Lifeboat Foundation

In a significant development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers have developed a new category of wireless wearable skin-like sensors for health monitoring that doesn’t require batteries or an internal processor.

The team’s sensor design is a form of electronic skin, or “e-skin” — a flexible, semiconducting film that conforms to the skin like electronic Scotch tape, according to a press release published by MIT.

“If there is any change in the pulse, or chemicals in sweat, or even ultraviolet exposure to skin, all of this activity can change the pattern of surface acoustic waves on the gallium nitride film,” said Yeongin Kim, study’s first author, and a former MIT postdoc scholar.

It’s been over a month since we last updated our blog about our winter warrior, currently around 96 million miles away. At present the team is preparing for Ingenuity’s next flight, which could take place as early as this weekend. This 30th sortie will be a short hop – which will check out our system’s health after surviving 101 sols of winter, collect landing delivery data in support of NASA’s Mars Sample Return Campaign, and potentially clear off dust that has settled on our solar panel since Flight 29.

What’s Happened Lately

It’s still winter at Jezero Crater, which means overnight temperatures are as low as -124 degrees Fahrenheit (−86 Celsius). Winter at Mars also means the amount of solar energy hitting our solar panel remains below what is needed to maintain charge in our batteries both day and night. However, during the day the panel continues to create enough charge to make shorter hops possible. That’s what we did on Flight 29 and is our plan for Flight 30.

I have been invited to participate in a quite large event in which some experts and I (allow me to not consider myself one) will discuss about Artificial Intelligence, and, in particular, about the concept of Super Intelligence.

It turns out I recently found out this really interesting TED talk by Grady Booch, just in perfect timing to prepare my talk.

No matter if you agree or disagree with Mr. Booch’s point of view, it is clear that today we are still living in the era of weak or narrow AI, very far from general AI, and even more from a potential Super Intelligence. Still, Machine Learning bring us with a great opportunity as of today. The opportunity to put algorithms to work together with humans to solve some of our biggest challenges: climate change, poverty, health and well being, etc.

A more long-term alternative to using steroids.

It is estimated that more than 250 million people globally suffer from asthma, which also causes hundreds of thousands of fatalities annually. Therefore, finding a cure for the condition could be life-changing for a large number of people.

Scientists have now developed a new potential long-term treatment for asthma. The method, which not only treats the symptoms of asthma but also targets one of its causes, functions by preventing the mobility of a certain kind of stem cell known as a pericyte.

Continue reading “This Asthma Vaccine Might Be Trialed in Humans in Near Future” »

From health concerns to funding, there’s no shortage of obstacles preventing humans from traveling beyond our solar system. But the main obstacle is propulsion: Our spacecraft…

Google AI announced the launch of the Google Research YouTube channel today. The channel is set to focus on a wide range of subjects like AI/ML, robotics, theory and algorithms, quantum computing, health and bioscience.

This new invention is highly scalable since its raw materials are commercially available and easy to access.

A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) College of Design and Engineering (CDE) has developed a self-charging electricity generation (MEG) device that generates electricity from air moisture, according to a press release by the institution.

Imagine being able to generate electricity by harnessing moisture in the air around you with just everyday items like sea salt and a piece of fabric, or even powering everyday electronics with a non-toxic battery that is as thin as paper. A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) College of Design and Engineering (CDE) has developed a new moisture-driven electricity generation (MEG) device made of a thin layer of fabric — about 0.3 millimetres (mm) in thickness — sea salt, carbon ink, and a special water-absorbing gel.

Continue reading “NUS researchers invent self-charging, ultra-thin device that generates electricity from air moisture” »

Imagine being able to generate electricity by harnessing moisture in the air around you with just everyday items like sea salt and a piece of fabric, or even powering everyday electronics with a non-toxic battery that is as thin as paper. A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) College of Design and Engineering (CDE) has developed a new moisture-driven electricity generation (MEG) device made of a thin layer of fabric—about 0.3 millimeters (mm) in thickness—sea salt, carbon ink, and a special water-absorbing gel.

The concept of MEG devices is built upon the ability of different materials to generate electricity from the interaction with moisture in the air. This area has been receiving growing interest due to its potential for a wide range of real-world applications, including self-powered devices such as wearable electronics like health monitors, electronic skin sensors, and information storage devices.

Continue reading “Self-charging, ultra-thin device that generates electricity from air moisture” »

In this review, we undertake a critical appraisal of eight published studies providing first evidence that a history of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may increase risk for the later-life development of a neurodegenerative disease, in particular Lewy body diseases (LBD), by up to five-fold. Most of these studies have used data linked to health records in large population registers and include impressive sample sizes and adequate follow-up periods. We identify a number of methodological limitations as well, including potential diagnostic inaccuracies arising from the use of electronic health records, biases in the measurement of ADHD status and symptoms, and concerns surrounding the representativeness of ADHD and LBD cohorts. Consequently, previously reported risk associations may have been underestimated due to the high likelihood of potentially missed ADHD cases in groups used as “controls”, or alternatively previous estimates may be inflated due to the inclusion of confounding comorbidities or non-ADHD cases within “exposed” groups that may have better accounted for dementia risk. Prospective longitudinal studies involving well-characterized cases and controls are recommended to provide some reassurance about the validity of neurodegenerative risk estimates in ADHD.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a psychiatric disorder beginning in childhood that is characterized by core symptoms of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity (Biederman and Faraone, 2005; American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Faraone et al., 2015). Diagnostic criteria require symptoms to present in early childhood, before age 12, and cause impairment in daily activities in more than one setting (e.g., home, school, social environment, and/or interpersonal relationships; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Although it is largely considered a childhood disorder, 40–60% of cases of ADHD persist into adulthood (Culpepper and Mattingly, 2010; Michielsen et al., 2012; Volkow and Swanson, 2013; Asherson et al., 2016), and the overall prevalence of adult ADHD ranges from 2 to 4% (Kieling and Rohde, 2012; Fayyad et al., 2017).

ADHD may persist into later life as well. Roughly 3% of adults over age 50 suffer from significant symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Michielsen et al., 2012; Kooij et al., 2016), often presenting as executive dysfunction (e.g., absent-mindedness) and memory impairments (e.g., forgetfulness or difficulty learning new things; Rosler et al., 2010; Thorell et al., 2017; Callahan et al., 2021). These symptoms overlap with those of early neurodegenerative disease (Ivanchak et al., 2012; Pollack, 2012; Goodman et al., 2016; Callahan et al., 2017), and it is currently unclear whether ADHD is associated with an increased neurodegenerative risk, or if it is being misdiagnosed due to symptom overlap (Callahan et al., 2017). Clarifying this issue is crucial to reduce dementia misdiagnoses, and to guide treatment, which will differ depending on whether the disease course is assumed to be neurodegenerative or not.