Lifeboat Foundation

STUTTGART, Germany — NATO and its member nations have formally agreed upon how the alliance should target and coordinate investments in emerging and disruptive technology, or EDT, with plans to release artificial intelligence and data strategies by the summer of 2021.

In recent years the alliance has publicly declared its need to focus on so-called EDTs, and identified seven science and technology areas that are of direct interest. Now, the NATO enterprise and representatives of its 30 member states have endorsed a strategy that shows how the alliance can both foster these technologies — through stronger relationships with innovation hubs and specific funding mechanisms — and protect EDT investments from outside influence and export issues.

NATO will eventually develop individual strategies for each of the seven science and technology areas — artificial intelligence, data and computing, autonomy, quantum-enabled technologies, biotechnology, hypersonic technology, and space. But for the near future, the priority is AI and data, said David van Weel, NATO’s assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges.

Sherpa, a startup from Bilbao, Spain that was an early mover in building a voice-based digital assistant and predictive search for Spanish-speaking audiences, has raised some more funding to double down on a newer focus for the startup: building out privacy-first AI services for enterprise customers.

The company has closed $8.5 million, funding that Xabi Uribe-Etxebarria, Sherpa’s founder and CEO, said it will be using to continue building out a privacy-focused machine learning platform based on a federated learning model alongside its existing conversational AI and search services. Early users of the service have included the Spanish public health services, which were using the platform to analyse information about COVID-19 cases to predict demand and capacity in emergency rooms around the country.

Continue reading “Sherpa raises $8.5M to expand from conversational AI to B2B privacy-first federated learning services” »

Might interest some, mentions telomeres.

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Aging is a common factor in many diseases. So, what if it were possible to treat them by acting on the causes of aging or, more specifically, by acting on the shortening of telomeres, the structures that protect chromosomes? This strategy is being pursued by the Telomeres and Telomerase Group of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), which has already succeeded in curing pulmonary fibrosis and infarctions in mice by lengthening telomeres. Now they take a first step towards doing the same with renal fibrosis by demonstrating that short telomeres are at the origin of this disease, which is also associated with aging.

Continue reading “Researchers investigate treatment of renal fibrosis by showing that it is caused by telomere shortening” »

But such drugs could face a daunting challenge, since aging is not considered a disease. This means the Food and Drug Administration is unlikely to approve a drug for its anti-aging effects, or as a new use for a licensed drug. Also, pharmaceutical companies probably wouldn’t be inclined to develop drugs for that purpose only.

Drugs that can postpone or prevent the onset of debilitating diseases could enhance longevity and provide enormous societal benefits, geroscientists say.

Some experts have chimed in that tempering social distancing recommendations could be an important step to getting children back into classrooms. Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, suggested in a tweet that the C.D.C. guidance may be changing, and that is “good. Because 6 ft doesn’t protect teachers. But it does keep kids out of school.”

“Want to open schools safely? Masks. Ventilation. Testing. Vaccinating teachers/staff. That’s the list,” Dr. Jha tweeted.

The new study, published March 10, compared the incidence rates of coronavirus cases among students and staff in Massachusetts school districts that required at least six feet of separation with those that required only three feet of distance, and found no statistically significant differences in infection rates among staff members or students.

A new method called tensor holography could enable the creation of holograms for virtual reality, 3D printing, medical imaging, and more — and it can run on a smartphone.

Despite years of hype, virtual reality headsets have yet to topple TV or computer screens as the go-to devices for video viewing. One reason: VR can make users feel sick. Nausea and eye strain can result because VR creates an illusion of 3D viewing although the user is in fact staring at a fixed-distance 2D display. The solution for better 3D visualization could lie in a 60-year-old technology remade for the digital world: holograms.

Holograms deliver an exceptional representation of 3D world around us. Plus, they’re beautiful. (Go ahead — check out the holographic dove on your Visa card.) Holograms offer a shifting perspective based on the viewer’s position, and they allow the eye to adjust focal depth to alternately focus on foreground and background.

But the most immediate question is what these results mean for Ebola survivors, who face a lot of hardship already. Many have not only lost friends and family to the virus, but also struggle with long-term aftereffects, such as muscle pains and eye problems. In a study published in February, Delaporte found that about half of more than 800 Ebola survivors in Guinea still reported symptoms 2 years after their illness, and one-quarter after 4 years.

On top of this, survivors have faced intense stigmatization. Many conspiracy theories swirled in the aftermath of the epidemic, including the claim that survivors had sold family members to international organizations to save themselves, says Frederic Le Marcis, a social anthropologist at the École Normale Supérieure of Lyon and the French Research Institute for Development, who is working in Guinea. One man, he says, was the only one to survive out of 11 family members and when he came back, no one wanted to work with him. “He was seen as someone untrustworthy.” News that a survivor likely touched off the current outbreak could cause further problems for survivors, Le Marcis says: “Will they be highlighted as a source of danger? Will they be chased out of their own families and communities?”

Alpha Keita, a virologist who led the sequencing work at CERFIG, worries about stigmatization and even violence against survivors have occupied him since he first got the surprising results a week ago. One important message to the public should be that some people infected with Ebola show few symptoms, meaning people may be survivors without knowing it. “So don’t stigmatize Ebola survivors—you don’t know that you are not a survivor yourself,” Keita says.

Targeted approach could lead to an opioid-free way of treating chronic pain.

Here’s my latest video!

Papers referenced in the video:

Continue reading “Carotenoids Are Associated With A Younger Epigenetic Age And Reduced All-Cause Mortality Risk” »