Lifeboat Foundation

After tens of thousands of years of being trapped in Siberian permafrost, two female nematodes were successfully defrosted. Researchers say they are showing signs of life, moving and eating.

Computer scientists have been searching for years for a type of problem that a quantum computer can solve but that any possible future classical computer cannot. Now they’ve found one.

Last week, Hayabusa2 approached to within 6000 meters of the surface of Ryugu, taking new photos. The team has developed a set of terminology to describe Hayabusa2’s navigational positions around the asteroid.

While the rest of the world debates the ethics of designer babies, a team at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMass) have shown that we might not need CRISPR to change the genes of future generations. Their paper, released this week in the journal Developmental Cell, shows that things like diet and stress might affect some crucial genetic components of sperm, and that these tiny changes have real effects on how babies develop.

The same way rockets bound for outer space contain “payloads” like satellites, or astronauts who battle giant balls of urine, sperm are also like little rockets containing their own cargo: “small RNAs.” This study found that not only do RNA sequences play a crucial role in how genes get expressed early on in human development, but they can also be radically changed by the lifestyles of fathers. Things like diet, and in particular, stress can change the makeup of this crucial RNA cargo and lead to observable changes in offspring, says researcher Colin Conine, Ph.D., at UMass Medical School’s Rando Lab.

“Labs all over the world have been able to link changes in dad’s lifestyle to changes in RNA in the sperm, and then that leads to phenotypes in the offspring,” Conine tells Inverse. “Our study was one of the first to really look at how changes small RNAs affect early development. We wanted to ask, what are the first steps that lead to these phenotypes down the road?”

Continue reading “Changes in Sperm RNA May Shape Future Generations, Scientists Warn” »

Algorithms achieve a machine theory of mind.

Had fun reading some papers from the just finished Artificial Life Conference. Reading about adversarially-trained neural networks engaging in coevolutionary interactions for example.

Harvesting plants in microgravity with resident farmer, astronaut Ricky Arnold, studying tiny organisms and their big role in astronaut health and uncovering how the crew catches 💤’s aboard the International Space Station. For all this and more, watch the latest episode of NASA’s Space to Ground:

August 17th sees our friends at UC Berkeley hosting an aging research summit which is shaping up to be pretty interesting.

Please join us for a day of speakers, awards, poster sessions, and valuable networking focused on cutting-edge aging research and technologies. Our aim is no less than to reimagine aging and elder care. A percentage of the proceeds from this event will support scholarships for students interested in research on aging & elder care…