Lifeboat Foundation

Isaac Newton’s groundbreaking scientific productivity while isolated from the spread of bubonic plague is legendary. University of California San Diego physicists can now claim a stake in the annals of pandemic-driven science.

A team of UC San Diego researchers and colleagues at Purdue University have now simulated the foundation of new types of artificial intelligence computing devices that mimic brain functions, an achievement that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. By combining new supercomputing materials with specialized oxides, the researchers successfully demonstrated the backbone of networks of circuits and devices that mirror the connectivity of neurons and synapses in biologically based neural networks.

The simulations are described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Wageningen is one of a clutch of research institutions globally that hold patents on CRISPR, a technique that enables precise changes to be made to genomes, at specific locations. Other institutions — including the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the University of California, Berkeley, which have some of the largest portfolios of patents on the subject — also provide CRISPR tools and some intellectual property (IP) for free for non-profit use. But universities could do better to facilitate access to CRISPR technologies for research.

Universities hold the majority of CRISPR patents. They are in a strong position to ensure that the technology is widely shared for education and research.

The NFTs will be auctioned off to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

SpaceX’s Inspiration4 spaceflight will launch a Kings of Leon song and 50 other digital art NFTs to orbit next week.

A cancer treatment that uses messenger RNA to launch an immune attack on cancer cells can completely shrink tumours in mice and is now being tested in people.

Messenger RNAs – or mRNAs – are molecules that instruct cells to make proteins. They have risen to fame with the roll out of mRNA covid-19 vaccines.

Exploring The Gut Microbiota-Brain Axis In Health, Disease, and Aging — Dr. Marina Ezcurra, Ph.D. University of Kent.

Dr. Marina Ezcurra (https://marinaezcurralab.com/) is a Lecturer in the Biology of Aging, and NeuroBiology, at the School of BioSciences, at the University of Kent, UK (https://www.kent.ac.uk/biosciences/people/2081/ezcurra-marina).

Continue reading “Dr. Marina Ezcurra, Ph.D. — Exploring The Gut Microbiota-Brain Axis In Health, Disease, and Aging” »

Mentions telomeres.

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People with rare disorders that cause shortened telomeres—protective caps that sit at the end of chromosomes—may be more likely to have blood cancers such as leukemia or myelodyplastic syndrome. Now, Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists have discovered several “self-correcting” genetic mutations in bone marrow that may protect such patients from these cancers.

Continue reading “Gene self-correction in ‘chromosome caps’ can beat mutations, help prevent blood cancers” »

Summary: Researchers have identified 2,000 genes in humans linked to longevity. The genes are associated with biological mechanisms that drive the prolongation of life in mammals, including DNA repair, coagulation, and immune response.

Source: UPF Barcelona.

What determines the life expectancy of each species? This is a fundamental and highly complex question that has intrigued the field of research throughout history. From the evolutionary point of view, the major cause of these differences between species lies in their ecological adaptations. For example, life expectancy is longer in species adapted to living in trees, underground, or with large body mass, since all these adaptations reduce mortality by predation.

I recently set sail on Sunwater Marine’s Ramblin’ Rose, a 40-foot sailing yacht powered by solar panels and electric propulsion.

While we at Electrek often tend to focus on electric vehicles taking over roads, it’s important to remember that our inevitable abandonment of fossil fuels stems to all modes of transportation, whether it’s by land, air, or even the sea. I recently had the opportunity to set sail on Sunwater Marine’s Ramblin’ Rose, a 40-foot sailing yacht powered by solar panels and electric propulsion. It’s one of the only vessels of its kind on the West Coast.

Continue reading “I drove a rare solar-electric yacht to test clean-sea propulsion, here’s how it went” »

A new interpretation of quantum mechanics sees agents as playing an active role in the creation of reality. Blake Stacey outlines the case for QBism and its radical potential.

The pandemic shut down our university when I was in the middle of giving a lecture. We had been anticipating the possibility for a few days, but it was still impeccable timing. I finished my spiel, out came the phones, and suddenly we weren’t going to see each other post-spring break after all. For the rest of the term, I did what so many teachers found themselves doing: gamely trying to soldier on. I scrounged and borrowed a whiteboard, easel and webcam, set myself up in the nicest light the house had to offer, and did my best to convey graduate-level physics to an audience of tiny rectangles. And like so many other teachers, I learned there’s nothing like a radical change of circumstances for driving one to re-evaluate what the essential ideas of a subject must be.