Lifeboat Foundation

A 22-year-old woman from the Netherlands who suffers from a chronic bone disorder — which has increased the thickness of her skull from 1.5cm to 5cm, causing reduced eyesight and severe headaches — has had the top section of her skull removed and replaced with a 3D printed implant.

The operation was performed by a team of neurosurgeons at the University Medical Centre Utrecht and the university claims this is this first instance of a successful 3D printed cranium that has not been rejected by the patient.

The title of this post is intentionally misleading. We frequently discuss the traits that lead to value here in the Lifeboat Blog. But today, I was asked a more nuanced question: “What things will hold their value?”

And there is a ulterior motive in being a columnist for Lifeboat. Analyzing the dynamics of durable value leads to some surprising conclusions about the money supply and what a society chooses to use as money. We’ll get to this at end of this post.

We know that value comes from supply and demand. There are no exceptions. But, we have not addressed the properties that make an asset hold value over the long haul. Let’s consider some examples…

Cars

Continue reading “Cars, Gold, Houses, Toys & Stock: What gives value?” »

I think this type of thinking could also create a force field to protect against collapse. o.o! circa 2016.

Unfortunately, humanity will never see it coming.

In many projects there comes a time when you’ll need to store some data off-line. It may be a requirement or just an improvement for your users, but you have to decide which of the available storage options you will use in your application. This article will help you choose the best one, for your app.

Introduction

HTML5 introduced a few off-line storage options. AppCache, localStorage, sessionStorage and IndexedDB. Every one of them is suitable for a specific use. For example, AppCache can boost your application or let some parts of it work without an Internet connection. Below, I will describe all of these options and show a few code snippets with example usage.

A startup makes your computer’s storage capacity seem bottomless by connecting it to the cloud.

A new study has discovered that the guts of elite athletes contain a particular type of bacteria that boosts exercise capacity. The bacteria are members of the genus Veillonella and are not present in the gut microbiomes of sedentary people.

The microbiome

The microbiome is an ever-changing ecosystem in the gut populated by a vast array of types of archaea, eukarya, viruses, and bacteria. Four microbial phyla, Firmicutes, Bacteroides, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteria, make up 98% of the intestinal microbiome.

To finance the containment structure, the EBRD managed a fund with contributions from 45 countries, the European Union, and the bank’s own resources. Ukraine contributed 100 million euros (about $112 million).

Deputy project manager Victor Zalizetskyi, who has been part of construction and repairs at the Chernobyl plant since 1987, said he was “filled with pride” that he got to work on a job “that has such a big importance for all humankind.”

However, Zalizetskyi expressed concern in an interview last week that war-torn Ukraine might struggle to cover the maintenance costs for the reactor’s new enclosure. He noted that costly and complicated work such as dismantling unstable sections of the power plant still needs to be done.

Atomic interactions in everyday solids and liquids are so complex that some of these materials’ properties continue to elude physicists’ understanding. Solving the problems mathematically is beyond the capabilities of modern computers, so scientists at Princeton University have turned to an unusual branch of geometry instead.

Researchers led by Andrew Houck, a professor of electrical engineering, have built an electronic array on a microchip that simulates particle interactions in a hyperbolic plane, a geometric surface in which space curves away from itself at every point. A hyperbolic plane is difficult to envision—the artist M.C. Escher used hyperbolic geometry in many of his mind-bending pieces—but is perfect for answering questions about particle interactions and other challenging mathematical questions.

The research team used superconducting circuits to create a lattice that functions as a hyperbolic space. When the researchers introduce photons into the lattice, they can answer a wide range of difficult questions by observing the photons’ interactions in simulated hyperbolic space.

Those who had adhered to statin treatment vs those who had not were found to have 34% lower all-cause mortality rates. Fewer atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease events were reported in relation to adherence to statins. Irrespective of age and sex, reduced mortality and cardiovascular morbidity may be seen in older adults in relation to adherence to statins.

Internal Medicine Article: Statin use over 65 years of age and all-cause mortality: A 10-year follow-up of 19,518 people.