Lifeboat Foundation

Ontario intends to provide a basic income to 4,000 people in three different communities as part of an experiment that seeks to evaluate whether providing more money to people on public assistance or low incomes will make a significant material difference in their lives. How people like Button respond over the next three years is being closely watched by social scientists, economists and policymakers in Canada and around the world.

Former security guard Tim Button considers how a sudden increase in his income from an unusual social experiment has changed his life in this Canadian industrial city along the shore of Lake Ontario.

Sipping coffee in a Tim Horton’s doughnut shop, Button says he has been unable to work because of a fall from a roof, and the financial boost from Ontario Province’s new “basic income” program has enabled him to make plans to visit distant family for Christmas for the first time in years. It has also prompted him to eat healthier, schedule a long-postponed trip to the dentist and mull taking a course to help him get back to work.

Continue reading “Canada tests ‘basic income’ effect on poverty amid lost jobs” »

Summary: Scientists discover that the anti-aging protein SIRT1 could be targeted to rejuvenate T cells in our aging immune systems. [Author: Brady Hartman] This article first appeared on LongevityFacts.com. Follow us on Reddit | Google+ | Facebook.

Anti-aging proteins in the sirtuin family have long been shown to protect against age-related diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurodegeneration. A new research study by scientists at the Gladstone Institutes now reveals that the protein called SIRT1 could also be targeted to rejuvenate aging immune system cells. SIRT1 is commonly known for being activated by naturally occurring substances found in red wine.

In the new study, published Wednesday in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the researchers found that SIRT1 is also involved in how immune system cells develop with age. The Gladstone scientists wanted to find out how the anti-aging protein SIRT1 affects the immune cells known as cytotoxic T cells. Also called killer T cells, these cells are highly specialized guardians of the immune system, and their role is to kill cancer cells, damaged cells, or those cells infected by a virus. More specifically, a cytotoxic T cell is a type of white blood cell and also a type of lymphocyte. To treat tumors, these can be separated from other blood cells, grown in a laboratory, and then given to a patient to kill cancer cells. Melanie Ott, a senior author of the new study, and a Gladstone Senior Investigator said.

Continue reading “This Anti-Aging Protein Could Be Targeted to Rejuvenate Our Immune Cells” »

In a Silicon Valley office park, a startup is developing a system that could automate greenhouse farming and help feed the world.

This cardiologist is betting that his lab-grown meat startup can solve the global food crisis.

A compound in dark chocolate and red wine could help rejuvenate cells, according to a scientific breakthrough.

Researchers from the Universities of Exeter and Brighton have made the sizeable breakthrough on ageing and discovered a way to rejuvenate inactive senescent cells.

They found that they could make the cells both look and behave like younger cells.

Continue reading “Eating chocolate and drinking red wine could help prevent ageing, according to a study” »

Engineers from Harper Adams University in Shropshire are working on machines that can autonomously plant seeds, weed, water and spray without a farmer needing to venture into the field.

Professor Blackmore said: ‘I am trying develop a completely new agricultural mechanisation system based on small smart machines.

Continue reading “Robots could be used on FARMS by 2020” »

Letters from a time capsule opened in the Russian city of Novorossiysk have revealed that Soviet students in 1967 believed their peers in 50 years time would be living on other planets and eating ice cream for free, while their homework will be done by machines.

Hundreds of time capsules were laid across the USSR in 1967 as the country celebrated half a century since the Russian Revolution, which eventually led to the creation of the Soviet state. Those messages, containing the accounts of Soviet people’s lives and their messages to descendants, are being opened in Russia this year, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the events of 1917.

READ MORE: Cruiser Aurora fires at Winter Palace 100 years ago, signals peak of Russian Revolution.

Continue reading “Soviet children in 1967 dreamt of space travel, free ice-cream & robots doing homework in 2017 World News” »

Japanese meat culturing project goes beyond hamburger to copy problematic delicacies like sea urchin, foie gras — and someday maybe dinosaur.

Following a $200 million investment this summer — the largest agriculture-tech funding round in history — vertical farming startup Plenty is expanding beyond its Bay Area roots.

The company is opening a second farm in the greater Seattle area, Plenty CEO Matt Barnard told Business Insider. Located in Kent, Washington, the 100,000-square-foot warehouse facility will grow 4.5 million pounds of greens annually, which is enough to feed around 183,600 Americans, according to the USDA.

The new farm will officially start production in spring 2018. Instead of growing outdoors, Plenty grows its crops on glowing, LED-lit 20-foot-tall towers inside a former electronics distribution center in South San Francisco. The towers do not require soil, pesticides, or even natural sunlight.

Continue reading “A new Jeff Bezos-backed warehouse farm will grow enough produce to feed over 180,000 people per year” »