Have to admit this nurse has Kahunas. Not sure I would have the guts to put my arm in that hole.
Shanghai’s first intelligent blood collection robot has started operations at Zhongshan Hospital.
The robot can take the place of a nurse to handle blood sample collection, the hospital said.
Continue reading “Blood collection by robot a Shanghai first” »
Circa 2012.
A bioengineer and geneticist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute have successfully stored 5.5 petabits of data — around 700 terabytes — in a single gram of DNA, smashing the previous DNA data density record by a thousand times.
The work, carried out by George Church and Sri Kosuri, basically treats DNA as just another digital storage device. Instead of binary data being encoded as magnetic regions on a hard drive platter, strands of DNA that store 96 bits are synthesized, with each of the bases (TGAC) representing a binary value (T and G = 1 A and C = 0).
Continue reading “Harvard cracks DNA storage, crams 700 terabytes of data into a single gram” »
It is quickly becoming a hot topic among machine learning experts and those concerned with AI safety.
One of us (Anders) has a background in computational neuroscience, and now works with groups such as the AI Objectives Institute, where we discuss how to avoid such problems with AI; the other (Thomas) studies history, and the various ways people have thought about both the future and the fate of civilization throughout the past. After striking up a conversation on the topic of wireheading, we both realized just how rich and interesting the history behind this topic is.
Cancer cell death is triggered within three days when X-rays are shone onto tumor tissue containing iodine-carrying nanoparticles. The iodine releases electrons that break the tumor’s DNA, leading to cell death. The findings, by scientists at Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) and colleagues in Japan and the US, were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“Exposing a metal to light leads to the release of electrons, a phenomenon called the photoelectric effect. An explanation of this phenomenon by Albert Einstein in 1905 heralded the birth of quantum physics,” says iCeMS molecular biologist Fuyuhiko Tamanoi, who led the study. “Our research provides evidence that suggests it is possible to reproduce this effect inside cancer cells.”
A long-standing problem with cancer radiation therapy is that it is not effective at the center of tumors where oxygen levels are low due to the lack of blood vessels penetrating deeply into the tissue. X-ray irradiation needs oxygen to generate DNA-damaging reactive oxygen when the rays hit molecules inside the cell.
This is for all who like coffee:
“To our knowledge, this is the largest study to systematically assess the cardiovascular effects of regular coffee consumption in a population without diagnosed heart disease,” said study author Dr. Judit Simon, of the Heart and Vascular Centre, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.
Our results suggest that regular coffee consumption is safe, as even high daily intake was not associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes and all-cause… See More.
Continue reading “Light-to-moderate coffee drinking associated with health benefits” »
The researchers, from the University of Science and Technology of China, hope that the technique – which uses liquid metal to mimic natural muscle movements — could also help to administer drugs inside the body and underwater drones.
Researchers created an artificial muscle using liquid metal that allows it to expand and contract and hope one day to use the technology to help humans.
A CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology that has shown promise in clearing HIV from mice is headed into human testing.
Excision BioTherapeutics will usher the CRISPR-based therapy EBT-101 into clinical trials after the FDA cleared an investigational new drug application, according to the company’s press release.
EBT-101 is under development as a potential virus-clearing treatment for patients with HIV—or, put in the company’s words, “a potential functional cure for chronic HIV.”
A dress worn this week by Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), which bore the message “tax the rich,” set off a wave of debate over how best to address wealth inequality, as Congress weighs a $3.5 trillion spending bill that includes tax hikes on corporations and high-earning individuals.
The debate coincides with the ongoing pandemic in which billionaires, many of whom are tech company founders, have added $1.8 trillion in wealth while consumers have come to depend increasingly on services like e-commerce and teleconference, according to a report released last month by the Institute for Policy Studies.
In a new interview, artificial intelligence expert Kai Fu-Lee — who worked as an executive at Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), and Microsoft (MSFT) — attributed the rise of wealth inequality in part to the tech boom in recent decades, predicting that the trend will worsen in coming years with the continued emergence of AI.
When combined with other materials, it makes surprisingly strong bricks.
Researchers made a surprisingly strong building material from a combination of human blood, sweat, tears, and dust. It could help construct buildings on Mars.
