Lifeboat Foundation

Tweaking an immune protein called interleukin-18 can overcome tumors that lure it into binding with a decoy receptor protein and render it harmless to cancer cells, new research in mice shows. In conjunction with the paper, published Wednesday in Nature, a company founded by senior author Aaron Ring announced $25 million in initial financing to create and commercialize a drug based on the discovery.

The approach adds another weapon to an immunotherapy arsenal that activates immune responses hijacked by cancer. Checkpoint inhibitors, for example, take the brakes off immune cells that should battle invaders. IL-18 is a cytokine that normally activates T cells and natural killer cells, two immune forces that fight infection, but it’s disarmed by the decoy wielded by tumors.

Machine learning is part of every tech company’s pitch to consumers, but what does it mean for Apple? At WWWDC 2020, the company showed that it’s all about delivering small conveniences through iOS, the Apple Watch, HomeKit, and more.

The ambitious rocket, designed to send the first humans to Mars and establish a city, is taking shape.

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite continues to improve with a recent video showing a Model 3 safely shifting away from a makeshift lane of construction cones while using Navigate on Autopilot.

Tesla owner-enthusiast Jeremy Greenlee was traveling through a highway construction zone in his Model 3. The zone contained a makeshift lane to the vehicle’s left that was made up of construction cones.

In an attempt to avoid the possibility of any collision with the cones from taking place, the vehicle utilized the driver-assist system and automatically shifted one lane to the right. This maneuver successfully removed any risk of coming into contact with the dense construction cones that were to the left of the car, which could have caused hundreds of dollars in cosmetic damage to the vehicle.

Mankind has no choice but to colonise Mars if human beings are to have a future, physicist and science populariser Brian Cox has said. Currently a professor at Manchester University in the UK, Cox has found global fame as a presenter of documentaries, taking millions of viewers on virtual journeys through the galaxy.

INews.co.uk reports:

Continue reading “Professor Brian Cox says humans will soon be living on Mars” »

This dude was A+OK in my book. Yeah you knew Jobs, yeah you knew Minsky, but did you ever know even the name of the guy who convinced me to become a programmer? Rest In Eternal Peace. #RIP

Before going to space, should we solve the problems here, on Earth?

Whenever we speak about human presence in space to a general audience, and quite often when we talk with specialists as well, we have to hear the Great Objection:” Before going to space, we have to solve our problems here, on the Earth”.

As soon as we reason about it we understand that the Objection is in fact a general dialectic scheme, which consists in changing the topic, pretending that the alternative is more important and urgent and so avoiding to reply to what the speaker has said. In short, it is a sort of quite-another-ism: “The problem is quite another, the cause is quite another…”.

Rich experiences—from play to the arts and relationships—fundamentally shape a young child’s development.

By Rishi Sriram

Up to four spacewalks are planned to finish a space station power upgrade, clearing decks for early Crew Dragon return in early August.