Lifeboat Foundation

He stood a majestic 5-foot-5, weighed around 100 pounds and maybe had a harem. That’s what scientists figure from the footprints he left behind some 3.7 million year ago.

He’s evidently the tallest known member of the prehuman species best known for the fossil skeleton nicknamed “Lucy,” reaching a stature no other member of our family tree matched for another 1.5 million years, the researchers say.

The 13 footprints are impressions left in volcanic ash that later hardened into rock, excavated last year in northern Tanzania in Africa. Their comparatively large size, averaging a bit over 10 inches long (26 centimeters), suggest they were made by a male member of the species known as Australopithecus afarensis.

Continue reading “Ancient Human Ancestor Was One Tall Dude, His Footprints Say” »

By removing senescent cells from culture prior to transplant.

Designing synthetic promoters for safe and precise targeting of dysfunctional “senescent” cells, with the aim of developing senolytic gene therapies to remove them.

For the past four decades, the electronics industry has been driven by what is called “Moore’s Law,” which is not a law but more an axiom or observation. Effectively, it suggests that the electronic devices double in speed and capability about every two years. And indeed, every year tech companies come up with new, faster, smarter and better gadgets.

Specifically, Moore’s Law, as articulated by Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, is that “The number of transistors incorporated in a chip will approximately double every 24 months.” Transistors, tiny electrical switches, are the fundamental unit that drives all the electronic gadgets we can think of. As they get smaller, they also get faster and consume less electricity to operate.

In the technology world, one of the biggest questions of the 21st century is: How small can we make transistors? If there is a limit to how tiny they can get, we might reach a point at which we can no longer continue to make smaller, more powerful, more efficient devices. It’s an industry with more than US$200 billion in annual revenue in the U.S. alone. Might it stop growing?

Continue reading “Light based microchips are the future of electronics” »

In dizzying pace of advancement, cognitive tech to make our lives more intelligent by providing solutions in our daily lives.

This electronic spoon can assist people with limited mobility.

Pesquisadores liderados por ETH Professor Martin Fussenegger no Departamento de Ciência e Engenharia Biosystems (D-BSSE) em Basel ter produzido células beta artificiais utilizando uma abordagem de engenharia simples.

As células artificiais beta pode fazer tudo o que as naturais fazem: eles medem a concentração de glicose no sangue e produz insulina suficiente para reduzir eficazmente o nível de açúcar no sangue. Os pesquisadores ETH apresentou o seu desenvolvimento na última edição da revista Ciência.

In a new blow for the futuristic “supersymmetry” theory of the universe’s basic anatomy, experts reported fresh evidence Monday of subatomic activity consistent with the mainstream Standard Model of particle physics.

New data from ultra high-speed proton collisions at Europe’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) showed an exotic particle dubbed the “beauty quark” behaves as predicted by the Standard Model, said a paper in the journal Nature Physics.

Previous attempts at measuring the beauty quark’s rare transformation into a so-called “up quark” had yielded conflicting results. That prompted scientists to propose an explanation beyond the Standard Model—possibly supersymmetry.

The scientists who support Project Blue are already thinking about how future explorers could get to the planets around Alpha Centauri.

Planting a flag in Europe for the development of the kind of “deep technology” companies that have long been the bread and butter of Silicon Valley, the European venture firm Atomico has invested 10 million euros in the vertical take-off and landing plane developer, Lilium Aviation.

The roughly $10.7 million Series A investment announced at TechCrunch Disrupt London is meant to help Lilium develop into a manufacturer of a commuter alternative to helicopters and traditional planes.

Since the 1950s and 1960s, flying cars have ranked right up there with jetpacks as an example of the fulfillment of our expectations for future travel (I still think the Uber and Lyft app is pretty magical).

Continue reading “European VCs are going to make flying cars a reality” »