Lifeboat Foundation

COVID-19 Drugs: Canadian researchers from the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) and the Université de Montréal announced the clinical trial findings of the COLCORONA study (NCT04322682), which was a phase 3, randomized, double-blind, adaptive, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial of the oral anti-inflammatory medication called Colchicine on hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The stu…

TIL a preprint publication points to another commonality found in blue zones: their lack of birth records. Author Dr. Saul Justin Newman concludes, “the designated ‘blue zones’ of Sardinia, Okinawa, and Icaria corresponded to regions with low incomes, low literacy, high crime rate and short life expectancy relative to their national average. As such, relative poverty and short lifespan constitute unexpected predictors of centenarian and supercentenarian status, and support a primary role of fraud and error in generating remarkable human age records.”

Can the blue zone diet help with longevity? We investigate Dan Buettner’s claims about blue zones and the corresponding lifestyle.

Each city is populated by a unique host of microbial organisms, and this microbial ‘fingerprint’ is so distinctive, the DNA on your shoe is likely enough to identify where you live, scientists say.

In a new study, researchers took thousands of samples from mass transit systems in 60 cities across the world, swabbing common touch points like turnstiles and railings in bustling subways and bus stations across the world.

Subjecting over 4700 of the collected samples to metagenomic sequencing (the study of genetic material collected from the environment), scientists created a global atlas of the urban microbial ecosystem, which they say is the first systematic catalog of its kind.

Researchers say we’re unlikely to ever be able to contain a large enough superintelligent artificial intelligence.

The premise sounds scary, but knowing the odds will help scientists who work on these projects.

Self-teaching AI already exists and can teach itself things programmers don’t “fully understand.”

Continue reading “Calculations Show Humans Can’t Contain Superintelligent Machines” »

A potentially new species of tree frog has been discovered in New Guinea, and it’s full of surprises. For starters, instead of the bright green skin of its relatives, this creature sports a beautiful chocolate brown.

Amazon’s experiment wireless mesh networking turns users into guinea pigs.

Not everything will die.

“Within the first few hours after the impact, it really quickly turns the Earth into this horrible scorched hellscape.”

NASA scientists say that an asteroid that sped past Earth on Friday will get close enough to potentially collide with orbiting satellites in 2029.

Perovskite solar cells are advancing at a rapid rate, and is drawing interest from scientists working to not just boost their performance but better understand how they offer such incredible, ever-increasing efficiencies. By turning their tools to perovskite crystals scientists have discovered unexpected behavior that represents an entirely new state of matter, which they say can help drive the development of advanced solar cells and other optical and electronic devices.

One of the reasons there is such interest around perovskite solar cells is the counter-intuitive way they are able to offer such excellent performance in spite of defects in their crystal structure. While much research focuses on fixing these defects to boost their efficiency, through chemical treatments, molecular glue or even sprinklings of chili compounds, the fact remains that the material is a far more effective semiconductor than it should be.

“Historically, people have been using bulk semiconductors that are perfect crystals,” says senior author Patanjali Kambhampati, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry at McGill University. “And now, all of a sudden, this imperfect, soft crystal starts to work for semiconductor applications, from photovoltaics to LEDs. That’s the starting point for our research: how can something that’s defective work in a perfect way?”