Lifeboat Foundation

The UK’s supreme court has ruled that AI cannot be named as an inventor and secure patent rights. It follows earlier decisions from lower courts that reached the same conclusions.

On Wednesday, US computer scientist Stephen Thaler lost his attempt to register patents for inventions he says were created by his AI system, DABUS.

Thaler said DABUS autonomously created a light beacon and a container for food and drink, and entitled to rights over the inventions.

2023 was the year that CRISPR gene-editing sliced its way out of the lab and into the public consciousness—and American medical system. The Food and Drug Administration recently approved the first gene-editing CRISPR therapy, Casgevy (or exa-cel), a treatment from CRISPR Therapeutics and partner Vertex for patients with sickle cell disease. This comes on the heels of a similar green light by U.K. regulators in a historic moment for a gene-editing technology whose foundations were laid back in the 1980s, eventually resulting in a 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering CRISPR scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier.

That decades-long gap between initial scientific spark, widespread academic recognition, and now the market entry of a potential cure for blood disorders like sickle cell disease that afflict hundreds of thousands of people around the world is telling. If past is prologue, even newer CRISPR gene-editing approaches being studied today have the potential to treat diseases ranging from cancer and muscular dystrophy to heart disease, birth more resilient livestock and plants that can grapple with climate change and new strains of deadly viruses, and even upend the energy industry by tweaking bacterial DNA to create more efficient biofuels in future decades. And novel uses of CRISPR, with assists from other technologies like artificial intelligence, might fuel even more precise, targeted gene-editing—in turn accelerating future discovery with implications for just about any industry that relies on biological material, from medicine to agriculture to energy.

With new CRISPR discoveries guided by AI, specifically, we can expand the toolbox available for gene editing, which is crucial for therapeutic, diagnostic, and research applications… but also a great way to better understand the vast diversity of microbial defense mechanisms, said Feng Zhang, another CRISPR pioneer, molecular biologist, and core member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in an emailed statement to Fast Company.

ICYMI: In a groundbreaking achievement, researchers have successfully created a chimeric monkey with two different sets of DNA through the injection of stem cells from one monkey embryo into another of the same species.

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Scientists based in China have successfully created a chimeric monkey.

Continue reading “China creates world’s first chimeric monkey with fluorescent eyes, fingertips” »

With a demand for food and beverage (F&B) packaging inspection systems, the industry faces challenges. See how LandingLens & artificial intelligence can help.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. David Sinclair, tenured Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and an expert researcher in the field of longevity. Dr. Sinclair is also the author of the book Lifespan: Why We Age & Why We Don’t Have To, and the host of the Lifespan Podcast, which launches January 5, 2022. In this interview, we discuss the cellular and molecular mechanisms of aging and what we all can do to slow or reverse the aging process. We discuss fasting and supplementation with resveratrol, NAD, metformin, and NMN. We also discuss the use of caffeine, exercise, cold exposure, and why excessive iron load is bad for us. We discuss food choices for offsetting aging and promoting autophagy (clearance of dead cells). And we discuss the key blood markers everyone should monitor to determine your biological versus chronological age. We also discuss the future of longevity research and technology. This episode includes lots of basic science and specific, actionable protocols, right down to the details of what to do and when. By the end, you will have in-depth knowledge of the biology of aging and how to offset it. #HubermanLab #DavidSinclair #Longevity

A robot that automates a common technique for animal cloning has been used to produce a litter of cloned pigs in China — with a much higher success rate than human scientists.

The challenge: China is both the world’s biggest producer of pork and its largest consumer, so having ideal breeding stock — animals that birthe large litters of quick-growing piglets — is important for the nation’s economy and food security.

However, in 2018 and 2019, an epidemic of deadly African swine fever wiped out almost 50% of China’s pig population. As a result, many farmers have had to import breeding pigs, and China is now eager for its pork industry to become almost entirely self-sufficient.

It features a sleek aerodynamic design, no tilt mechanisms or extra parts, eliminating failures and unnecessary weight for efficient vertical flight.

The innovative aerial solution is ideal for high-precision mapping to agriculture, ensuring efficient coverage in every flight.

Continue reading “Aeromao introduces the world’s first water-landing fixed-wing drone” »

Anna Lembke is a psychiatrist who is Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University and an author. Dopamine is a key neurotransmitter in our reward pathway. It tells us when to feel pleasure and pain, it can cause depression and anxiety, and it’s being hijacked by the modern world. Phones, video games, porn, food, our world is filled with cheap dopamine, which in turn is making us miserable. Expect to learn how dopamine creates a see-saw balance of pleasure and pain, why cravings to use your phone are driven by dopamine, the truth about dopamine detoxing, how to reset your brain’s dopamine balance, the most successful interventions for changing your relationship to dopamine long term and much more…

A recent study published in JAMA Network Open investigates the level of usage of hemp-derived cannabinoids, including cannabinol (CBN), cannabigerol (CBG), Delta 8-THC, and cannabidiol (CBD). The reason hemp-derived cannabinoids were chosen for the study was due to passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, which removed hemp from the definition of marijuana previously outlined in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). However, THC is still classified as a Schedule I drug, meaning it’s still illegal under federal law, and despite the “de-scheduling” of hemp, there is presently no data regarding the estimated usage of hemp-derived cannabinoids.

“While the de-scheduling of hemp products initially opened up the market for CBD products, it also applies to the 100-plus cannabinoids also found in the plant,” said Dr. Kevin Boehnke, who is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center at the University of Michigan, and a co-author on the study. “That means, as with CBD, all of them can follow that same path and be sold in gas stations, as ingredients in cosmetics, as well as in dispensaries—there will likely be substantial proliferation of some of these compounds.”

For the study, the researchers conducted a cross-sectional survey study of individuals aged 18 and up inquiring about past-year use of hemp-derived cannabinoids. Of the 6,666 participants who received the survey, only 1,169 completed it. Of those 1,169 participants, the researchers found that 71.7 percent had heard of CBD compared to 41.2 percent, 18.4 percent, and 16.8 percent for Delta 8-THC, CBG, and CBN, respectively. Additionally, 21.2 percent of the participants reported using CBD within the past year compared to 11.9 percent, 5.2 percent, and 4.4 percent for Delta 8-THC, CBG, and CBN, respectively, with 25.5 percent of participants reporting using some type of emerging cannabinoid within the last year, as well.