Lifeboat Foundation

Nathan Treff was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 24. It’s a disease that runs in families, but it has complex causes. More than one gene is involved. And the environment plays a role too.

So you don’t know who will get it. Treff’s grandfather had it, and lost a leg. But Treff’s three young kids are fine, so far. He’s crossing his fingers they won’t develop it later.

Now Treff, an in vitro fertilization specialist, is working on a radical way to change the odds. Using a combination of computer models and DNA tests, the startup company he’s working with, Genomic Prediction, thinks it has a way of predicting which IVF embryos in a laboratory dish would be most likely to develop type 1 diabetes or other complex diseases. Armed with such statistical scorecards, doctors and parents could huddle and choose to avoid embryos with failing grades.

Continue reading “Eugenics 2.0: We’re at the Dawn of Choosing Embryos” »

Some people think autonomous vehicles must be nearly flawless before humans take their hands off the wheel. But RAND research shows that putting AVs on the road before they’re perfect improves the technology more quickly—and could save hundreds of thousands of lives over time.

Putting autonomous vehicles on the road when they perform just better than human drivers could save hundreds of thousands of lives over time. This article explains: r.rand.org/5y4v

Researchers at Columbia University have successfully created the world’s first computer chip powered by an isolated chemical biological process. Natural systems emit enormous amounts of energy that is often underutilized. This new bio-chip represents a high-tech version of “working with nature” and is producing promising results in the laboratory.

Russia is building a £30million space ship to explore the moon as part of its ambitious plan to become a superpower in space.

The Luna-25 will explore its south pole and collect soil samples to be sent back to earth for analysis.

No astronauts will travel in the lunar orbiter, which comes 40 years since Moscow’s last mission to the moon in the Luna-24.

Continue reading “Russia to go to the moon in new £30m spaceship” »

A U.N. panel agreed Friday to move ahead with talks to define and possibly set limits on weapons that can kill without human involvement, as human rights groups said governments are moving too slowly to keep up with advances in artificial intelligence that could put computers in control one day.

Advocacy groups warned about the threats posed by such ‘killer robots’ and aired a chilling video illustrating their possible uses on the sidelines of the first formal U.N. meeting of government experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems this week.

Continue reading “UN panel agrees to move ahead with debate on ‘killer robots’” »

The MX-1E spacecraft is slated to fly before the end of the year aboard a Rocket Lab Electron booster, which launches from New Zealand and will attempt to win the $20M Google Lunar XPRIZE

The firm is is developing a fleet of low-cost robotic spacecraft that can be assembled like Legos to handle increasingly complex missions.

Continue reading “Hopping ‘R2D2’ bot to blast off to the lunar surface in 2019” »

Is this accurate?

A new, dire “warning to humanity” about the dangers to all of us has been written by 15,000 scientists from around the world.

Continue reading “15,000 Scientists Just Gave a Catastrophic Warning About The Fate of Humanity” »

Gaps in coverage leave interceptors less-equipped to defeat the threats of tomorrow.

No missile defense is better than the sensors that tell the interceptors where to go and what to kill. The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, draws upon considerably more sensors for homeland defense than when operations began in 2004, but shortfalls remain. The North Korean and other missile threats are not diminishing, and it’s time to get this right.

In a forthcoming report, we recommend that the Defense Department and Missile Defense Agency take several steps to improve the sensor backbone of America’s homeland missile defenses, including fielding a space layer, filling radar gaps, adding omnidirectional focus, and improving command and control. Unfortunately, the budget for missile defense sensors has fallen considerably over the past decade, exactly the wrong trend for our changing security environment.

Continue reading “US Missile Defenses Need Better Sensors, and Soon” »