Lifeboat Foundation

New Device Brings ‘Dead’ Hearts Back to Life.

“Heart transplants only come from brain-dead donors whose hearts are cut away while their bodies are still healthy. Without a device such as this, hearts from dead donors are considered by surgeons as too damaged to use. With the device, the heart gets the essential infusion of blood to restore its energy.”

Video Credit: TransMedics.

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It appears that the standard tools used to identify chaotic signatures might be missing lots of hidden chaos — especially in systems that seem like they’re not chaotic at all.

Chaos theory is famously associated with so-called “strange attractors,” marked by a telltale butterfly-wing shape (see above). But according to a new paper by two University of Maryland mathematicians, sometimes chaos looks more like “a strange repeller,” or something else entirely.

Continue reading “Physicists Discover "Hidden Chaos" Lurking Everywhere” »

A new international report lays out the challenges to building Earth’s next great mega-project — and they’re more surmountable than you think.

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By Jim and Drury Ambitious plans to build a twenty kilometer (12.4 miles) tall space elevator tower have been announced by a Canadian space technology firm. Although this distance is a mere fraction of that reached in space missions, Thoth Technology says its ThothX Tower will make a major cost reduction in space flights by helping navigate the difficult first 50 kilometers (31 miles) of travel that traditionally requires rockets. In addition to needing to carry sufficient fuel to get a payload into orbit, they need extra fuel in order to carry the required fuel to reach that point in the first place. Despite first being proposed more than a century ago, the idea of a space elevator has always appeared fanciful. Thoth Technology has been granted a United States (US) patent for the elevator, which is pneumatically pressurized and actively-guided over its base.

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Scary conversation with an AI

These days, robots are being developed with some absolutely amazing technology. Indeed, robotics technology has become so impressive that the notion of the whole Terminator scenario (robots taking control of the human race) becoming our reality is starting to seem a lot less far-fetched. Not only are they beginning to look incredibly realistic, they are starting to develop the capacity to think for themselves as well.

Continue reading “AI Robot Learns Words In Real Time & Tells Human Creators It Will Keep Them In A ‘People Zoo’” »

Heales, The Healthy Life Extension Society, is dedicated to promoting and informing the public about life extension and longevity breakthroughs. In this spirit, Heales has announced a Short Film Competition with a grand prize of €3.000. Heales wants you to capture why living longer, healthier lives will be something to celebrate, not fear.

We caught up with Didier Cournelle, director of the society, to find out more about the competition:

Why do you think there are so few positive portrayals of longevity and life extension in the media? In general, the press prefers bad news to good news. Good news concerning longevity is difficult to describe because it is often made of small, incremental progress. Another aspect is that the idea of radical life extension looks fringe to many people. Last aspect: to speak about longevity is to speak about death and unconsciously, we tend to avoid what reminds us of our own death.

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Cool article on longevity science:

The search for the fountain of youth continues in Silicon Valley.

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When it comes to growing food, the sky’s the limit thanks to innovations like the Sky Urban Vertical Farming System. Designed and pioneered by the Singapore-based company Sky Greens, the vertical farming system is a revolutionary modern spin on the ancient practice of agriculture. Using cutting edge technology, the system demonstrates an energy efficient, environmentally friendly method of producing food that could be a powerful tool in feeding the ever-growing, increasingly urbanized, global population.

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California researchers opened the world’s largest publicly available stem cell bank Tuesday, which will aid in the search for cures for genetic diseases such as Alzheimer’s, epilepsy and autism.

Universities from around the state will contribute adult skin samples to the bank, while the Buck Institute for Research in Novato will store the material.

The Stem Cell Bank is funded through a $32 million grant awarded in 2013 by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which itself was established in 2004 through voter approval of Proposition 71. That measure provided an initial $3 billion in state bonds to the institute.

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