Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine report in a new study that they found a way to help rats recover neurons in the brain’s center of learning and memory. They accomplished the feat by blocking a molecule that controls how efficiently genetic instructions are used to build proteins.

If the approach described in the study can be applied to humans, it may one day help patients who’ve suffered a stroke, cardiac arrest or major blood loss and are thus at higher risk of memory loss.

In the study, to be published online Aug. 19 in eNeuro, researchers induced extremely low blood pressure—as would happen when the heart stops beating—in rats. These rats lost neurons in a specific region of the hippocampus critical to learning and memory, but the researchers improved the animals’ recovery of the cells by injecting a molecule that blocks a microRNA: a short molecule that tweaks gene activation by preventing the conversion of genetic blueprints into proteins. Interestingly, the scientists found that a microRNA blockade potentially causes astrocytes—cells that support neurons and make up 50% of the cells in the brain—to turn into neurons.

Each Cyclops had a single eye because, legend has it, the mythical giants traded the other one with the god Hades in return for the ability to see into the future. But Hades tricked them: the only vision the Cyclopes were shown was the day they would die. They carried this knowledge through their lives as a burden—the unending torture of being forewarned and yet having no ability to do anything about it.

Since ancient times, aging has been viewed as simply inevitable, unstoppable, nature’s way. “Natural causes” have long been blamed for deaths among the old, even if they died of a recognized pathological condition. The medical writer Galen argued back in the second century AD that aging is a natural process.

His view, the acceptance that one can die simply of old age, has dominated ever since. We think of aging as the accumulation of all the other conditions that get more common as we get older—cancer, dementia, physical frailty. All that tells us, though, is that we’re going to sicken and die; it doesn’t give us a way to change it. We don’t have much more control over our destiny than a Cyclops.

The question of whether the Animus still belongs in the Assassin’s Creed series comes up with the release of each new game, but Assassin’s Creed Odyssey makes me even more sure that Ubisoft should take a simple, but obvious, step: Remove the Animus from future games completely and pretend it never existed.

People play Assassin’s Creed games to travel through time and kill a bunch of people; the framing device that explains how and why characters in our own time are themselves taking that journey has never felt so archaic and vestigial.

Continue reading “It’s time to take the Animus out of Assassin’s Creed” »

After breaking all the records related to training computer vision models, NVIDIA now claims that it’s AI platform is able to train a natural language neural network model based on one of the largest datasets in a record time. It also claims that the inference time is just 2 milliseconds which translates to an extremely fast response from the model participating in a conversation with a user.

After computer vision, natural language processing is one of the top applications of AI. From Siri to Alexa to Cortana to Google Assistant, all conversational user experiences are powered by AI.

The advancements in AI research is putting the power of language understanding and conversational interface into the hands of developers. Data scientists and developers can now build custom AI models that work exactly like Alexa and Siri but for a specialized and highly customized industry use case from the healthcare or legal vertical. This enables doctors and lawyers to interact with expert agents that can understand the terminology and the context of the conversation. This new user experience is going to be a part of future line of business applications.

Study finds that Alzheimer’s damage allows toxins to enter the brain, further harming neurons.

Aren Jay shared this cogent article to my Timeline… It is not new even Hippocrates was able to determine that the gut causes and or assists in all diseases. But the 19th and 20th centuries researchers began saying that microbes are good for mankind which sent science reeling through generations until this day… Respect r.p.berry & AEWR wherein we have developed a formula and Algorithm that deals with this very serious problem completely. A very expensive cure but one that will take Woman-Man past the Escape Velocity so many have written about…

Today, we’re offering another discussion from Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019, our highly successful two-day conference that featured talks from leading researchers and investors, bringing them together to discuss the future of aging and rejuvenation biotechnology.

Today, we’re offering another talk from Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019, our highly successful two-day conference that featured talks from leading researchers and investors, bringing them together to discuss the future of aging and rejuvenation biotechnology.

Continue reading “Ronald Kohanski at Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019” »

A Luxembourg company is working to develop 3D printers which will create human skin on board a spaceship while out in space.

Space company, Blue Horizon, based in Betzdorf, is working with German company OHB SE – of which it is subsidiary –and the Technical University of Dresden to develop the printers.

Harvard University researchers have developed a new powered exosuit that can make you feel as much as a dozen pounds lighter when walking or running. Scientific American reports that the 11-pound system, which is built around a pair of flexible shorts and a motor worn on the lower back, could benefit anyone who has to cover large distances by foot, including recreational hikers, military personnel, and rescue workers.

According to the researchers, who have published their findings in the journal Science, this system differs from previous exosuits because it’s able to make it easier to both walk and run. The challenge, as shown by a video accompanying the research, is that your legs work very differently depending on whether you’re walking or running. When walking, the team says your center of mass moves like an “inverted pendulum,” while running causes it to move like a “spring-mass system.” The system needs to be able to accommodate both of them, and sense when the wearer’s gait changes.