Archive for the ‘neuroscience’ category: Page 216
Sep 7, 2018
DARPA’s New Brain Chip Enables Telepathic Control of Drone Swarms
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: computing, drones, military, neuroscience
The US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has created a brain-computer interface that enables a person to control everything from a swarm of drones to an advanced fighter jet using nothing but their thoughts and a special brain chip.
Life imitates art, in defense tech no less than in society. In the 1982 techno-thriller film “Firefox,” Clint Eastwood steals a fictional Soviet fighter jet called the “MiG-31 Firefox,” a Mach 6-capable stealth fighter he piloted with his thoughts. But now in 2018, the US military has gone even further: you can control a whole group of drones or fighter jets with your thoughts.
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Sep 7, 2018
Elon Musk: I’m about to announce a ‘Neuralink’ product that connects your brain to computers
Posted by Carse Peel in categories: computing, Elon Musk, neuroscience
Elon Musk smoked pot and drank whiskey on the Joe Rogan podcast and said he’s going to soon announce a new “Neuralink” product that can make anyone superhuman.
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Sep 6, 2018
New Synthetic Protein May Kill Cancer Cells Without Harming Healthy Tissue
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience
The new protein combined with a fat molecule could be particularly effective in fighting brain cancer.
Destroy cancer cells without harming healthy tissue.
That’s the goal of cancer treatment.
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Sep 6, 2018
A brain boost to fight Alzheimer’s disease
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the biggest medical challenges of our time. About 30 million people worldwide are living with Alzheimer’s disease, and the numbers are predicted to increase to 100 million by 2050 if we do not find effective prevention or treatment strategies (1). Substantial evidence suggests that leading a healthy lifestyle, including regular exercise, may lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. However, the mechanisms through which exercise protects the brain and whether we could bottle these as a treatment remain controversial. On page 991 of this issue, Choi et al. (2) reveal that in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, exercise improves memory through a combination of encouraging neurogenesis in the hippocampus and increasing the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a growth factor that supports neuronal survival. Their findings suggest that agents that promote both BDNF signaling and neurogenesis might be effective in preventing or treating Alzheimer’s disease.
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Sep 5, 2018
L.A. County Launches Tracking Program to Locate People With Dementia, Others Who Wander
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience
Los Angeles County officials launched a program Wednesday to help locate people with autism, Alzheimer’s disease or dementia who may wander off and go missing.
The program, called L.A. Found, will make use of bracelets that can be tracked through radio frequency by sheriff’s deputies. It will also create a new office, housed within the department of Workforce Development, Aging and Community Services, to coordinate a countywide response when somebody goes missing.
“If you get lost, we will help find you,” county Supervisor Janice Hahn, who championed the initiative, said at a news conference.
Sep 5, 2018
Globally, 1.4 billion adults at risk of disease from not doing enough physical activity
Posted by Bill Kemp in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience
More than a quarter (1.4 billion) of the world’s adult population were insufficiently active in 2016, putting them at greater risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia, and some cancers, according to the first study to estimate global physical activity trends over time. The study was undertaken by researchers from the World Health Organization (WHO) and published in The Lancet Global Health journal.
Together, these estimates demonstrate that there has been little progress in improving physical activity levels between 2001 and 2016. The data show that if current trends continue, the 2025 global activity target of a 10% relative reduction in insufficient physical activity will not be met.
“Unlike other major global health risks, levels of insufficient physical activity are not falling worldwide, on average, and over a quarter of all adults are not reaching the recommended levels of physical activity for good health,” warns the study’s lead author, Dr. Regina Guthold of the WHO, Switzerland.
Sep 5, 2018
The Omega Point Cosmo-Teleology: Our Forgotten Future (The Origins of Us, Part III)
Posted by Alex Vikoulov in categories: evolution, life extension, neuroscience, singularity, transhumanism
In my life as a human, I see clues that evolution on Earth and elsewhere in the cosmos at large is not being pushed from behind in entropic randomness but being pulled forward by complexification, natural selection and other evolutionary forces orchestrated by a strange unseen teleological attractor, in McKenna’s words “the Transcendental Object” at the end of time. One may see significant overlapping ideas between the transhumanist Technological Singularity and the Teilhardian Omega Point. The coming Technological Singularity could unravel one of the deepest mysteries of fractal hyperreality: consciousness alternating from pluralities to singularities and from singularities back to pluralities. We are already immortal, but the forthcoming Syntellect Emergence when your mind is digitized, will preserve some of your organic memories if you so desire, and most importantly, will ensure the continuity of your subjectivity into the higher realms of existence. #LifeboatFoundation
By Alex Vikoulov.
Sep 4, 2018
Lab-grown brain bits open windows to the mind — and a maze of ethical dilemmas
Posted by Derick Lee in categories: ethics, neuroscience
At the moment, minibrains are far from anything approaching moral personhood in a dish, and the technology may never come close. But the rapid pace of progress on organoids has led scientists and ethicists to call for a public ethical discussion that can move in tandem with the research.
Human ‘minibrains’ are far from conscious, but scientists say it’s time to talk about ethics.
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Sep 1, 2018
Ageing in Human Cells Successfully Reversed in the Lab
Posted by Manuel Canovas Lechuga in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience
The ability to reverse ageing is something many people would hope to see in their lifetime. This is still a long way from reality, but in our latest experiment, we have reversed the ageing of human cells, which could provide the basis for future anti-degeneration drugs.
Ageing can be viewed as the progressive decline in bodily function and is linked with most of the common chronic diseases that humans suffer from, such as cancer, diabetes and dementia. There are many reasons why our cells and tissues stop functioning, but a new focus in the biology of ageing is the accumulation of “senescent” cells in the tissues and organs.
Senescent cells are older deteriorated cells that do not function as they should, but also compromise the function of cells around them. Removal of these old dysfunctional cells has been shown to improve many features of ageing in animals such as the delayed onset of cataracts.
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