Lifeboat Foundation

In a medical first, the children were treated with genetically engineered T-cells from another person.

Against all probability, a device that purports to use cold fusion to generate vast amounts of power has been verified by a panel of independent scientists. The research paper, which hasn’t yet undergone peer review, seems to confirm both the existence of cold fusion, and its potency: The cold fusion device being tested has roughly 10,000 times the energy density and 1,000 times the power density of gasoline. Even allowing for a massively conservative margin of error, the scientists say that the cold fusion device they tested is 10 times more powerful than gasoline — which is currently the best fuel readily available to mankind.

The device being tested, which is called the Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat for short), was created by Andrea Rossi has been claiming for the past two years that he had finally cracked cold fusion, but much to the chagrin of the scientific community he hasn’t allowed anyone to independently analyze the device — until now. While it sounds like the scientists had a fairly free rein while testing the E-Cat, we should stress that they still don’t know exactly what’s going on inside the sealed steel cylinder reactor. Still, the seven scientists, all from good European universities, obviously felt confident enough with their findings to publish the research paper.

Continue reading “Cold fusion reactor independently verified, has 10,000 times the energy density of gas” »

There’s no doubt that genetic therapy won’t be cheap.

Entrepreneurs are taking genetic-editing technology from the lab to the clinic with grand ambitions. But who owns the patents?

Right now Chandra is gazing at a galaxy cluster in Draco. Nearby is the famous Tadpole Galaxy, seen here with thousands of galaxies in the background! The Tadpole’s tail of stars is over 280,000 light years long, stretched by gravity during a previous close encounter with another galaxy!

Very nice article at MIT Tech Review explaining Leon Bottou’s invited talk at ICLR on causality through invariance.

At a major AI research conference, one researcher laid out how existing AI techniques might be used to analyze causal relationships in data.

This year, the European Union heavily restricted four types of phthalates in consumer products because of their possible health effects. Phthalates are plasticisers, ubiquitous chemicals that soften plastics in many consumer products. They are present in food wrappings, clothes, packaging, car parts, cosmetics and fragrances.

Over time, these plasticisers end up in the air, soil, water, food and household dust. They can also end up in our bodies. This is worrying because they are implicated in reproductive abnormalities in mammals. Studies of people have linked plasticisers to sperm damage, lower fertility, early puberty in girls and thyroid effects. The phthalates will be now legally be restricted to 0.1% in weight in articles used by consumers or in outdoor areas.

But scientists are increasingly concerned not just about single chemicals, which are found in people’s bodies at levels that are usually not toxic, but about what happens to toxicity when these chemicals mix.

Continue reading “Chemical mixtures pose ‘underestimated’ risk to human health say scientists” »

Center Stage in the current issue of ACS Central Science: A Conversation with Prof. Jackie Ying, founding director of the A*STAR Institute NanoBio lab in Singapore. Using #nanomaterials to develop inexpensive medical technologies:

Honey is a culinary staple that can be found in kitchens around the world. Its long shelf life and medicinal properties make it a unique, multipurpose natural product. Although it seems that a lot is known about the sweet substance, surprisingly little is known about its proteins. Check out research in the Journal of Natural Products with new data on honey proteins that could lead to new medicinal applications:

American chemical society: chemistry for life.