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Dr. Stuart Minchin, Ph.D. — Sustainable Pacific Development Through Science, Knowledge & Innovation

Is the Director General of the Pacific Community (SPC — https://www.spc.int/about-us/director-general) which is the largest intergovernmental organization in the Pacific and serves as a science and technology for development organization owned by the 26 Member countries and territories in the Pacific region.

SPC’s 650 member staff deliver services and scientific advice to the Pacific across the domains of Oceans, Islands and People, and has deep expertise in food security, water resources, fisheries, disasters, energy, maritime, health, statistics, education, human rights, social development and natural resources.

Dr. Minchin previously served as the Chief of the Environmental Geoscience Division of Geoscience Australia, and has an extensive background in the management and modelling of environmental data and the online delivery of data, modelling and reporting tools for improved natural resource management. He has a long track record of conceiving, developing and delivering transformational and innovative projects in the Environmental and Natural Resource Management domains.

Dr. Minchin has represented Australia in key international forums and was Australia’s Principal Delegate to both the UN Global Geospatial Information Management Group of Experts (UNGGIM) and the Intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO).

Dr. Minchin has previously been responsible for the Environmental Observation and Landscape Science (EOLS) research program in CSIRO and prior to that was a Principal Scientist with the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment.

Dr. Minchin has a PhD in Aquatic/Environmental Chemistry, from Monash University, where he also did his undergraduate work in Chemistry achieving a BSc (Hons). He also holds a BSc (Aquatic Science), Aquatic Chemistry and Aquatic Biology from Deakin University.

The Human Digital Twin

We are living a data revolution in the biomedical field, and scientific research is advancing at an unprecedented speed to improve modern medicine. One of the key aspects of such medicine is the tailoring of treatments to each patient, by analising the specific changes that led to disease along with the unique characteristics with which the person was born. The use of supercomputers is essential to make sense of the vast amounts of data, and to simulate aspects of our bodies to calculate for instance which drug is more appropriate for each patient for a given disease.

This video showcases some of the research done at the Life Sciences Department of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, contributing to a better understanding of our bodies in health and disease, and to a future where a Human Digital Twin can help to live healthier and longer.

China Covid: experts estimate 9,000 deaths a day as US says it may sample wastewater from planes

The United States is considering sampling wastewater taken from international aircraft to track any emerging new Covid-19 variants as infections surge in China, as UK-based health experts estimate about 9,000 people a days are now dying of the disease in China.

The proposed of testing wastewater by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would provide a better solution to tracking the virus and slowing its entry into the US than new travel restrictions announced this week, three infectious disease experts said.

EU offers China free vaccines as COVID-19 infections surge

BRUSSELS, Jan 3 (Reuters) — The European Union has offered free COVID-19 vaccines to China, the EU executive said on Tuesday, as infections there surged following Beijing’s relaxation of its “zero-COVID” policies.

China has not responded to the offer yet, a spokesperson for the European Commission told journalists at a regular briefing. He did not specify the amount of vaccines the EU was offering or their manufacturers.

“In view of the COVID situation in China, (Health) Commissioner Stella Kyriakides has reached out to her Chinese counterparts to offer EU solidarity and support,” he said.

Skip Zoom? Holographic tech allows you to ‘beam’ into your next meeting

The hologram device has been announced as a CES 2023 Innovation Awards Honoree. That’s two times in a row.

Zoom-like webcam chats could be going the way of the dodo, a new holographic technology is making waves to bridge the gap between the real and virtual worlds.

The original, patented hologram device from Proto M, created by a Los Angeles firm called Proto, was this week announced as a CES 2023 Innovation Awards Honoree in the category of Digital Health.


Mikkelwilliam/iStock.

People from all walks of life are beaming themselves into meetings in real-time from anywhere in the world, igniting the science fiction dreams of many who have eyed the likes of Star Wars, Avatar, and Prometheus (to name a few).

Triplets graduate from Georgia Tech at 18 with neuroscience degrees

ATLANTA — Three years after being named the first-ever co-valedictorians at West Forsyth High School, the Kashlan triplets graduated from Georgia Tech at 18-years-old.

Adam, Zane, and Rommi Kashlan earned neuroscience degrees with minors in health and medical sciences. They completed their degrees a year early and with honors. The trio will head to Boston to work and conduct research at Harvard Medical School.

“Inseparable, right, guys?” Rommi laughed. “You can’t get away from me!”

Altos bursts out of stealth with $3B, a dream team C-suite and a wildly ambitious plan to reverse disease

Altos Labs just redefined big in biotech. Where to start? The $3 billion in investor support? The C-suite staffed by storied leaders—Barron, Bishop, Klausner—identifiable by one name? Or the wildly ambitious plan to reverse disease for patients of any age? Altos is all that and more.

Early details of Altos leaked out last year when MIT Technology Review reported Jeff Bezos had invested to support development of technology that could “revitalize entire animal bodies, ultimately prolonging human life.” The official reveal fleshes out the vision and grounds the technology in the context of the nearer-term opportunities it presents to improve human health.

“It’s clear from work by Shinya Yamanaka, and many others since his initial discoveries, that cells have the ability to rejuvenate, resetting their epigenetic clocks and erasing damage from a myriad of stressors. These insights, combined with major advances in a number of transformative technologies, inspired Altos to reimagine medical treatments where reversing disease for patients of any age is possible,” Hal Barron, M.D., said in a statement.

Intelligent programmable meta-imagers: A timely approach to task-specific, noise-adaptive sensing

Sensing systems are becoming prevalent in many areas of our lives, such as in ambient-assisted health care, autonomous vehicles, and touchless human-computer interaction. However, these systems often lack intelligence: they tend to gather all available information, even if it is not relevant. This can lead not only to privacy infringements but also to wasted time, energy, and computational resources during data processing.

To address this problem, researchers from the French CNRS came up with a concept for intelligent electromagnetic sensing, which uses machine-learning techniques to generate learned illumination patterns so as to pre-select relevant details during the measurement process. A programmable metasurface is configured to generate the learned patterns, performing high-accuracy sensing (e.g., posture recognition) with a remarkably reduced number of measurements.

But measurement processes in realistic applications are inevitably subject to a variety of . Noise fundamentally accompanies any measurement. The signal-to– can be particularly low in indoor environments where the radiated electromagnetic signals must be kept weak.

Highly immune evasive omicron XBB.1.5 variant is quickly becoming dominant in U.S. as it doubles weekly

The Covid omicron XBB.1.5 variant is rapidly becoming dominant in the U.S. because it is highly immune evasive and appears more effective at binding to cells than related subvariants, scientists say.

XBB.1.5 now represents about 41% of new cases nationwide in the U.S., nearly doubling in prevalence over the past week, according to the data published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The subvariant more than doubled as a share of cases every week through Dec. 24. In the past week, it nearly doubled from 21.7% prevalence.

Scientists and public health officials have been closely monitoring the XBB subvariant family for months because the strains have many mutations that could render the Covid-19 vaccines, including the omicron boosters, less effective and cause even more breakthrough infections.

Career Counseling with Sonia Arrison

Seminar summary: https://foresight.org/summary/career-counseling-with-sonia-arrison/

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