Lifeboat Foundation

An international team of researchers has developed a new algorithm that could one day help scientists reprogram cells to plug any kind of gap in the human body. The computer code model, called Mogrify, is designed to make the process of creating pluripotent stem cells much quicker and more straightforward than ever before.

A pluripotent stem cell is one that has the potential to become any type of specialised cell in the body: eye tissue, or a neural cell, or cells to build a heart. In theory, that would open up the potential for doctors to regrow limbs, make organs to order, and patch up the human body in all kinds of ways that aren’t currently possible.

It was Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka who first reprogrammed cells in this way back in 2007 — it later earned him a Nobel Prize — but Yamanaka’s work involved a lot of labourious trial and error, and the process he followed is not an easy one to reproduce. Mogrify aims to compute the required set of factors to change cells instead, and it’s passed its early tests with flying colours.

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Scientists hope to create a computer that can interpret, analyze, and process information with the same efficiency as a human.

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As recently as 50 years ago, psychiatry lacked a scientific foundation, the medical community considered mental illness a disorder of the mind, and mental patients were literally written off as “sick in the head.” A fortunate turn in progress has yielded today’s modern imaging devices, which allow neuroscientists and psychiatrists to examine the brain of an individual suffering from a mental disorder and provide the best treatment options. In a recent interview, Columbia University Psychiatry Chair Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman stated that new research into understanding the mind is growing at an accelerated pace.

(iStock)

Lieberman noted that, just as Galileo couldn’t prove heliocentrism until he had a telescope, psychiatry lacked the technological sophistication, tools, and instruments necessary to get an understanding of the brain until the 1950s. It wasn’t until the advent of psychopharmacology and neuroimaging, he said, that researchers could look inside the so-called black box that is the brain.

“(It began with) the CAT scan, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems, positron emission tomography (PET scans) and then molecular genetics. Most recently, the burgeoning discipline of neuroscience and all of the methods within, beginning with molecular biology and progressing to optogenetics, this capacity has given researchers the ability to deconstruct the brain, understand its integral components, its mechanisms of action and how they underpin mental function and behavior,” Lieberman said. “The momentum that has built is almost like Moore’s law with computer chips, (and) you see this increasing power occurring with exponential sort of growth.”

Continue reading “How Technology Changes the Way We Diagnose and Treat Mental Illness” »

Luv the whole beautiful picture of a Big Data Quantum Computing Cloud. And, we’re definitely going to need it for all of our data demands and performance demands when you layer in the future of AI (including robotics), wearables, our ongoing convergence to singularity with nanobots and other BMI technologies. Why we could easily exceed $4.6 bil by 2021.

From gene mapping to space exploration, humanity continues to generate ever-larger sets of data—far more information than people can actually process, manage, or understand.

Machine learning systems can help researchers deal with this ever-growing flood of information. Some of the most powerful of these analytical tools are based on a strange branch of geometry called topology, which deals with properties that stay the same even when something is bent and stretched every which way.

Continue reading “Big Data And Quantum Computers” »

More insights for AI research.

The complex multi-stage architecture of cortical visual pathways provides the neural basis for efficient visual object recognition in humans. However, the stage-wise computations therein remain poorly understood. Here, we compared temporal (magnetoencephalography) and spatial (functional MRI) visual brain representations with representations in an artificial deep neural network (DNN) tuned to the statistics of real-world visual recognition. We showed that the DNN captured the stages of human visual processing in both time and space from early visual areas towards the dorsal and ventral streams. Further investigation of crucial DNN parameters revealed that while model architecture was important, training on real-world categorization was necessary to enforce spatio-temporal hierarchical relationships with the brain. Together our results provide an algorithmically informed view on the spatio-temporal dynamics of visual object recognition in the human visual brain.

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Interesting

Scientists have implanted a wireless device the size of a peppercorn inside mice to stimulate nerves.

The technique combines optogenetics—using light to control the activity of the brain—with a newly developed method for wirelessly powering implanted devices. It’s described in a paper published in Nature Methods.

Continue reading “A tiny device inside of mice sends light to nerves” »

DoD spending $12 to $15 billion of its FY17 budget on small bets that includes NextGen tech improvements — WOW. Given the DARPA new Neural Engineering System Design (NESD); guessing we may finally have a Brain Mind Interface (BMI) soldier in the future.

The Defense Department will invest the $12 billion to $15 billion from its Fiscal Year 2017 budget slotted for developing a Third Offset Strategy on several relatively small bets, hoping to produce game-changing technology, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

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Dear readers,

I had the honor of speaking on the future of technology at the Nobel Prize gatherings in Gothenburg, Sweden. Every year, the Nobel Prize picks a theme of interest to the world on the state of sciences in different arenas. This year’s theme was the future of intelligence, with a focus on different technologies that are changing our ability to see and understand large sets of information and create computer systems that might reach human level thinking — I believe that progress is accelerating.

Continue reading “Ray Kurzweil keynote and panel at Nobel Week Dialog from the Nobel Prize” »

I must admit some of the information in this article is making me scratch my head a lttle. However, I do believe that many of us who wish to remain relevant in the future (especially in industry and government) will find ourselves requiring a Brain Mind Interface (BMI) of some sort whether it’s an implant or nanobot; folks will find that they have to have one in order to work or function in society.

Transhumanists claim complete freedom to modify their bodies, but that absolutist stance could endanger future generations.

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