Lifeboat Foundation

Another potentially game-changing discovery has come out of the lab of Feng Zhang, PhD. This time, they uncovered the first programmable RNA-guided system in eukaryotes. Just a few months ago, the Zhang lab adapted a contractile injection system, found naturally in bacteria, that deliver protein payloads to target human cells.

In this recent work, Zhang’s team describes how the system—based on the Fanzor protein—uses RNA as a guide to target DNA precisely, and that Fanzor can be reprogrammed to edit the genome of human cells. Additionally, the compact Fanzor systems have the potential to be more easily delivered to cells and tissues as therapeutics than CRISPR/Cas systems, and further refinements to improve their targeting efficiency could make them a valuable new technology for human genome editing.

The research is published in Nature, in the paper, “Fanzor is a eukaryotic programmable RNA-guided endonuclease.”

A seemingly magical material can block microwaves, infrared (IR) heat, and light and then magically shift to a transparent state that also allows IR and microwaves to pass through simply by being stretched or contracted.

Inspired by the properties of squid skin, which can shift from translucent to opaque due to the presence of iridocytes and chromatophores, the new material could help create stealth materials, safeguard electronic devices, dramatically improve energy efficiency in commercial buildings, and even protect against microwave weapons.

No One Has Accomplished All of These Feats in One Material .

Geoff Bennett:

Let’s expand our horizons a bit wider and look at important findings that are literally about space-time and the cosmos as we know it.

You might remember that Albert Einstein theorized that as heavy objects move through time and space, they create ripple effects in the fabric of our universe. Now an international team of scientists have detected new evidence of that. Researchers found new signs of gravitational waves, waves that are affected by huge movements, such as the collision of black holes.

The 25-year bet between neuroscientist Chris Koch and philosopher David Chalmers is settled. Consciousness, on the other hand, is not.

Dan Hendrycks joins the podcast to discuss evolutionary dynamics in AI development and how we could develop AI safely. You can read more about Dan’s work at https://www.safe.ai.

Timestamps:
00:00 Corporate AI race.
06:28 Evolutionary dynamics in AI
25:26 Why evolution applies to AI
50:58 Deceptive AI
1:06:04 Competition erodes safety.
10:17:40 Evolutionary fitness: humans versus AI
1:26:32 Different paradigms of AI risk.
1:42:57 Interpreting AI systems.
1:58:03 Honest AI and uncertain AI
2:06:52 Empirical and conceptual work.
2:12:16 Losing touch with reality.

Continue reading “Dan Hendrycks on Why Evolution Favors AIs over Humans” »

Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have used two-dimensional condensed matter physics to understand the quark interactions in neutron stars, simplifying the study of these densest cosmic entities. This work helps to describe low-energy excitations in dense nuclear matter and could unveil new phenomena in extreme densities, propelling advancements in the study of neutron stars and comparisons with heavy-ion collisions.

Understanding the behavior of nuclear matter—including the quarks and gluons that make up the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei—is extremely complicated. This is particularly true in our world, which is three dimensional. Mathematical techniques from condensed matter physics that consider interactions in just one spatial dimension (plus time) greatly simplify the challenge. Using this two-dimensional approach, scientists solved the complex equations that describe how low-energy excitations ripple through a system of dense nuclear matter. This work indicates that the center of neutron stars, where such dense nuclear matter exists in nature, may be described by an unexpected form.

Historically, colonialism was initially predicated on a simple “rob and take home” concept. During the first colonialist age, the superpowers of that era (primarily England and France) used to send their agents overseas to obtain precious goods at very low prices, and to bring those goods back to their home countries, selling them at very high prices (today, such practices are far from being obsolete!). Such policies were often socially detrimental, especially when they boosted the use of drugs (e.g., stimulating opium dependence in several Chinese provinces). In many cases, colonialist policies lead to conflicts and wars (in order to ensure control over certain regions). In most cases, nothing positive remained for the colonized populations, since the colonialist behaviors primarily engaged populations with a culture based on robbery and exploitation – not to advance civil rights. Regarding the “new world” (America’s two continents), colonialists have also invaded these territories, stealing the land and natural resources from native inhabitants, and exterminating these inhabitants by any means. During the last age of colonialism (up to the 20th Century), the practice of depredation continued, in many cases retarding or preventing the development of colonized countries, notwithstanding the abundance of natural riches, from which native peoples could never benefit.

Ok, I am listening now to your classical objections. I, for one, have noted this several times while discussing space colonization: in the solar system there are no native intelligent beings, therefore we would not steal anything from anyone, by colonizing territories on the Moon, Mars, Jupiter Moons and beyond. Of course, I am talking about the very essential part of colonialism: to take resources and bring them home. In our cases, to take asteroid and exo-planetary resources from the Moon, asteroids, Mars and beyond, and bring them on Earth surface – why would this be harmful?

Space colonialism would be both a dangerous and harmful undertaking for several reasons.

Is the Executive Director of the Innovative Genomics Institute (https://innovativegenomics.org/people/brad-ringeisen/), an organization founded by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Jennifer Doudna, on the University of California, Berkeley campus, whose mission is to bridge revolutionary gene editing tool development to affordable and accessible solutions in human health and climate.

Dr. Ringeisen is a physical chemist with a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Wake Forest University, a pioneer in the field of live cell printing, and an experienced administrator of scientific research and product development.

Continue reading “Dr. Brad Ringeisen, Ph.D. — Executive Director, Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI)” »

As we age, our bodies change and degenerate over time in a process called senescence. Stem cells, which have the unique ability to change into other cell types, also experience senescence, which presents an issue when trying to maintain cell cultures for therapeutic use. The biomolecules produced by these cell cultures are important for various medicines and treatments, but once the cells enter a senescent state they stop producing them, and worse, they instead produce biomolecules antagonistic to these therapeutics.

While there are methods to remove older cells in a culture, the capture rate is low. Instead of removing older cells, preventing the cells from entering senescence in the first place is a better strategy, according to Ryan Miller, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Hyunjoon Kong (M-CELS leader/EIRH/RBTE), a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

“We work with mesenchymal stem cells, that are derived from fat tissue, and produce biomolecules that are essential for therapeutics, so we want to keep the cell cultures healthy. In a clinical setting, the ideal way to prevent senescence would be to condition the environment that these stem cells are in, to control the oxidative state,” said Miller. “With antioxidants, you can pull them the cells out of this senescent state and make them behave like a healthy stem cell.”