Lifeboat Foundation

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30.03.16 — Public Release of Platforms Will Help Advance Collaborative Research in Neuroscience, Medicine, and Computing

The Human Brain Project (HBP) is pleased to announce the release of initial versions of its six Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Platforms to users outside the Project. These Platforms are designed to help the scientific community to accelerate progress in neuroscience, medicine, and computing.

The Platforms released today consist of prototype hardware, software tools, databases and programming interfaces, which will be refined and expanded in a collaborative approach with users, and integrated within the framework of a European Research Infrastructure. The public release of the Platforms represents the end of the Ramp-Up Phase of the HBP and the beginning of the Operational Phase.

Continue reading “Human Brain Project’s Research Platforms Released” »

We would also see a decrease in the hundreds of thousands of arthritis-induced knee and hip replacement surgeries every year.

Stem cells, human trials, regenerative medicine, yay!

Continue reading “A stem-cell repair system that can regenerate any kind of human tissue” »

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Researchers have developed a new and highly efficient method for gene transfer. The technique, which involves culturing and transfecting cells with genetic material on an array of carbon nanotubes, appears to overcome the limitations of other gene editing technologies.

The device, which is described in a study published today in the journal Small, is the product of a collaboration between researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

Continue reading “‘Honeycomb’ of nanotubes could boost genetic engineering” »

HUGE deal for wearables and biomed technologies.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a new approach to modifying the light absorption and stretchability of atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials by surface topographic engineering using only mechanical strain. The highly flexible system has future potential for wearable technology and integrated biomedical optical sensing technology when combined with flexible light-emitting diodes.

“Increasing graphene’s low light absorption in visible range is an important prerequisite for its broad potential applications in photonics and sensing,” explained SungWoo Nam, an assistant professor of mechanical science and engineering at Illinois. “This is the very first stretchable photodetector based exclusively on graphene with strain-tunable photoresponsivity and wavelength selectivity.”

Continue reading “Crumpling approach enhances photodetectors’ light responsivity” »

What if prospective parents had the opportunity to make decisions ahead of time about the combination of genetic traits their child would inherit? The question is more than science fiction, says Hank Greely, a law professor at Stanford University.

The underlying science and technology are advancing rapidly—and now is the time to consider carefully “what kind of legal changes would be necessary to try to maximize the benefits and minimize the harm of this new approach to making babies,” he says.

Greely explored the legal, ethical, and societal implications of emerging biotechnologies for a new book, The End of Sex and The Future of Human Reproduction (Harvard University Press, 2016), that envisions a world where procreation may not start in bedrooms, but rather in a petri dish in a medical clinic.

A new programming language allows scientists to custom-code bacteria that can measure the health of other cells, and administer drugs when necessary.

Like this article highlights; we will see a day soon when all techies will need some level of bio-science and/ or medical background especially as we move closer to Singularity which is what we have seen predicted by Ray Kurzweil and others. In the coming decade/s we will no longer see tech credentials relying strictly on math/ algorithms, code, etc, Techies will need some deeper knowledge around the natural sciences.

If you are majoring in biology right now, I say to you: that was a good call. The mounting evidence suggests that you placed your bet on the right degree. With emergent genetic recombination technologies improving at breakneck speed alongside a much deepened understanding of biological circuitry in simple, “home grown” metabolic systems, this field is shaping up to be a tinkerer’s paradise.

Many compare this stage of synthetic biology to the early days of microprocessing (the precursor to computers) when Silicon Valley was a place for young entrepreneurs to go if they needed a cheap place to begin their research or tech business. One such tech entrepreneur, the founder of O’Reilly media, Tim O’Reilly — who also coined the term “open source” — made this comparison in an interview with Wired magazine., O’Reilly further commented on synthetic biology saying, “It’s still in the fun stage.”

Continue reading “Introduction: Explaining the Future of Synthetic Biology with Computer Programming’s Past” »