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Jan 26, 2019

Saint Jean Carbon is developing graphene gel salt water batteries

Posted by in category: materials

Saint Jean Carbon has announced that it is developing a new form of graphene battery technology and will start building the first prototype of its graphene gel salt water batteries. Batteries based on this technology should charge faster, run longer and theoretically may last indefinitely. The project’s long term goal is to have a series of three full production batteries ready for launch in spring 2020.

Saint Jean Carbon stated that salt water battery technology has been in research for about 5 years. Continued advancement slowed due to limited voltage capacity in comparison with Lithium batteries. Now with the use of graphene in a highly concentrated salt water gel, graphene can now be used without worrying about the graphene re-stacking, which would reduce the intercalation rate. Salt water batteries are much safer, won’t burn and have significantly less raw material cost.

The Company plans on building a “flex” production line that will allow a number of companies to share in the facility on a fee for use basis. The Company’s first production will concentrate on three specific battery types:

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Jan 26, 2019

The viral content of human genomes is more variable than we thought

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Parts of human DNA are of viral origin: many of them were inserted into the primordial genetic material of our ancestors many millions of years ago and have been inherited by successive generations ever since. Thus, they are not thought to vary much in the genomes of modern humans. Human endogenous retroviruses (HERV) are by far the most common virus-derived sequences in our genome. New research published in Mobile DNA shows a mechanism that has introduced more inter-individual variation in HERV content between humans than previously appreciated.

Jainy Thomas & Cédric Feschotte 25 Jan 2019.

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Jan 26, 2019

The Founder of Bulletproof Coffee Is On a Wild Quest for Eternal Life

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

He uses infrared lasers, cryotherapy machines, and a lot of stem cells.

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Jan 26, 2019

This ‘Artificial Nose’ Device Can Quickly Detect Gas and Other Odors

Posted by in category: futurism

Having a good sense of smell can help protect us from danger. Unfortunately though, humans don’t always have an efficient response to odors. However, a group of researchers aim to change that: They’ve created an “artificial nose” device that can quickly detect ammonia, gas, and sewage.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus developed a microfluidic gas detector, which can sense most odors, including noxious substances, said a UBC Okanagan press release. The team, which published their findings in Nature Scientific Reports on Jan. 17, found that this device might be helpful in detecting fumes that aren’t easily noticed by humans.

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Jan 26, 2019

Say goodbye to Alexa and hello to gadgets listening to the voice inside your head

Posted by in category: electronics

Arnav Kapur’s AlterEgo lets him communicate, switch TV channels, and more by talking silently to himself.

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Jan 26, 2019

Europe wants to mine the moon by 2025: Plan could spark new space race

Posted by in categories: materials, space

Plans for a European base on the moon have taken a major step forward.

The European Space Agency revealed it has signed up rocket maker ArianeGroup to develop plans for a moon base that could be used to mine material from the lunar surface.

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Jan 26, 2019

​Filipino IT experts hope NASA announces Space Challenge winners as U.S. government operations resume

Posted by in categories: government, law, security, space

This is the first time that an entry from the Philippines has made it to the global finalists. http://verafiles.org/articles/filipino-it-experts-hope-nasa-…lenge-winn #SpaceApps #SpaceAppsPH


Filipino Information Technology enthusiasts are hoping that the temporary reopening of U.S. government operations after a 35-day shutdown would pave the way for the announcement of the winners in the NASA Space Apps Challenge, where one of the finalists is an app developed by a group of Filipino IT experts.

The announcement of the winners in the global competition was supposed to have been made in mid-January but has suffered a delay due to the federal government shutdown caused by a standoff over border security.

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Jan 26, 2019

Near-infrared metasurface reflects only one direction of circularly polarized light

Posted by in category: energy

Chiral surfaces, which have differing responses for left- and right-handed circularly polarized (LCP and RCP) light, can be useful in optical experimentation. Metamaterials, which can be made into circular polarizers, are promising for creating chiral surfaces. Scientists at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Rolla, MO) and the Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne, IL) have now created a chiral metamaterial-absorbing surface that has a large circular dichroism (CD) over the 1.3–1.8 μm spectral region. The chiral absorber could be useful for optical filters, thermal energy harvesting, optical communications, and chiral imaging.


A chiral optical metasurface selectively absorbs either left- or right-handed circularly polarized light; it could be useful in imagers and other optical systems.

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Jan 26, 2019

Announcing a New Webinar Series – MitoSENS

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

We have launched a new webinar series featuring discussion panels with the researchers + Q&A session for patrons. The first episode hosted by Dr. Oliver Medvedik will feature Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Dr. Matthew O’Connor, Michael Rae, and Dr. Amutha Boominathan from the SENS Research Foundation.

If you are a Lifespan Hero you can join us live for the show and get access to the recording for a few months before the public release.


Our work is largely supported by the generosity of our monthly patrons, the Lifespan Heroes, and this year, we will be showing our appreciation for that support with the launch of a brand new initiative – our new webinar series where you can meet the scientists working on the solutions to aging and age-related diseases.

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Jan 26, 2019

Stable Perception in the Adult Brain

Posted by in categories: genetics, neuroscience

The adult brain has learned to calculate an image of its environment from sensory information. If the input signals change, however, even the adult brain is able to adapt − and, ideally, to return to its original activity patterns once the perturbation has ceased. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried have now shown in mice that this ability is due to the properties of individual neurons. Their findings demonstrate that individual cells adjust strongly to changes in the environment but after the environment returns to its original state it is again the individual neurons which reassume their initial response properties. This could explain why despite substantial plasticity the perception in the adult brain is rather stable and why the brain does not have to continuously relearn everything.

Everything we know about our environment is based on calculations in our brain. Whereas a child’s brain first has to learn the rules that govern the environment, the adult brain knows what to expect and, for the most part, processes environmental stimuli in a stable manner. Yet even the adult brain is able to respond to changes, to form new memories and to learn. Research in recent years has shown that changes to the connections between neurons form the basis of this plasticity. But, how can the brain continually change its connections and learn new things without jeopardizing its stable representation of the environment? Neurobiologists in the Department of Tobias Bonhoeffer in Martinsried have now addressed this fundamental question and looked at the interplay between plasticity and stability.

The scientists studied the stability of the processing of sensations in the visual cortex of the mouse. It has been known for about 50 years that when one eye is temporarily closed, the region of the brain responsive to that eye increasingly becomes responsive to signals from the other eye that is still open. This insight has been important to optimize the use of eye patches in children with a squint. “Thanks to new genetically encoded indicators, it has recently become possible to observe reliably the activity of individual neurons over long periods of time,” says Tobias Rose, the lead author of the study. “With a few additional improvements, we were able to show for the first time what happens in the brain on the single-cell level when such environmental changes occur.”

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