Lifeboat Foundation

Genetic information storage and processing rely on just two polymers, DNA and RNA, yet whether their role reflects evolutionary history or fundamental functional constraints is currently unknown. With the use of polymerase evolution and design, we show that genetic information can be stored in and recovered from six alternative genetic polymers based on simple nucleic acid architectures not found in nature [xeno-nucleic acids (XNAs)]. We also select XNA aptamers, which bind their targets with high affinity and specificity, demonstrating that beyond heredity, specific XNAs have the capacity for Darwinian evolution and folding into defined structures. Thus, heredity and evolution, two hallmarks of life, are not limited to DNA and RNA but are likely to be emergent properties of polymers capable of information storage.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=kAl8CEnqJMg

The world’s first artificial womb facility, EctoLife, will be able to grow 30,000 babies a year. It’s based on over 50 years of groundbreaking scientific research conducted by researchers worldwide which we will cover in this video.

💃Want to own a Humanoid Robot: https://bit.ly/3PDgpsn.

Continue reading “Shocking New Features on Artificial Womb” »

Here’s why water bears could help us withstand nuclear warfare.

Welcome to the Radical Remission Project, the online community created by NY Times bestselling author Kelly A. Turner, PhD, author of Radical Remission & Radical Hope! We are dedicated to continuing research and creating community for survivors, patients, friends, family, and health professionals.

How does this work for the parent when they have a birth certificate but no baby to show for it, and no record of “disposing” of it?

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Safe Haven Baby Boxes and A Safe Haven for Newborns are two charities with similar names and the same goal: providing distressed mothers with a safe place to surrender their unwanted newborns instead of dumping them in trash cans or along roadsides.

But a fight between the two is brewing in the Florida Senate. An existing state law, supported and promoted by the Miami-based A Safe Haven, allows parents to surrender newborns to firefighters and hospital workers without giving their names. A new bill, supported by the Indiana-based Safe Haven Baby Boxes, would give fire stations and hospitals the option to install the group’s ventilated and climate-controlled boxes, where parents could drop off their babies without interacting with fire or hospital employees.

Continue reading “Florida fight over ‘baby boxes’ part of bigger culture war” »

An illustrated mid-career monograph exploring the 30-year creative journey of the 8-time Academy Award-nominated writer and director

Paul Thomas Anderson has been described as “one of American film’s modern masters” and “the foremost filmmaking talent of his generation.” Anderson’s films have received 25 Academy Award nominations, and he has worked closely with many of the most accomplished actors of our time, including Lesley Ann Manville, Julianne Moore, Daniel Day-Lewis, Joaquin Phoenix, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. In Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks, Anderson’s entire career—from Hard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch Drunk Love (2002), There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014), and Phantom Thread (2017) to his music videos for Radiohead to his early short films—is examined in illustrated detail for the first time.

Anderson’s influences, his style, and the recurring themes of alienation, reinvention, ambition, and destiny that course through his movies are analyzed and supplemented by firsthand interviews with Anderson’s closest collaborators—including producer JoAnne Sellar, actor Vicky Krieps, and composer Jonny Greenwood—and illuminated by film stills, archival photos, original illustrations, and an appropriately psychedelic design aesthetic. Masterworks is a tribute to the dreamers, drifters, and evil dentists who populate his world.

Homologous pairing (HP), i.e., the pairing of similar or identical double-stranded DNA, is an insufficiently understood fundamental biological process. HP is now understood to also occur without protein mediation, but crucial mechanistic details remain poorly established. Unfortunately, systematic studies of sequence dependence are not practical due to the enormous number of nucleotide permutations and multiple possible conformations involved in existing biophysical strategies even when using as few as 150 basepairs. Here, we show that HP can occur in DNA as short as 18 basepairs in a colloidal microparticle-based system. Exemplary systematic studies include resolving opposing reports of the impact of % AT composition, validating the impact of nucleotide order and triplet framework and revealing isotropic bendability to be crucial for HP. These studies are enabled by statistical analysis of crystal size and fraction within coexisting fluid-crystal phases of double-stranded DNA-grafted colloidal microspheres, where crystallization is predicated by HP.

We may build incredible AI. But can we contain our cruelty? Oxford professor Nick Bostrom explains.

Up next, Is AI a species-level threat to humanity? With Elon Musk, Michio Kaku, Steven Pinker & more ► https://youtu.be/91TRVubKcEM

Continue reading “The intelligence explosion: Nick Bostrom on the future of AI” »

The makers noticed that the processing time with GPT-4 was much longer than GPT-3 and made Ameca appear less responsive with her facial expressions.

In December 2021, we brought to you the ‘world’s most advanced humanoid robot’. Ameca, born of a UK-based company Engineered Arts, displayed a multitude of human-like expressions in August 2022. Now, the developers behind Ameca have released a new video in which the bot can be seen exhibiting its polyglot-like qualities — speaking several languages including Japanese, German, Chinese, French, British, and American English.

Continue reading “Researchers train ‘world’s most advanced humanoid robot’ Ameca on GPT-4, finds her less responsive” »