Lifeboat Foundation

Samuel Sia, a professor of biomedical engineering at New York City’s Columbia University, has developed a 3D printed biobot that can be implanted in the body to release controlled doses of drugs. The amazing device can be controlled from outside the body using only magnets.

Continue reading “Tiny 3D printed biobots could dispense drug doses from inside your body” »

The revival of the Cold War attitudes between the U.S. and Russia are just the beginning of the an expanding scene of digital vulnerabilities and shocks to the system that could shut down the grid, cut off grocery and supply lines or leave millions without power in the cold. With global tension, the pretext could come from anywhere:

Continue reading “Grid Down: Prepare for Electronic Interference As Cyber World War Dawns” »

Is it possible to kill bacteria with bacteria?

This is the unorthodox question posed by a team of researchers funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—a research and development organization within the U.S. Department of Defense—that is exploring whether an unusual type of bacteria that eats other bacteria could be a new weapon in the fight against drug-resistant infections.

Known as the Pathogen Predator program, the DARPA initiative (led by Dr. Barry Pallotta) is part of a growing effort to seek new and innovative ways to defeat drug-resistant superbugs, which are rapidly evolving to beat even our most powerful antibiotics.

Continue reading “‘Out-of-the-Box’ Approaches Can Help Combat Antibiotic Resistance” »

What should Donald Trump have NASA do? Today Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos voiced his support for the idea that the space agency should help build a “highway in the sky” analogous to the interstate highway system that President Dwight Eisenhower ramped up in the 1950s.

The backing came in the form of an eight-word tweet, accompanied by a link to an article by Howard Bloom appearing in Salon (and as a guest blog posting on Scientific American’s website as well).

QC in the mainstream is definitely viable less than 7 yrs. and possible within 5 yrs. However, I have a friend who even believes we’re looking at 3 years.

Internet security, once considered to be strictly in the domain of the wonkiest tech experts, has become central to public discourse over the past year. Besides the attacks on the DNC, even tech savvy business like Snapchat, Oracle and Verizon Enterprise Solutions have had significant breaches in the last year.

For the most part, these attacks were preventable. Often, hackers use a technique called social engineering, to trick people into allowing them into a system. Other times, they exploit a vulnerability in software to give them access to confidential data. In most cases, more stringent procedures can prevent attacks.

Continue reading “The Future Of Encryption” »

Nice.

Synthetic RNA kit business Synthego has raised $41 million to step up its efforts to make CRISPR gene editing easier and more accurate. The West Coast startup relied heavily on tech VCs for the cash, but also gained validation from having CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna invest in its business.

Redwood City, CA-based Synthego exited stealth in August, four years after it was set up by two former SpaceX computer engineers. In those early years, which were bankrolled by an $8.3 million investment in 2013, Synthego established an automated manufacturing process for guide RNA products that it thinks sets it apart from larger competitors in terms of cost, turnaround time and editing efficiency.

Continue reading “Synthego bags $41M to grow CRISPR synthetic RNA kit biz” »

Nice.

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Has anyone besides NSA, NIST, DARPA, IARPA, etc. realize and thought about what type of cyber warfare will exist in a QC world? The skillsets alone will be so far advance than the techies that we have seen in most companies today as well as in most government agencies. Granted we’re simplifying things with the platform; however, skillsets will still need to be more advance than what we have seen with the standard techie.

Members of the cryptography community have expressed interest in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) recent call for an algorithm less susceptible to hacks from a computer that does not exist yet.

NIST announced a call for proposals for post-quantum cryptography standardization on Dec. 20. One or more of the proposed algorithms will ultimately replace some of NIST’s cryptographic standards that are most vulnerable to quantum computers. According to Dustin Moody, a mathematician at NIST, 40 people have joined the agency’s online cryptography forum since the call was announced two weeks ago. The forum had about 200 members before the call went out. Moody said that many people were anticipating the announcement, as cryptography enthusiasts tend to run in the same circles.

Continue reading “Cryptographers Rally to NIST Call for Quantum Computer Algorithms” »

Nice advancement this week in QC.

Researchers may have finally created the first fully reprogrammable quantum computer in the world. This changes the entire spectrum of the technology, as quantum computers so far could only run one type of equation.

This marks the beginning of reprogrammable quantum computers. Several teams and companies like IBM are still in the race towards quantum computing, which so far can only run one type of equation. This seems ironic as they can theoretically run more operations than there are atoms in the universe. But this stops now.

Continue reading “Researchers Build FIRST Reprogrammable Quantum Computer!” »