Lifeboat Foundation

It’s too early to call it a miracle cure, but if the conclusions from a recent Phase 1 trial for a new drug called EXO-C24 are backed up in subsequent trials, we might have the first true breakthrough therapy for COVID-19. That’s in addition to coronavirus vaccines, of course, which will help prevent severe COVID-19 cases and deaths, and even reduce the spread of the illness. But while vaccines can give the immune system a heads-up to the threat it might have to deal with — the real virus — they have a few limitations. First of all, they don’t work on infected people. Secondly, vaccine supply is still limited and vaccinations aren’t available to anybody who might want one. Then there’s the threat of coronavirus mutations that might reduce vaccines’ effect on the virus and extend the pandemic.

New research shows that patterns inspired by lobster shells can make 3D printed concrete stronger, to support more complex and creative architectural structures.

Digital manufacturing technologies like 3D concrete printing (3DCP) have immense potential to save time, effort and material in construction.

They also promise to push the boundaries of architectural innovation, yet technical challenges remain in making 3D printed concrete strong enough for use in more free-form structures.

A breakthrough skin-gel is showing promising signs in Australian trials, with the ability to halt chronic pain in its tracks, halve healing time and even turn back the clock on ageing skin.

The gel, which is known as RM191A, is believed to be a new class of anti-inflammatory.

It’s a copper-based compound which is applied directly to the skin as a topical.

Review: Meat Planet (2019) by Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft

In the words of the book’s author, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food (2019) is “not an attempt at prediction but rather a study of cultured meat as a special case of speculation on the future of food, and as a lens through which to view the predictions we make about how technology changes the world.” While not serving as some crystal ball to tell us the future of food, Wurgaft’s book certainly does serve as a kind of lens.

Our very appetites are questioned quite a bit in the book. Wondering about the ever-changing history of food, the author asks, “Will it be an effort to reproduce the industrial meat forms we know, albeit on a novel, and more ethical and sustainable, foundation?” Questioning why hamburgers are automatically the default goal, he points out cultured meat advocates should carefully consider “the question of which human appetite for meat, in historical terms, they wish to satisfy.”

Wurgaft’s question of “which human appetite” – past, present, or future – is an excellent one. If we use his book as a lens to observe other emerging technologies, the question extends well beyond our choices of food. It could even have direct implications for such endeavours as radical life extension. Will we, if we extend our lifetimes, be satisfactory to future people? We already know the kind of clash that persists between different generations, and the blame we often place on previous generations for current social ills, without there also being a group of people who simply refuse to die. We should be wary of basing our future on the present – of attempting to preserve present tastes as somehow immutable and deserving immortality. This may be a problem such futurists as Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Near (2005) need to respond to.

If we are to justify the singularity at which we or our appetites are immortalized, we should remember technology changes “morality’s horizon”, as Wurgaft observes. If, for example, a new technology arises that can entirely eliminate suffering, our choice to allow suffering is an immoral one. If further technologies then emerge that can eliminate not just suffering but death, it will become immoral on that day to permit someone’s natural death – at least to the extent it is like the crime of manslaughter. I argued in my own book that it will be immoral to withhold novel biotechnologies from impoverished countries, if we know such direct action will increase their economic independence or improve their health. Put simply, our inaction in a situation can become an immoral deed if we have the necessary tools to stop suffering.

Continue reading “Artificial Flesh” »

We’re witnessing the emergence of something called “augmented creativity,” in which humans use AI to help them understand the deluge of data.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon developed an alternate method: an AI-based approach to mining the patent and research databases for ideas that could be combined to form interesting solutions to specific problems. Their system uses analogies to help connect work from two seemingly distinct areas, which they believe makes innovation faster and a lot cheaper.

Augmented creativity

Continue reading “‘Augmented creativity’: How AI can accelerate human invention” »

Single-objective light sheet fluorescence microscopes are driving innovation in volumetric imaging.

These were our top 20 most viewed blogs of 2020, in reverse order.

Amid all the doom and gloom in the world, some impressive scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs occurred, as we hope you’ll agree!

Every year, TIME highlights the best tech inventions. Check out their top 100 list for #2020 👇

Groundbreaking innovations that are making the world better, smarter and a little more fun.

The team focused on cytokines, small proteins released in the body in response to inflammation. They concentrated on the most elevated cytokines in COVID-19 patients and found one duo that stood out.

Turns out, the drugs to treat these cytokine reactions, or cytokine storms, already exist.

When tried on mice, the medication protected them from COVID-19 death and from sepsis, a deadly infection of the blood.

Continue reading “St. Jude scientists make breakthrough and discover possible COVID-19 treatment” »