Lifeboat Foundation

By Colin Jeffrey — Gizmag

The synthesis of complex small molecules in the laboratory is specialized and intricate work that is both difficult and time-consuming. Even highly-trained chemists can take many years to determine how to build each one, let alone discover and describe its functions. In an attempt to improve this situation, a team of chemists at the University of Illinois claim to have created a machine that is able to assemble a vast range of complex molecules at the push of a button.

A specific class of structures, complex small molecules are readily found in nature and are intrinsic to research in a wide range of scientific fields. In medicine, for example, many of the latest medications have been derived from the manipulation of small molecules. In the biological sciences, small molecules are often used to help reveal the interior mechanisms of tissues and cells. Even non-organic electronic technologies such as semiconductors, including solar cells and LEDs, require the creation and use of these miniature assemblies.
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Victoria Turk — Motherboard

As our devices get ever smaller, so do the materials we use to make them. And that means you have to get really close to see them. Really close. A new electron microscope unveiled at the UK’s national SuperST​EM facility images objects at an unprecedented resolution, right down to the individual atoms.

SuperSTEM is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and has three electron microscopes that UK scientists can use. The newest was unveiled last m​onth: a £3.7 million ($5.5 million) Nion Hermes Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope that EPSRC says is one of only three in the world. It can image objects a million times smaller than a human hair.

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By Joseph Flaherty — Wired

As portions of the US are battered by snowstorms and shrouded beneath gray skies, a European startup is developing a light fixture that mimics the sun.

Each CoeLux fixture models the sunlight of a specific locale, be it the cool color and strong shadows of equatorial countries, the even glow of Mediterranean sunlight, or the slightly dimmer and warmer, but more striking patterns found along the Arctic Circle.

CoeLux fixtures use traditional LEDs, calibrated to the same wavelengths as the sun. However, accurately recreating sunlight also requires mimicking subtle variations caused by the atmosphere, which varies in thickness and composition depending upon where you are on earth. CoeLux uses a milimeters-thick layer of plastic, peppered with nanoparticles, that does essentially the same thing in your living room. CoeLux’s inventor, Professor Paolo Di Trapani hasn’t made any disclosures about how the nanotechnology works in practice, but an impressive list of peer-reviewed publications, industry awards, and testimonials from customers provide comfort that these devices actually work as advertised.

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By Jason Dorrier –SingularityHUB

“No, no it’s not science fiction; it’s already happening,” said Ido Bachelet to a somewhat incredulous audience member at a London event late last year. Bachelet, previously of Harvard’s Wyss Institute and faculty member at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, is a leading figure in the field of DNA nanotechnology.

In a brief talk, Bachelet said DNA nanobots will soon be tried in a critically ill leukemia patient. The patient, who has been given roughly six months to live, will receive an injection of DNA nanobots designed to interact with and destroy leukemia cells—while causing virtually zero collateral damage in healthy tissue.

Continue reading “Can DNA Nanobots Successfully Treat Cancer Patients? First Human Trial Soon” »

Quoted: “Legendary cyberculture icon (and iconoclast) R.U. Sirius and Jay Cornell have written a delicious funcyclopedia of the Singularity, transhumanism, and radical futurism, just published on January 1.” And: “The book, “Transcendence – The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity,” is a collection of alphabetically-ordered short chapters about artificial intelligence, cognitive science, genomics, information technology, nanotechnology, neuroscience, space exploration, synthetic biology, robotics, and virtual worlds. Entries range from Cloning and Cyborg Feminism to Designer Babies and Memory-Editing Drugs.” And: “If you are young and don’t remember the 1980s you should know that, before Wired magazine, the cyberculture magazine Mondo 2000 edited by R.U. Sirius covered dangerous hacking, new media and cyberpunk topics such as virtual reality and smart drugs, with an anarchic and subversive slant. As it often happens the more sedate Wired, a watered-down later version of Mondo 2000, was much more successful and went mainstream.”

Read the article here >https://hacked.com/irreverent-singularity-funcyclopedia-mondo-2000s-r-u-sirius/

Quoted: “If you understand the core innovations around the blockchain idea, you’ll realize that the technology concept behind it is similar to that of a database, except that the way you interact with that database is very different.

The blockchain concept represents a paradigm shift in how software engineers will write software applications in the future, and it is one of the key concepts behind the Bitcoin revolution that need to be well understood. In this post, I’d like to explain 5 of these concepts, and how they interrelate to one another in the context of this new computing paradigm that is unravelling in front of us. They are: the blockchain, decentralized consensus, trusted computing, smart contracts and proof of work / stake. This computing paradigm is important, because it is a catalyst for the creation of decentralized applications, a next-step evolution from distributed computing architectural constructs.

Read the article here > http://startupmanagement.org/2014/12/27/the-blockchain-is-th…verything/

Univrsity of Oxford

A team led by Oxford University scientists explored the link between the electrical and optical properties of phase change materials (materials that can change from an amorphous to a crystalline state). They found that by sandwiching a seven nanometre thick layer of a phase change material (GST) between two layers of a transparent electrode they could use a tiny current to ‘draw’ images within the sandwich ‘stack’.

Initially still images were created using an atomic force microscope but the team went on to demonstrate that such tiny ‘stacks’ can be turned into prototype pixel-like devices. These ‘nano-pixels’ – just 300 by 300 nanometres in size – can be electrically switched ‘on and off’ at will, creating the coloured dots that would form the building blocks of an extremely high-resolution display technology.

Continue reading “'Nano-pixels' promise thin, flexible, high resolution displays” »

DETAILS DO NOT EVER SUFFICE. FOCUS AND FOCUS! [GRAPHIC]

“… Practice makes perfect …”

Authored By Copyright Mr. Andres Agostini

White Swan Book Author (Source of this Article)

Continue reading “DETAILS DO NOT EVER SUFFICE. FOCUS AND FOCUS! [GRAPHIC]” »

Written By: Jason Dorrier — Singularity Hub

Robots come in all shapes and sizes—some are mechanical, and some aren’t. Last year, a team of scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign made a seven-millimeter-long 3D printed robot powered by the heart cells of a rat.

The device, made of 3D printed hydrogel—a water-based, biologically compatible gel—had two feet, one bigger than the other. The smaller, longer foot was coated in heart cells. Each time the cells contracted, the robot would crawl forward a few millimeters.

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