Lifeboat Foundation

SynBiology

So if I asked what you think will fuel the growth of today’s technology giants in the next 15 years, what would your answer be? You might say familiar or trendy terms, such as user growth or the Internet of Things. Or perhaps that the companies with the most innovative products and services will reign king in tomorrow’s tech markets. And while those are likely partially correct answers, there’s a tremendous amount of growth to be had from a rather unlikely source.

It might be difficult to believe that companies that have traditionally relied on silicon chips, mobile apps, and lines of software code could profit from something as seemingly disconnected as making biological engineering as predictable as traditional engineering fields, but a closer look into research and development spending hints that it may not be that far-fetched after all. Why are Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK) , Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) , and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) quietly investing in synthetic biology, and what could it mean for investors?

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Quoted: “Legendary cyberculture icon (and iconoclast) R.U. Sirius and Jay Cornell have written a delicious funcyclopedia of the Singularity, transhumanism, and radical futurism, just published on January 1.” And: “The book, “Transcendence – The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity,” is a collection of alphabetically-ordered short chapters about artificial intelligence, cognitive science, genomics, information technology, nanotechnology, neuroscience, space exploration, synthetic biology, robotics, and virtual worlds. Entries range from Cloning and Cyborg Feminism to Designer Babies and Memory-Editing Drugs.” And: “If you are young and don’t remember the 1980s you should know that, before Wired magazine, the cyberculture magazine Mondo 2000 edited by R.U. Sirius covered dangerous hacking, new media and cyberpunk topics such as virtual reality and smart drugs, with an anarchic and subversive slant. As it often happens the more sedate Wired, a watered-down later version of Mondo 2000, was much more successful and went mainstream.”

Read the article here >https://hacked.com/irreverent-singularity-funcyclopedia-mondo-2000s-r-u-sirius/

By Jennifer J. Kulynych and Hank Greely — Slate.com

Continue reading “Every Patient a Subject” »

By Nick Lavars — Gizmag

Sure, foods that are high in sugar are often the most tempting, but that sugar rush can come at a weighty cost. A new study conducted at the University of South Carolina has suggested that this may not need be the case. Researchers have identified a gene that can dictate how these foods are processed, potentially suppressing the weight problems that go hand-in-hand with unhealthy eating habits.

The research centers on a mutant gene called SKN-1 found in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans. The scientists fed a number of these worms a high-sugar diet and observed no difference in weight for those with a hyperactive SKN-1 gene, while those without the gene quickly began to stack on the nanograms.

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By Nick Lavars — Gizmag

By enabling users to communicate and control devices with their thoughts, brain-computer interfaces (BCI) hold almost a scary amount of potential. While they have achieved feats such as directing the flight of a quadcopter and helping victims of paralysis to communicate, sufferers of brainstem stroke with “locked-in” syndrome have so far been beyond reach. But now, a researcher at East Tennessee Sate University (ETSU) has demonstrated BCIs may in fact give brainstem stroke patients a voice again, with very specific brainwaves serving as a typing finger for a virtual keyboard.

“We have significant research showing that BCI is beneficial to ALS patients [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disorder that results in muscle wasting],” says Dr Eric Sellers, associate professor of Psychology at ETSU and leader of the study. “But until now there were no studies that looked specifically at patients with a brainstem stroke to see if it worked for them as well.”

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By Kenrya Rankin Naasel — FastCompany

Anyone who has had a chronic medical issue–or a family member with one–knows how difficult it can be to understand what their doctors are talking about. Enter Emmi Solutions, a health data visualization company that uses multidisciplinary art to explain complex concepts to patients of all ages. “Health care is very personal and can be really scary. People want to be involved, supported, reassured, and guided to make the right decisions for themselves and their families. Caregivers want that for their patients too, but haven’t always had the tools or the incentives to provide that,” says Greg Blew, the company’s chief creative officer. “So we started making interactive multimedia programs that educated patients about upcoming surgical procedures and set their expectations around factors like recovery time, postoperative pain, and potential risks.”

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Written By: Peniel M. Dimberu — Singularity Hub

In one of the gutsiest performances in sports history, NFL quarterback Chris Simms had to be carted off the field after taking several vicious hits from the defense during a game in 2006. Remarkably, Simms returned to the game shortly thereafter and led his team on a scoring drive before having to leave the game for good.

As it turns out, Simms had ruptured his spleen and lost nearly five pints of blood.

Continue reading “Artificial Spleen ‘Cleans’ Blood of Pathogens” »

Quoted: “Ethereum will also be a decentralised exchange system, but with one big distinction. While Bitcoin allows transactions, Ethereum aims to offer a system by which arbitrary messages can be passed to the blockchain. More to the point, these messages can contain code, written in a Turing-complete scripting language native to Ethereum. In simple terms, Ethereum claims to allow users to write entire programs and have the blockchain execute them on the creator’s behalf. Crucially, Turing-completeness means that in theory any program that could be made to run on a computer should run in Ethereum.” And, quoted: “As a more concrete use-case, Ethereum could be utilised to create smart contracts, pieces of code that once deployed become autonomous agents in their own right, executing pre-programmed instructions. An example could be escrow services, which automatically release funds to a seller once a buyer verifies that they have received the agreed products.”

Read Part One of this Series here » Ethereum — Bitcoin 2.0? And, What Is Ethereum.

Read Part Two of this Series here » Ethereum — Opportunities and Challenges.

Read Part Three of this Series here » Ethereum — A Summary.