Lifeboat Foundation

The decline of birth rate is causing a switch in society between younger workforce and the elderly. The Silver Tsunami is a real issue and one that rejuvenation biotechnology can potentially solve.

Data show productive population age group becoming smaller than the majority, and inadequate government preparation for slew of effects.

Residents of Sinpyeong township in Uiseong County, North Gyeongsang Province, were getting ready for their autumn harvest on Oct. 12. Cutting rice plants was an urgent task, they said — and all of the work is done by local village women in their seventies and older.

Summary: Brain-to-text system could help people with speech difficulties to communicate, researchers report.

Source: Frontiers.

Recent research shows brain-to-text device capable of decoding speech from brain signals.

Continue reading “Can A Brain Computer Interface Convert Your Thoughts to Text?” »

Imagine if your electronic wearable device, like your Fitbit, adhered to you like a sticker or temporary tattoo and could read your pulse or measure hand gestures. As electronics are becoming thinner, lighter, and more power efficient, they can be populated on stickers and temporary tattoos to create soft wearables that adhere to the skin. And the most exciting news is that one day you may be able to print these wearable electronics from a home printer.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Mechanical Engineering Professor Carmel Majidi, Ph.D. student Eric Markvicka, and previous postdoctoral fellow Michael Bartlett (now a professor at Iowa State University) have created a method to print skin-mountable electronics in a quick and cost-effective way.

“One of the remaining challenges in skin-mounted electronics is to interface soft circuits with the rigid microchips and electronics hardware required for sensing, digital processing, and power,” said Majidi. “We address this with a breakthrough digital fabrication technique that enables efficient creation of wireless electronics on a soft, water-resistant, medical-grade adhesive.”

Continue reading “Breakthrough soft electronics fabrication method is a first step to DIY smart tattoos” »

What does the future hold for computing? Experts at the Networked Quantum Information Technologies Hub (NQIT), based at Oxford University, believe our next great technological leap lies in the development of quantum computing.

Quantum computers could solve problems it takes a conventional computer longer than the lifetime of the universe to solve. This could bring new possibilities, such as advanced drug development, superior military intelligence, greater opportunities for space exploration and enhanced encryption security.

Continue reading “The exciting new age of quantum computing” »

A titanium implant (blue) without a nanofiber coating in the femur of a mouse. Bacteria are shown in red and responding immune cells in yellow. Courtesy of Lloyd Miller/Johns Hopkins Medicine

In a proof-of-concept study with mice, scientists at The Johns Hopkins University show that a novel coating they made with antibiotic-releasing nanofibers has the potential to better prevent at least some serious bacterial infections related to total joint replacement surgery. A report on the study, published online the week of Oct. 24 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted on the rodents’ knee joints, but, the researchers say, the technology would have “broad applicability” in the use of orthopedic prostheses, such as hip and knee total joint replacements, as well pacemakers, stents and other implantable medical devices. In contrast to other coatings in development, the researchers report the new material can release multiple antibiotics in a strategically timed way for an optimal effect.

“We can potentially coat any metallic implant that we put into patients, from prosthetic joints, rods, screws and plates to pacemakers, implantable defibrillators and dental hardware,” says co-senior study author Lloyd S. Miller, MD, PhD, an associate professor of dermatology and orthopedic surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Continue reading “Nanofiber Coating Prevents Infections of Prosthetic Joints” »

Continue reading “10 companies that want to make chemotherapy easier for patients — Bioquark Inc.” »

Today I’m announcing a $100M commitment to Kernel in an effort to enhance human intelligence and reimagine our future. Unlocking our brain is the most significant and consequential opportunity in history — and it’s time sensitive.

We’re starting to identify the mechanisms underlying neural code and make them programmable. Our biology and genetics have become increasingly programmable; our neural code is next in line. Programming our neural code will enable us to author ourselves and our existence in ways that were previously unimaginable.

I started Kernel in 2016 (read more at the Washington Post) to build the world’s first neural prosthetic for human intelligence enhancement. The investment I’m making in Kernel today will expedite the development of this prosthetic and similarly transformative neurotechnologies.

Continue reading “Kernel’s Quest to Enhance Human Intelligence” »

About eight years ago, as the controversy about research involving human embryonic stem cells was winding down and Barack Obama was about to take office, I had one of my regular lunches with a respected conservative policy expert. We had come to be friends who respectfully disagreed about embryonic stem cell research and other bioethics issues.

That day I told him that there were still bigger issues brewing that involved human reproductive materials. For example, the opponents of research that involved destroying human embryos had celebrated a new technology developed in Japan that turned regular adult cells into something resembling potent embryonic cells. What many failed to notice is that that same technology could be used to turn adult cells into human egg cells. Thus in theory two men could produce a baby with the second man’s sperm and without a woman to provide an egg.

“Oh,” my friend said when I pointed this out to him, “I would definitely support federal legislation to prevent that.” I was struck at his vehemence, but not surprised.

Continue reading “The Coming Of The Motherless Child” »

Crystals are defined by their repeating, symmetrical patterns and long-range order. Unlike amorphous materials, in which atoms are randomly packed together, the atoms in a crystal are arranged in a predictable way. Quasicrystals are an exotic exception to this rule. First discovered in 1982, their atoms pack together in an orderly fashion, but in a mosaic-like pattern that doesn’t repeat and can’t be predicted from a small sample.

Being able to map out the position of individual atoms within a quasicrystal is a prerequisite for achieving a complete understanding of their structure and aids in designing them for specific applications, but conventional microscopy techniques don’t have the resolution to accomplish such a task.

In an effort to address this challenge, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan have engineered a quasicrystal that is formed by self-assembling nanoparticles, which are an order of magnitude larger than the atoms that comprise traditional quasicrystals. Their larger size enabled the team to use a suite of microscopy and simulation techniques to deduce, for the first time, the full three-dimensional configuration of a spontaneously formed quasicrystal.