Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers are making progress in understanding the biology of aging and learning ways it might be slowed down or even reversed.

NASA’s Curiosity rover, currently exploring Gale crater on Mars, is providing new details about how the ancient Martian climate went from potentially suitable for life – with evidence for widespread liquid water on the surface – to a surface that is inhospitable to terrestrial life as we know it.

Although the surface of Mars is frigid and hostile to life today, NASA’s robotic explorers at Mars are searching for clues as to whether it could have supported life in the distant past. Researchers used instruments on board Curiosity to measure the isotopic composition of carbon-rich minerals (carbonates) found in Gale crater and discovered new insights into how the Red Planet’s ancient climate transformed.

“The isotope values of these carbonates point toward extreme amounts of evaporation, suggesting that these carbonates likely formed in a climate that could only support transient liquid water,” said David Burtt of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of a paper describing this research published October 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Our samples are not consistent with an ancient environment with life (biosphere) on the surface of Mars, although this does not rule out the possibility of an underground biosphere or a surface biosphere that began and ended before these carbonates formed.”

Joscha Bach puts forward his radical theory of cyber animism.

Can the natural world be understood in terms of software agents?

Continue reading “A radical theory of consciousness | AI researcher Joscha Bach” »

A key challenge in the effort to link brain activity with behavior is that brain activity, measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), for instance, is extraordinarily complex. That complexity can make it difficult to find recurring activity patterns across different people or within individuals.

In a new study, Yale researchers were able to take fMRI data, reduce its complexity, and in doing so, uncover stable patterns of activity shared across more than 300 different people. The findings, researchers say, are a promising step forward in uncovering biomarkers for psychiatric disorders.

The study was published Sept. 24 in the journal PLOS Biology.

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Continue reading “#115 Alexander Rosenberg: Theory of Mind, History, Mental Illusions, and Nihilism” »

Bacteria can degrade particularly tough PFAS varieties.

Dr. Sanjeev Namjoshi, a machine learning engineer who recently submitted a book on Active Inference to MIT Press, discusses the theoretical foundations and practical applications of Active Inference, the Free Energy Principle (FEP), and Bayesian mechanics. He explains how these frameworks describe how biological and artificial systems maintain stability by minimizing uncertainty about their environment.

Namjoshi traces the evolution of these fields from early 2000s neuroscience research to current developments, highlighting how Active Inference provides a unified framework for perception and action through variational free energy minimization. He contrasts this with traditional machine learning approaches, emphasizing Active Inference’s natural capacity for exploration and curiosity through epistemic value.

Continue reading “The Hidden Math Behind All Living Systems” »

Bioengineered bacteria to eat plastic in seawater:3 Which in large quantities can eat all the plastic in the ocean:3 Yay face_with_colon_three

Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is a highly recyclable plastic that has been extensively used and manufactured. Like other plastics, PET resists natural degradation, thus accumulating in the environment. Several recycling strategies have been applied to PET, but these tend to result in downcycled products that eventually end up in landfills. This accumulation of landfilled PET waste contributes to the formation of microplastics, which pose a serious threat to marine life and ecosystems, and potentially to human health. To address this issue, our project leveraged synthetic biology to develop a whole-cell biocatalyst capable of depolymerizing PET in seawater environments by using the fast-growing, nonpathogenic, moderate halophile Vibrio natriegens. By leveraging a two-enzyme system—comprising a chimera of IsPETase and IsMHETase from Ideonella sakaiensis —displayed on V. natriegens, we constructed whole-cell catalysts that depolymerize PET and convert it into its monomers in salt-containing media and at a temperature of 30°C.

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What is information in biology? information is essential for analyzing data and testing hypotheses. But what is information in evolution, population genetics, levels of selection, and molecular genetics? Is computational biology transformational?

Continue reading “Terrence Deacon — Philosophy of Biological Information” »