Lifeboat Foundation

Wires and cables are not the only things that can get entangled: Plants, fungi, and bacteria can all exhibit filamentous or branching growth patterns that eventually become entangled too. Previous work with nonliving materials demonstrated that entanglement can produce unique and desirable material properties, but achieving entanglement requires meticulously engineered material structure and geometry. It has been unclear if the same rules apply to organisms, which, unlike nonliving systems, develop through a process of progressive growth. Through a blend of experiments and simulations, we show that growth easily produces entanglement.

Specifically, we find that treelike growth leads to branch arrangements that cannot be disassembled without breaking or deforming branches. Further, entanglement via growth is possible for a wide range of geometries. In fact, it appears to be largely insensitive to the geometry of branched trees but instead depends sensitively on how long the organism can keep growing. In other words, growing branched trees can entangle with almost any geometry if they keep growing for a long-enough time.

Entanglement via growth appears to be largely distinct from, and easier to achieve than, entanglement of nonliving materials. These observations may in part account for the broad prevalence of entanglement in biological systems, as well as inform recent experiments that observed the rapid evolution of entanglement, though much still remains to be discovered.

The problem with just leaving poop on the highest peak in the world is that the environ’s extremely cold temperatures are not at all conducive to degrading biological matter. In addition, poop runoff is a problem at lower elevations — to the degree that they’ve contaminated the local watershed.

Basically, Mount Everest is covered in human feces. It’s a problem that hikers, sherpas and local officials have been complaining about for years.

But now, according to CNN, new poop rules are in place. If you want to climb Mount Everest from Nepal, the most common entryway, you gotta take your crap back with you instead of leaving it on the mountain.

Very interesting article.

Now a physicist working at the University of Portsmouth in the UK has published research in the AIP Advances journal that he says provides support to the strange theory.

“I don’t want to paraphrase Morpheus from The Matrix but he said ‘what is real?’” the Associate Professor of Physics, Dr Melvin Vopson, said.

Continue reading “Physicist says his study supports computer simulation theory” »

Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. Within assemblies of organisms that seem as though they could get chaotic, order somehow emerges. The collective behaviors of animals differ in their details from one species to another, but they largely adhere to principles of collective motion that physicists have worked out over centuries. Now, using technologies that only recently became available, researchers have been able to study these patterns of behavior more closely than ever before.

In this episode, the evolutionary ecologist Iain Couzin talks with co-host Steven Strogatz about how and why animals exhibit collective behaviors, flocking as a form of biological computation, and some of the hidden fitness advantages of living as part of a self-organized group rather than as an individual. They also discuss how an improved understanding of swarming pests such as locusts could help to protect global food security.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn or your favorite podcasting app, or you can stream it from Quanta.

Unlike me, Kurzweil has been embracing AI for decades. In his 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Kurzweil made the bold prediction that AI would expand human intelligence exponentially, changing life as we know it. He wasn’t wrong. Now in his 70s, Kurzweil is upping the ante in his newest book, The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI, revisiting his prediction of the melding of human and machine, with 20 additional years of data showing the exponential rate of technological advancement. It’s a fascinating look at the future and the hope for a better world.

Kurzweil has long been recognized as a great thinker. The son of a musician father and visual artist mother, he grew up in New York City and at a young age became enamored with computers, writing his first computer program at the age of 15.

While at MIT, earning a degree in computer science and literature, Kurzweil started a company that created a computer program to match high school students with colleges. In the ensuing years, he went on to found (and sell) multiple technology-fueled companies and inventions, including the first reading machine for the blind and the first music synthesizer capable of re-creating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments (inspired by meeting Stevie Wonder). He has authored 11 books.

Researchers have developed a carbon nanotube (CNT) transistor for molecule glasses that facilitates detailed examination of molecular interactions. This innovative technology is poised to open a fresh research direction in nanotechnology and molecular biology.

Could it be that human existence depends on gravitational waves? Some key elements in our biological makeup may come from astrophysical events that occur because gravitational waves exist, a research team headed by John R. Ellis of Kings College London suggests.

Our brain waves can align when we work and play closely together. The phenomenon, known as interbrain synchrony, suggests that collaboration is biological.

In a groundbreaking study led by Dr. Karen Fitzgerald, six women between the ages of 45 and 65 experienced a remarkable reduction in their biological age by an average of five years in just eight weeks. The findings offer promising insights into the potential of lifestyle changes to combat aging.

The study, which focused on the distinction between chronological age and biological age, revealed that while chronological age remains fixed, biological age — the age of one’s cells — can be influenced and even reversed through targeted interventions.

Using Dr. Steven Horvath’s epigenetic clock, which measures 353 markers associated with methylation changes linked to aging, the researchers assessed the participants’ biological age before and after the intervention.