Lifeboat Foundation

The illusion of people being lifted out of poverty takes a hit.

“Gates’s favourite infographic,” he wrote, “takes the violence of colonisation and repackages it as a happy story of progress.”

The situation has not gotten better for most people.

This is not a story about how the polar vortex is bad—bad for the human body, bad for public transportation, bad for virtually everything in its path. This is a story about how one being among us is actually taking advantage of the historic cold snap: Cassie the bipedal robot. While humans suffer through the chill, this trunkless pair of ostrich-like legs is braving the frozen grounds of the University of Michigan, for the good of science.

“When we saw the announcement for the polar vortex, we started making plans to see how long we could operate in that kind of weather,” says roboticist Jessy Grizzle. “We were going to tie a scarf on her just so it looked cute, but we decided people would think that was keeping her warm and affecting the experiment, so we didn’t.”

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Continue reading “The Punishing Polar Vortex Is Ideal for Cassie the Robot” »

By cats that is carried by two billion people may lead to schizophrenia, experts have warned.

Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) can be spread either through contract with cat litter trays or by eating uncooked meat but it is typically harmless.

However, according to a new study, the parasite could increase the chances of developing schizophrenia by 50 per cent.

Continue reading “Parasite spread” »

The assays don’t always yield results, but the information they offer can, at times, alter the course of treatment or prevention.

• By Jessica Wright, Spectrum on January 31, 2019

A new report estimates that nearly half of all U.S. adults have some form of heart or blood vessel disease, a medical milestone that’s mostly due to recent guidelines that expanded how many people have high blood pressure.

The American Heart Association said Thursday that more than 121 million adults had cardiovascular disease in 2016. Taking out those with only high blood pressure leaves 24 million, or 9 percent of adults, who have other forms of disease such as heart failure or clogged arteries.

An Israeli company claimed it will cure cancer in a year, and the internet erupted. But in this latest viral incident, everyone loses.

Welcome to the future.

In the first experiment of its kind, scientists have been able to translate brain signals directly into intelligible speech. It may sound like wild science fiction at first, but this feat could actually help some people with speech issues.

And yes, we could also get some futuristic computer interfaces out of this.

Continue reading “Scientists Have Found a Way to Convert Human Brain Signals Directly Into Speech” »

The following is a transcript of the video

Alex Appolonia: This is almost half a million gallons of water being blasted a hundred feet into the air.

The most impressive part? It was all done in just 60 seconds.

Continue reading “Why NASA blasts half a million gallons of water during rocket launches” »

The bacteria that live in our bodies have a pivotal role in the maintenance of our health, and can influence a range of conditions, such as obesity and cancer. Perhaps the most important role for the community of microorganisms that live in our gut — termed the microbiota, which include bacteria, fungi and archaea — is to aid immune-system development. Writing in Nature, Tanoue et al. report the identification of 11 strains of bacteria that reside in the guts of some healthy humans and that can boost immune responses that fight infection and cancer.

Microorganisms in the human gut can affect immune-system cells. Gut bacterial strains have been discovered that boost immune cells that have cell-killing capacity and that can target cancer and protect against infection. Human gut bacteria boost immune cells that have cell-killing capacity.