Lifeboat Foundation

Synthetic biologists at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and associates have developed a living programmable “ribocomputing” device based on networks of precisely designed, self-assembling synthetic RNAs (ribonucleic acid). The RNAs can sense multiple biosignals and make logical decisions to control protein production with high precision.

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A new type of camera built by Stanford engineers and funded by the NSF and Intel generates a four dimensional image that is capable of capturing nearly 140 degrees of information.

The 4D camera, built by Donald Dansereau, a postdoctoral fellow in electrical engineering and Gordon Wetzstein, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, along with colleagues from the University of California, San Diego is the first single-lens, wide field of view, light field camera ever made.

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In the hopes of rising above the laws and regulations of terrestrial nations, a group of Silicon Valley millionaires has bold plans to build a floating city in Tahiti, French Polynesia. It sounds like the start of a sci-fi dystopia (in fact, this is the basic premise behind the video game Bioshock), but the brains behind the project say their techno-libertarian community could become a paradise for technological entrepreneurship and scientific innovation.

The Seasteading Institute was set up in 2008 by billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel and software engineer, poker player, and political economic theorist Patri Friedman. Both ardent libertarians, their wide-eyed mission is to “establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems.”

“Seasteading will create unique opportunities for aquaculture, vertical farming, and scientific and engineering research into ecology, wave energy, medicine, nanotechnology, computer science, marine structures, biofuels, etc,” their website reads.

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http://reut.rs/2va7JDI via @ReutersTV

Advanced technological civilizations looking for efficient communication from one end of a galaxy to another would best be served by tapping into a network of transiting extrasolar earths. That is, extrasolar earths capable of being observed transiting across the face of their parent stars. Or so says an exoplanet researcher in the U.K.

Kepler-type space observatories out looking for transits of extrasolar earths, could also look for the telltale signatures of optical lasers or even alien macro-engineering projects that might be manipulated to signal another civilization.

Re-engineered macrophages to treat cancer.

Today we have a new study where researchers have created immune cells that ignore the way cancer tries to hide from detection.

Hiding in plain sight

Continue reading “Re-engineering Macrophages to Eat Cancer Cells” »

TEN FOLD develops ready-to-use, movable buildings and structures that unfold to provide any combination of space and facilities.

Made In Space has 3Dprinted a part on the International Space Station that is made from engineering-grade PEI/PC plastic.

HOUSTON – (July 12, 2017) – Rice University engineers are building a flat microscope, called FlatScope _TM, and developing software that can decode and trigger neurons on the surface of the brain.

Their goal as part of a new government initiative is to provide an alternate path for sight and sound to be delivered directly to the brain.

The project is part of a $65 million effort announced this week by the federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a high-resolution neural interface. Among many long-term goals, the Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program hopes to compensate for a person’s loss of vision or hearing by delivering digital information directly to parts of the brain that can process it.

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