Lifeboat Foundation

In Brief:

• Now with just under $800 million in funding, Florida startup Magic Leap has applied for a patent for its VR/AR headsets, bringing them one step closer to market.
• From healthcare to the military, VR/AR is being applied to industries far beyond its humble roots in gaming.

Florida-based startup Magic Leap has been getting considerable attention thanks in no small part to the awesome-looking augmented reality video demos it has released. Apart from these videos and the info we could glean from some interviews and Twitter posts, however, we haven’t yet been given a complete explanation of what the company has in store for consumers. What we do know is that it promises an AR experience unlike any other by delivering “neurologically true visual perception.” In short, the brain won’t be able to tell the difference between reality and virtual reality when you are using Magic Leap’s device.

Continue reading “Get Ready for Magic Leap: New Patent Brings VR Device One Step Closer to Reality” »

What’s the Latest?

When Francis Crick, the English scientist who helped discover the structure of DNA, died in 2004, he and a colleague were in the midst of researching the potential existence of an on-off switch for consciousness located somewhere deep within the brain. Crick’s hypothesis likened the proposed switch to an orchestra conductor “to bind all of our different external and internal perceptions together.” Researchers at George Washington University in Washington DC believe they may have found Crick’s conductor. As it happens, it’s located in the exact part of the brain Crick had initially guessed: the claustrum.

What’s the Big Idea?

Continue reading “Neuroscientists Discover an Ignition Switch for Consciousness” »

Why governments have been concerned around SynBio including CRISPR.

# Scientists # Dinosaurs – Scientists Bringing Dinosaurs Back to Life : The Jurassic Park film franchise is one of the most popular ever made but no one actually wants to bring dinosaurs back. Right? We’ve all seen the movies. The outcome is never a positive one. However, scientists continue to defy the realm of possibilities.

SCIENTISTS FIND FOSSILIZED BRAIN; DINOSAURS MAKE A COMEBACK

Continue reading “Scientists Bringing Dinosaurs Back to Life” »

*BREAKING NEWS* This tech company is investing $100 million dollars to put computers inside our brains!

A tiny needle of 5-μm-diameter may help solve the mysteries of the brain and facilitate the development of a brain-machine interface.

I hope I get invited to speak. Would love to.

Researchers discuss how to make machines more like the human brain—and faster and more energy-efficient.

By MONICA ROZENFELD 28 October 2016

Continue reading “First IEEE Conference on Rebooting Computing Focuses on Neuromorphic and Quantum Designs” »

A brown pebble discovered on an English beach more a decade ago is actually the world’s first known example of a fossilized dinosaur brain, scientists have confirmed.

The remarkable find is thought to have come from a large plant-eater such as the Iguanodon, which walked the earth about 133 million years ago.

It is believed the creature must have died near water with its head buried in sediment in a swamp or boggy ground, allowing its brain to be “pickled” and preserved.

Continue reading “Scientists identify fossilized dinosaur brain tissue for first time ever” »

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?” »

A research team in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering and the Electronics-Inspired Interdisciplinary Research Institute (EIIRIS) at Toyohashi University of Technology developed 5-μm-diameter needle-electrodes on 1 mm × 1 mm block modules. This tiny needle may help solve the mysteries of the brain and facilitate the development of a brain-machine interface. The research results were reported in Scientific Reports on Oct 25, 2016.

The neuron networks in the human brain are extremely complex. Microfabricated silicon needle-electrode devices were expected to be an innovation that would be able to record and analyze the electrical activities of the microscale neuronal circuits in the brain.

However, smaller needle technologies (e.g., needle diameter 10 μm) are necessary to reduce damage to brain tissue. In addition to the needle geometry, the device substrate should be minimized not only to reduce the total amount of damage to tissue but also to enhance the accessibility of the electrode in the brain. Thus, these electrode technologies will realize new experimental neurophysiological concepts.