Lifeboat Foundation

The Pacific Ocean is becoming more acidic, and the cash-crabs that live in its coastal waters are some of its first inhabitants to feel its effects.

The Dungeness crab is vital to commercial fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, but lower pH levels in its habitat are dissolving parts of its shell and damaging its sensory organs, a new study found.

Their injuries could impact coastal economies and forebode the obstacles in a changing sea. And while the results aren’t unexpected, the study’s authors said the damage to the crabs is premature: The acidity wasn’t predicted to damage the crabs this quickly.

Rather than each country formulating their own brain projects independently, the project argues, it’s high time for the world to come together and share their findings, resources, and expertise across borders. By uniting efforts, the IBI can help shape the future of neuroscience research at a global scale—for promoting brain and mental health, for stimulating international collaboration, for ethical neuroscience practices, and for crafting future generations of scientists.

“It takes a world to understand the brain,” said Caroline Montojo of the Kavli Foundation, which offered support to the project. “When we have the best brains and the best minds working together, sharing information and research that could benefit us all.”

The initiative, at the time of writing, includes Japan’s Brain/Minds, Australian Brain Alliance, the EU’s Human Brain Project (HBP), Canadian Brain Research Strategy, the US’ BRAIN Initiative (BRAINI), the Korea Brain Initiative, and the China Brain Project.

Some scientists think quantum mechanics can help explain human decision-making.

Generating and detecting sound waves remotely means patients can be spared the discomfort that sometimes comes with conventional ultrasound imaging.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is one of the most common and most devastating muscular diseases, greatly reducing patients’ quality of life and life expectancy. Now, researchers in Germany have managed to use the CRISPR gene-editing tool to correct the condition in pigs, bringing the treatment ever closer to human trials.

A protein called dystrophin is necessary for muscles to regenerate themselves, but people with DMD have a genetic mutation that removes the gene that produces dystrophin. That means that affected children usually begin to show symptoms of muscle weakness by age five, lose the ability to walk by about age 12, and rarely live through their 30s as their heart muscles give out.

Because it’s a genetic condition, DMD is a prime target for treatment with the gene-editing tool CRISPR. This system is prized for its ability to cut out problematic genes and replace them with more beneficial ones, and has been put to work treating cancer, HIV and forms of blindness.

In the future, you can set-up personal mini-networks with people you would like to share your thoughts…

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I’m excited to share my new opinion piece on AI facial recognition and privacy for IEEE Spectrum:

The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE.

Many people seem to regard facial-recognition software in much the same way they would a nest of spiders: They recognize, in some abstract way, that it probably has some benefits. But it still gives them the creeps.

Continue reading “Facing Up to Facial Recognition” »

An FBI agent says China’s deal with Charles Lieber, the chair of Harvard University’s chemistry department, paid him up to $50,000 monthly, along with another $150,000 per year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and health officials continue to grapple with the coronavirus outbreak that has killed at least 81 people in China and sickened 2,800 worldwide. And back in 2018, Billionaire Bill Gates gave a warning that the world wasn’t prepared for pandemics, which should “concern us all.”

Speaking at an event hosted by Massachusetts Medical Society and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on April 27, 2018, Gates said he believed “the world needs to prepare for pandemics in the same serious way it prepares for war.”

“This preparation includes staging simulations, war games and preparedness exercises so that we can better understand how diseases will spread and how to deal with responses such as quarantine and communications to minimize panic,” Gates said.