Lifeboat Foundation

SMU and the University of Rhode Island have patented an inexpensive, easy-to-use method to create solid-state nanopores (SSNs), while also making it possible to self-clean blocked nanopores.

The technique called chemically-tuned controlled dielectric breakdown (CT-CDB) addresses two key problems that have kept solid-state nanopores – which are too tiny for the human eye to see – from being used more often to build biosensors that can measure biological and chemical reactions of a given sample.

Biosensors have widespread medical applications, enabling rapid, early and effective disease diagnosis and monitoring.

Dr. Georg Northoff is a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and philosopher holding doctorates in all three disciplines. In this episode, we begin by discussing the self, and consciousness. We then enter into a dialogue about what he terms the world-brain problem, in contrast to the mind-body problem. He shares what he means by the neuroecological approach, why space and time are central to understanding the mind, and how it has foundational implications to diagnosis, treatment and research. We then talk about the practical implications of his viewpoint, for laymen and professionals alike. We follow by pivoting to cover topics such as the importance of philosophy in science, his stance on free will, and a series of rapid fire bonus questions that you don’t want to miss out on. We end on a review of his journey into becoming an MD, Ph.D, his future projects and words of wisdom for anyone listening. I invite you to skip around if you find any of these topics of particular interest to you.

Website: drchancnc.com.
Instagram: @draldrichan.
Guest website: http://www.georgnorthoff.com/

Continue reading “CNC Dialogues — Georg Northoff & Aldrich Chan: Space, Time, Self & Consciousness” »

Want to join the debate? Check out the Intelligence Squared website to hear about future live events and podcasts: http://www.intelligencesquared.com.
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How come there are conscious minds?
How do language and culture evolve?
Should we still teach children things which computers can do better?
Will our smart electronic devices rob us of our intelligence?
Will human intelligence and AI co-evolve?

Continue reading “Daniel Dennett on the Evolution of the Mind, Consciousness and AI” »

Researchers develop sustainable, biocompatible materials from microalgae for high-resolution 3D printing, advancing eco-friendly manufacturing and biomedical applications.

Advances in Care Podcast — Episode 24In today’s world, genetic testing has become increasingly accessible for more people, creating an increased opportunity…

An international collaborative research team has developed an image recognition technology that can accurately determine the elemental composition and the number of charge and discharge cycles of a battery by examining only its surface morphology using AI learning.

Professor Seungbum Hong from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Department of Materials Science and Engineering, in collaboration with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and Drexel University in the United States, has developed a method to predict the major elemental composition and charge-discharge state of NCM cathode materials with 99.6% accuracy using convolutional neural networks (CNN).

The paper is published in the journal npj Computational Materials.

A research effort led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has made advances that could enable a broader range of currently unimagined optoelectronic devices.

The researchers, whose previous innovation included incorporating a perovskite layer that allowed the creation of a new type of polarized light-emitting diode (LED) that emits spin-controlled photons at room temperature without the use of magnetic fields or ferromagnetic contacts, now have gone a step further by integrating a III-V semiconductor optoelectronic structure with a chiral halide perovskite semiconductor.

That is, they transformed an existing commercialized LED into one that also controls the spin of electrons. The results provide a pathway toward transforming modern optoelectronics, a field that relies on the control of light and encompasses LEDs, solar cells, and telecommunications lasers, among other devices.

Luminescence refers to the result of a process in which an object absorbs light at one wavelength and then re-emits it at another wavelength. Through light absorption, electrons in the ground state of the material are excited to a higher energy state. After a certain amount of time characteristic of each excited state, the electrons decay to lower energy states, including the ground state, and emit light. The phenomenon is used in a wide array of technological applications involving highly efficient and reproducible emitting devices that can easily be miniaturized.

The materials with the highest luminescence efficiency include quantum dots (QDs), currently used in high-resolution displays, LEDs, solar panels, and sensors of various kinds, such as those used for precision medical imaging. Functionalization of the surface of QDs with various types of molecules permits interaction with cellular structures or other molecules of interest for the purpose of investigating molecular-level biological processes.

QDs are semiconductor nanoparticles whose emissive characteristics are directly linked to dot size, owing to the phenomenon of quantum confinement. For this reason, monitoring and control of crystal growth during synthesis of QDs in solution permits intelligent planning of the desired luminescence.

The four volunteers who have been living and working inside NASA’s first simulated yearlong Mars habitat mission are set to exit their ground-based home on Saturday, July 6. NASA will provide live coverage of the crew’s exit from the habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston at 5 p.m. EDT.

NASA will stream the activity, which will include a short welcome ceremony, on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, the agency’s website, and NASA Johnson’s X and Facebook accounts. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms, including social media.

The first Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) mission began in the 3D printed habitat on June 25, 2023, with crew members Kelly Haston, Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell, and Nathan Jones. For more than a year, the crew simulated Mars mission operations, including “Marswalks,” grew and harvested several vegetables to supplement their shelf-stable food, maintained their equipment and habitat, and operated under additional stressors a Mars crew will experience, including communication delays with Earth, resource limitations, and isolation.