Lifeboat Foundation

A video worth watching. An amazingly detailed deep dive into Sam Altman’s interviews and a high-level look at AI LLMs.

Missed by much of the media, Sam Altman (and co) have revealed at least 16 surprising things over his World Tour. From AI’s designing AIs to ‘unstoppable opensource’, the ‘customisation’ leak (with a new 16k ChatGPT and ‘steerable GPT 4), AI and religion, and possible regrets over having ‘pushed the button’.

Continue reading “Sam Altman’s World Tour, in 16 Moments” »

A study in Australia found that men with anxiety disorders tended to have reduced bone mineral density in their lumbar spine and femoral neck bones. This association was found even when controlling for sociodemographic, biometric and lifestyle factors, other diseases, and medication use, but disappeared when participants with a history of mood disorders were excluded from the sample. The study was published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica.

Bone mineral density refers to the quantity of minerals, primarily calcium and phosphorus, present in a segment of bone. It serves as an indicator of bone strength and density.

Studies have shown that certain psychiatric disorders might negatively impact bone health. These include unipolar depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa. A meta-analytic review of 21 studies conducted in 2016 reported a very clear link between depression and reduced bone mineral density in several regions.

Researchers from the University of California, Davis, and an international team of scientists have used the genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas to create disease-resistant rice plants, according to a new study published in the journal Nature June 14.

Small-scale field trials in China showed that the newly-created rice variety, developed through genome editing of a recently discovered gene, exhibited both high yields and resistance to the fungus that causes a serious disease called rice blast. Rice is an essential crop that feeds half of the world’s population.

Guotian Li, a co-lead author of the study, initially discovered a mutant known as a lesion mimic mutant while working as a postdoctoral scholar in Pamela Ronald’s lab at UC Davis. Ronald is co-lead author and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and the Genome Center.

Scientists from a collection of Chinese research institutions collaborated on a study of organ regeneration in mammals, finding deer antler blastema progenitor cells are a possible source of conserved regeneration cells in higher vertebrates. Published in the journal Science, the researchers suggest the findings have applications in clinical bone repair. With the activation of key characteristic genes, it could potentially be used in regenerative medicine for skeletal, long bone or limb regeneration.

Limb and organ regeneration is a long coveted technology in medical science. Humans have some limited regenerative abilities, mostly in our livers. If a portion of the liver is removed, the remaining liver will begin to grow until it reaches its original functional size. Lungs, kidneys, and pancreas can do this also, though not as thoroughly or efficiently.

Continue reading “Regenerating bone with deer antler stem cells” »

On May 8, Shenzhen citizens found a significant reduction in their social security pension balances. Some people’s accounts even shrunk a third, the most loss reached 120,000 RMB, around 17,000 USD. A wave of public outcry ensued, with aggrieved parties accusing the government of arbitrarily “pooling” their hard-earned social security funds. The controversy grew to such an extent that the balance inquiry function of the Shenzhen social security system was promptly suspended.

Following in the footsteps of Shanghai, Shenzhen has become the second major city to execute a social security coordination. Between midnight on April 24th, 2023, and 9 am on May 8th, the Shenzhen Social Insurance Information System was suspended to integrate into Guangdong Province’s system, thereby linking to the National Pension Insurance Coordinated Information System for Enterprise Employees. Upon the system’s restoration, however, a considerable number of Shenzhen residents were shocked to find that their social security account balances suddenly decreased, with some accounts seeing a drastic 30–40% plunge. The whereabouts of these diverted funds remains a mystery.

Continue reading “10M Shenzhen People Social Security Pensions Disappeared; Medical Insurance Owes Hospitals 350B” »

Population aging is the top global demographic trend; the pandemic can teach us how to prepare for it.

Total world population passed the 8 billion milestone on November 15, 2022. The progression from 7 to 8 billion people took a mere 12 years, conjuring up long-standing fears associated with rapid population growth, including food shortages, rampant unemployment, the depletion of natural resources, and unchecked environmental degradation.

But the most formidable demographic challenge facing the world is no longer rapid population growth, but population aging. Thoughtful preparedness—combining behavioral changes, investment in human capital and infrastructure, policy and institutional reforms, and technological innovations—can enable countries to meet the challenge and take advantage of the opportunities presented by demographic change.

Healthy cells work hard to maintain the integrity of our DNA, but occasionally, a chromosome can get separated from the others and break apart during cell division. The tiny fragments of DNA then get reassembled in random order in the new cell, sometimes producing cancerous gene mutations.

This chromosomal shattering and rearranging is called “chromothripsis” and occurs in the majority of human cancers, especially cancers of the bones, brain and fatty tissue. Chromothripsis was first described just over a decade ago, but scientists did not understand how the floating pieces of DNA were able to be put back together.

In a study published in Nature, researchers at University of California San Diego have answered this question, discovering that the shattered DNA fragments are actually tethered together. This allows them to travel as one during cell division and be re-encapsulated by one of the new daughter cells, where they are reassembled in a different order.

Colon cancer screening | Colonoscopy.

0:00 Introduction.
0:24 What is colon cancer.
0:56 Risk factors of colon cancer.
1:47 Signs and symptoms of colon cancer.
4:36 Late stage colon cancer Signs and symptoms.
5:03 How to prevent colorectal cancer.

Continue reading “Colon Cancer Symptoms | Colorectal Cancer | 10 warning signs of Colon Cancer | Colon Cancer” »

In a collaboration with Groningen University, Professor Jørgen Kjems and his research group at Aarhus University have achieved a remarkable breakthrough in developing tiny nano-sized pores that can contribute to better possibilities for, among other things, detecting diseases at an earlier stage.

Their work, recently published in the journal ACS Nano, shows a new innovative method for finding specific proteins in complex biological fluids, such as blood, without having to label the proteins chemically. The research is an important milestone in nanopore technology, and could revolutionize medical diagnostics.

Nanopores are tiny channels formed in materials, that can be used as sensors. The researchers, led by Jørgen Kjems and Giovanni Maglia (Groningen Univ.), have taken this a step further by developing a special type of nanopore called ClyA with scanner molecules, called nanobodies, attached to it.