Lifeboat Foundation

A case of wine was put on the line.

This is according to a report by Science Alert published on Tuesday.

A 25-year-old wager on the source of consciousness between German-American computational neuroscientist Christof Koch and Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers has come to a close with the first one admitting defeat.

Continue reading “A brain scientist and a philosopher have resolved a 25-year-old wager on consciousness” »

Australian startup Synchron, backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, looks set to beat Elon Musk’s Neuralink to market with a safe, reliable brain-computer interface that any hospital can quickly install – without cutting a hole in your skull.

Here we address the important question of cross-talk between the mitochondria and cytosol. We show that the inner mitochondrial protein, MiNT, interacts with a protein on the outer mitochondrial membrane (mNT). This interaction occurs within the major outer membrane protein VDAC1. Inside the inner space of VDAC1, MiNT transfers its [2Fe-2S] clusters to mNT, which was shown to be a [2Fe-2S] cluster donor protein that donates its cluster(s) to apo-acceptor proteins residing in the cytosol. Hence, we suggest a pathway for transferring [2Fe-2S] clusters from inside the mitochondria to the cytosol.

Mitochondrial inner NEET (MiNT) and the outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM) mitoNEET (mNT) proteins belong to the NEET protein family. This family plays a key role in mitochondrial labile iron and reactive oxygen species (ROS) homeostasis. NEET proteins contain labile [2Fe-2S] clusters which can be transferred to apo-acceptor proteins. In eukaryotes, the biogenesis of [2Fe-2S] clusters occurs within the mitochondria by the iron–sulfur cluster (ISC) system; the clusters are then transferred to [2Fe-2S] proteins within the mitochondria or exported to cytosolic proteins and the cytosolic iron–sulfur cluster assembly (CIA) system. The last step of export of the [2Fe-2S] is not yet fully characterized. Here we show that MiNT interacts with voltage-dependent anion channel 1 (VDAC1), a major OMM protein that connects the intermembrane space with the cytosol and participates in regulating the levels of different ions including mitochondrial labile iron (mLI). We further show that VDAC1 is mediating the interaction between MiNT and mNT, in which MiNT transfers its [2Fe-2S] clusters from inside the mitochondria to mNT that is facing the cytosol. This MiNT–VDAC1–mNT interaction is shown both experimentally and by computational calculations. Additionally, we show that modifying MiNT expression in breast cancer cells affects the dynamics of mitochondrial structure and morphology, mitochondrial function, and breast cancer tumor growth. Our findings reveal a pathway for the transfer of [2Fe-2S] clusters, which are assembled inside the mitochondria, to the cytosol.

The idea that our mind could live on in another form after our physical body dies has been a recurring theme in science fiction since the 1950s. Recent television series such as Black Mirror and Upload, as well as some games, demonstrate our continued fascination with this idea. The concept is known as mind uploading.

Recent developments in science and technology are taking us closer to a time when mind uploading could graduate from science fiction to reality.

In 2016, BBC Horizon screened a programme called The Immortalist, in which a
Russian millionaire unveiled his plans to work with neuroscientists, robot builders and other experts to create technology that would allow us to upload our minds to a computer in order to live forever.

Continue reading “How uploading our minds to a computer might become possible” »

A new Microsoft internal presentation reveals the company’s long-term goal for Windows.

Microsoft has been increasingly moving Windows to the cloud on the commercial side with Windows 365, but the software giant also wants to do the same for consumers. In an internal “state of the business” Microsoft presentation from June 2022, Microsoft discuses building on “Windows 365 to enable a full Windows operating system streamed from the cloud to any device.”

The presentation has been revealed as part of the ongoing FTC v. Microsoft hearing, as it includes Microsoft’s overall gaming strategy and how that relates to other parts of the company’s businesses. Moving “Windows 11 increasingly to the cloud”… More.

Continue reading “Microsoft wants to move Windows fully to the cloud” »

Year 2022 😗😁

Foraging for fungi may not only mean mushrooms are on the menu. New research has shown that mushroom skins could provide a biodegradable alternative to some plastics used in batteries and computer chips, making them easier to recycle.

Researchers from the Johannes Kepler University in Austria were working on flexible and stretchable electronics, with a focus on sustainable materials to replace non-degradable materials, when they made their discovery, published in the journal Science Advances Friday.

Continue reading “Scientists have used mushrooms to make biodegradable computer chips” »

Engineers have been trying to devise increasingly efficient and low-cost methods to fabricate electronic components and devices on a large-scale. Recently, some studies explored the possibilities of creating electronics using solution processing techniques, which involve the deposition of materials with electrical properties from a solution onto a surface.

Researchers at Yonsei University and Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea recently fabricated wafer-scale transistor arrays based on the inorganic compound molybdenum-disulfide using a solution processing method. Their paper, published in Nature Electronics, could contribute to enabling the large-scale and low-cost fabrication of next-generation electronics.

“We have been working on solution-processed 2D nanomaterials for scalable electronic applications for years, yet satisfying both electronic performance and scalability based on solution-based approaches has been very challenging until now,” Joonhoon Kang and Jeong Ho Cho, co-authors of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a novel computer memory design that could boost performance using less energy.

Cambridge scientists have developed a new prototype for computer memory that could make for faster chips that could hold up to 100 times more data. The system is made up of barium bridges between films of a disordered material.

As powerful as current computer technology can be, there are a few hard limits to it. Data is encoded into just two states – one or zero. And this data is stored and processed in different parts of a computer system, so it needs to be shuttled back and forth, which consumes energy and time.

But an emerging form of computer memory, known as resistive switching memory, is designed to be far more efficient. Rather than flipping a bit of information into one of two possible states, this new kind of memory can create a continuous range of states. This is done by applying an electrical current to certain types of materials, which causes their electrical resistance to become either stronger or weaker. A broad spectrum of these slight differences in electrical resistance creates a series of possible states to store data.