Lifeboat Foundation

The Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, founded Neuralink, a company that is developing a brain-machine interface that could one day restore a variety of brain-related issues, including restoring eyesight and limb functionality, solve memory loss, even cure depression via a brain chip implant. Musk initially aims to focus on the medical aspect of the neural interface, like solving mobility issues with paralyzed individuals. Ultimately, his team aims to achieve ‘symbiosis’ with Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The type of UV light that can kill the new coronavirus is dangerous to use unless you’re properly trained for it.

In mammals, such as humans, DNA contains genetic instructions that are transcribed—or copied—into RNA. While DNA remains in the cell’s nucleus, RNA carries the copies of genetic information to the rest of the cell by way of various combinations of amino acids, which it delivers to ribosomes. The ribosomes link the amino acids together to form proteins that then carry out functions within the human body.

The viral RNA is sneaky: its features cause the protein synthesis machinery of our cells to mistake it for RNA produced by our own DNA.

COVID-19 enters the body through the nose, mouth, or eyes and attaches to our cells. Once the virus is inside our cells, it releases its RNA. Our hijacked cells serve as virus factories, reading the virus’s RNA and making long viral proteins to compromise the immune system. The virus assembles new copies of itself and spreads to more parts of the body and—by way of saliva, sweat, and other bodily fluids—to other humans.

Continue reading “COVID-19: What’s RNA research got to do with it?” »

face_with_colon_three circa 2019.

Invisible to the eye, the dots glow under infrared light from modified smartphones.

The Marine Corps has seen hundreds of new recruits at boot camp test positive for the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, but their symptoms have been so mild that it hasn’t disrupted training, a two-star general said this week.

Fewer than 2% of the Marine recruits who’ve reported to boot camp since the start of the pandemic have tested positive for COVID-19, Maj. Gen. Bill Mullen, head of Training and Education Command, said Tuesday.

Read Next: Here’s How the Navy’s New PRT Plank Event Will Be Scored.

The CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system is an extremely powerful tool, but there are still a few kinks to iron out. One of the main problems is off-target edits, which can have serious consequences. Now, researchers have found a particular mutation of the CRISPR enzyme that’s almost 100 times more precise than the most commonly used one.

CRISPR gene-editing is based on a bacterial defense system, in which the bugs use a particular enzyme to snip out a section of a pathogen’s DNA and store it for future reference. Next time that pathogen is encountered, the system will recognize it and be better equipped to fight it off.

Scientists managed to co-opt this system as a handy genetic engineering tool. CRISPR-Cas9 uses this mechanism to scour a target’s genome for a specific sequence of DNA – say one that could cause disease – then cut it out, sometimes replacing it with a more beneficial sequence.

Cells infected with the new coronavirus grow stringy, tentacle-like arms that allow the virus to invade other cells, according to a new study.

The novel coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, has now infected more than 12.2 million people worldwide and killed more than 555,500, according to the Johns Hopkins dashboard. To defeat the virus, researchers around the world are taking part in an unprecedented effort to find new drugs and repurpose old ones.

Very true.

And as in most applications of #MachineLearning, healthcare #AI systems are extremely data-hungry.

Fortunately, a slew of new sensors and data acquisition methods — including over 302 million wearables shipped in 2019 — are bursting onto the scene to meet the massive demand for medical data.

Continue reading “And as in most applications of #MachineLearning, healthcare #AI systems are extremely data-hungry” »

A Chinese embassy warned of a new and deadly pneumonia. But these cases are likely undiagnosed COVID-19 infections, according to WHO.