Lifeboat Foundation

A leading neuroscientist claims that a pong-playing clump of about a million neurons is “sentient”. What does that mean? Why did they teach a lab-grown brain to play pong? To study biological self-organization at the root of life, intelligence, and consciousness. And, according to their website, “to see what happens.”

CORRECTIONS/Clarifications:
- The cells aren’t directly frozen in liquid nitrogen — they are put in vials and stored in liquid nitrogen: https://www.atcc.org/products/pcs-201-010
- The sentience of some invertebrates, like octopuses, is generally agreed upon. Prominent scientists affirmed non-human consciousness in the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness: https://philiplow.foundation/consciousness/

Continue reading “Lab-Grown Brain Learns Pong — Is This Biological Neural Network ‘Sentient’?” »

DART VADAR can automatically sense and respond to molecular triggers in cells.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the term mRNA was brought to the public’s attention. It is, however, not a new medical technology, having been identified in 1961.

These mRNA vaccines were developed to generate a full-body immune response in order to protect the human body from the deadly coronavirus and its variants.

Continue reading “New DART VADAR system allows development of precision RNA-based therapies” »

Food tech startup Farther Farms has developed a process that keeps foods that would normally need to be refrigerated or frozen fresh at room temperature — and their first product is a bag of shelf-stable French fries.

The cold chain: Microorganisms are a major cause of food spoilage, and they thrive at room temperature. By keeping some foods cold, we can slow the growth of these microbes, extending the life of the food.

To do that, the foods must be prepared, shipped, and stored along a temperature-controlled supply chain (a “cold chain”). If the cold chain is broken at any point along the way, the food may quickly become unsafe to eat.

Using AI, Ting Xu and her colleagues designed polymer mixtures that mimic the natural proteins in biological fluids. The technique could improve the design of biocompatible materials.

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In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated the reigning world champion chess player, Garry Kasparov. In 2016, Google’s AlphaGo defeated one of the worlds top Go players in a five-game match. Today, OpenAI released GPT-4, which it claims beats 90% of humans who take the bar to become a lawyer, and 99% of students who compete in the Biology Olympiad, an international competition that tests the knowledge and skills of high school students in the field of biology.

In fact, it scores in the top ranks for at least 34 different tests of ability in fields as diverse as macroeconomics, writing, math, and — yes — vinology.

Continue reading “GPT-4 Beats 90% Of Lawyers Trying To Pass The Bar” »

Studying Our Ocean’s History To Understanding Its Future — Dr. Emily Osborne, PhD, Ocean Chemistry & Ecosystems Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Dr Emily Osborne, Ph.D. (https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/people/emily-osborne/) is a Research Scientist, in the Ocean Chemistry and Ecosystems Division, at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.

Continue reading “Dr. Emily Osborne Ph.D. — Research Scientist — Ocean Chemistry and Ecosystems Division — NOAA/AOML” »

A biological method that produces metal nanoclusters using the electroactive bacterium Geobacter sulfurreducens could provide a cheap and sustainable solution to high-performance catalyst synthesis for various applications such as water splitting.

Metal nanoclusters contain fewer than one hundred atoms and are much smaller than nanoparticles. They have unique electronic properties but also feature numerous active sites available for catalysis on their surface. There are several synthetic methods for making metal nanoclusters, but most require multiple steps involving toxic substances and harsh temperature and pressure conditions.

Continue reading “Electroactive bacterium generates well-defined nanosized metal catalysts with remarkable water-splitting performance” »

Using living organisms to ensure water safety.

There’s a lot of articles written about how tap water in Warsaw is constantly tested by a small team of clams. It felt like a hoax to me: so I went to find out. ▪ Thanks to MPWiK Warsaw: https://www.mpwik.com.pl/

Continue reading “Is Poland’s tap water really protected by clams?” »

We had a wonderful group of international and interdisciplinary speakers at Saint Mary’s University on March 31 to April 1, 2017. They all took time out from their very busy schedules to come to Halifax to discuss robots and artificial intelligence at the Cyborg Futures Workshop. Academics from literary theory, digital culture, anthropology, sociology, environmental studies, robotics, and evolutionary biology, along with students and the public, convened for a lively discussion about technologies that are impacting us all.

This workshop is part of a larger SSHRC-funded project–Where Science Meets Fiction: Social Robots and the Ethical Imagination–that is about shifting the conversation about robots and AI, which has been animated by fiction but dominated in the real world by the military and industry. Opening the discussion up to wider social and cultural contexts–from the impact of technology on human relations; to non-human animals, the environment and trash; to racism, imperialism and misogyny; to automation, labour and capitalism; to killer robots and the military; to the problematic collapse of science and fiction—this workshop considered both the infrastructure currently being laid that is forcing us down a troubling path and imaginative alternatives to it. What follows cannot possibly do justice to the richness and complexity of the talks, so please click on the hyperlinks to listen to them.