with the help of AI was quite a while ago. So now it was time for a new experiment. This time I created a fully synthetic podcast using generative AI and brought Steve Jobs to life as a synthetic AI character to have a conversation with him.

In this blog post I talk about my motivation, explain how I proceeded step by step and also share my learnings.

“I think we’re in the same kind of early stage of a process of absolute shattering ontological chaos that has come from the fact that the epistemological authorities have been blasted apart by the internet” — Nick land.

Read my article https://medium.com/@tsverava_62020/a-sense-of-home-must-be-defended-294b5f558b97

Wtf… How is this possible? Scientists have developed an AI system called ProGen that can generate artificial enzymes from scratch. The technology was developed by Salesforce Research and uses natural language processing and next-token prediction to assemble amino acid sequences into artificial proteins. In laboratory tests, some of these enzymes worked as well as those found in nature, even when their artificially generated amino acid sequences The new technology could become more powerful than directed evolution, a Nobel-prize-winning protein design technology, and will speed up the development of new proteins for use in various fields, including therapeutics and degrading plastic.

The high profile race to enhance their search products has underscored the importance of artificial intelligence to Google and Microsoft – and the rest of the economy, too. Two of the world’s largest tech companies announced plans for AI-enhanced search this month, ratcheting up a tussle for supremacy in the artificial intelligence space. However, the debut of Google’s new chatbot, Bard, was scuppered when an error appeared, knocking $163bn (£137bn) off the parent company Alphabet’s share price. The stock’s plunge showed how crucial investors think AI could be to Google’s future.

However, the increasing prominence of AI has implications for every corner of the economy. From retail to transport, here’s how AI promises to usher in a wave of change across industries.