Neuralink will demonstrate a working brain-machine interfacing device at 3pm PT (6pm ET) on Friday. Musk says a second-generation robot designed to attach the company’s technology to the brain will be unveiled.
Intel scientist who built stephen hawking’s communicator is updating it with AI and GPT-2, open sourcing it.
An international team of researchers have discovered a new and highly conserved site on the SARS-CoV-2 virus that can be neutralized by a specific antibody. Previous studies have reported that antibodies that block the virus interaction with the human receptor (ACE2) have a significant neutralizing effect and can be used to save the lives of critically ill patients. However, this recent study published in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology describes a different target that can be bound in synergy with ACE2 blocking antibodies for a stronger neutralizing effect. Together, with a group at a hospital in Taiwan, the team using the Electron Bio Imaging Centre (eBIC) at the UK’s national synchroton, Diamond Light Source, to identify antibodies from a convalescent patient that could create a real potential for a drug target.
Antibodies are part of the body’s defense against infections. They are proteins that bind to pathogens such as viruses preventing them from coming into contact with human cells. Antibody therapies have shown promise in the treatment of COVID-19, especially for extremely ill patients. Antibodies harvested from people recovering from the disease can be injected into COVID-19 patients and can significantly reduce the severity of the disease and lessen the potential long term effects. There is also evidence that antibody therapy can prevent serious symptoms from developing when administered before an individual is infected.
Scientists were able to isolate an antibody named EY6A from a patient recovering from COVID-19. Subsequent structural biology studies revealed that EY6A bound to a novel target on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and demonstrated a new way of preventing the spread of COVID-19. “This finding is valuable because it comes from a real patient who had the virus. And the discovery of this new target means that more effective combination therapies which attack the virus at different points are now possible,” comments one of the authors Prof. Dave Stuart, Director of Life Sciences at Diamond Light Source and Joint Head of Structural Biology at University of Oxford.
Coronavirus testing is set to get faster. Yesterday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave an emergency use authorization to Abbott Laboratories for a 15-minute test that should ease bottlenecks. Analogous to tests that detect HIV and influenza, the new diagnostic detects viral proteins, or antigens, that are unique to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Unlike conventional coronavirus diagnostics, Abbott’s test requires no specialized laboratory equipment. Abbott says the new assay will cost $5, and the company intends to produce tens of millions of the tests in September and 50 million in October. By providing near–real-time answers on whether someone is infected, the novel test promises to let infected individuals quickly learn that they should isolate themselves and prevent further spread of the virus.
In ‘milestone,’ FDA OKs simple, accurate coronavirus test that could cost just $5.
Move.ai can use artificial intelligence to capture a 3D representation of an actor in a process known as motion capture. But it doesn’t need actors in Lycra suits with lots of white balls attached to them. And it enables game companies to do motion capture in a remote way during the pandemic.
That’s an important technological advancement, because the hassles of motion-capture systems have led to a stall in production for both movie makers and video game companies. Move.ai hopes to fix that with “markerless” motion capture that can lower the costs and hassles of doing the work.
The technology comes from a London company that started out capturing the images of sports athletes and turning them into digital animated objects. But the pandemic hobbled that business with the closing of physical sports events. Luckily, games need better realism to give players total immersion and engagement in an alternate reality, and that means that they need motion capture.
Featured Image Source: SpaceX
SpaceX was founded with the goal to create a spacefaring civilization. The aerospace company is actively developing technologies that will enable humans to travel to Earth orbit, the moon, and Mars. In May, SpaceX conducted its first crewed voyage to space. A Falcon 9 rocket propelled a pair of NASA astronauts aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft on a journey to the International Space Station (ISS). After a two-month stay at the station, the astronauts returned aboard Dragon; It crossed Earth’s rough atmosphere and conducted a parachute-assisted splashdown in the ocean. The successful mission marked the beginning of a new era in American human spaceflight. SpaceX demonstrated its spacecraft and rocket are reliable to safely carry out crewed missions to space.
Some rare people may purge most HIV from their bodies, leaving only broken copies of the virus or copies locked in molecular prisons, from which there is no escape.
Given all the changes Vladimir Putin is making in these days in the Russian constitutional order, ones that legalize the presidentialist dictatorship he has already created, many may have failed to notice that a law he signed restoring a key feature of the GULAG, the use of convicts as slave laborers, went into effect on January 1.
And while some may be inclined to dismiss this as nothing more than the nearly universal practice of using prisoners to produce things like license plates and road signs as in the United States, it is already taking shape as something worse and more ominous with Russian businessmen calling for setting up forced labor camps in parts of the country.
The law discussed, passed and signed by Putin last year calls for creating two kinds of labor camps: entire colonies where inmates will be put to work either for the state or for businesses on a contract basis and special “correction centers” attached to business sites.
MUST-WATCH video of a rocket launch as seen from the International Space Station. You can track the tiny spot rising into the darkness as if it’s an animated cartoon. But it’s REAL. Hopefully, it will soon be just one of the flights in the regular commuter network between the planets, a future #Asgardia seeks to make true as soon as possible.\n(Credit: NASA, ISS, Riccardo Rossi (ISAA))\n\nYou can make it happen sooner by sharing your ideas and joining #TheFirstSpaceNation’s Business Partnership Program!
