Lifeboat Foundation

In August 2015, astronauts on the International Space Station ate the first vegetables grown in space; earlier this month, they coaxed the first zinnias to bloom.

Though space agricultural technology hasn’t quite reached the level of that seen in The Martian, overcoming the challenges presented by zero-gravity to grow plants was a feat in itself.

Continue reading “How do astronauts grow plants in space?” »

We love meat. We love cheese. And for thousands of years we have relied on animals to make them. Impossible Foods has found a better way. We use plants to make the best meats and cheeses you’ll ever eat.

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Although the recent article and announcement of Josiah Zayner (CA scientist) new do it yourself gene editing kit for $120 sent shock waves across industry as well as further raised the question “how do we best put controls in place to ensure ethics and prevent disaster or a crisis?”; this genie truly is out of the bottle. Because Josiah created this easily in his own kitchen, it can be replicated by many others in their own homes. What we have to decide is how to best mitigate it’s impact. Black markets & exotic animal, etc. collectors around the world will pay handsomely for this capability and raise the stakes of the most bizarre animals (deadly and non-deadly) to be created for their own profits and amusements.

BURLINGAME, Calif. — On the kitchen table of his cramped apartment, Josiah Zayner is performing the feat that is transforming biology. In tiny vials, he’s cutting, pasting and stirring genes, as simply as mixing a vodka tonic. Next, he slides his new hybrid creations, living in petri dishes, onto a refrigerator shelf next to the vegetables. And he’s packaging and selling his DIY gene-editing technique for $120 so that everyone else can do it, too.

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This is an interesting conjecture.

We may be able to keep our gut in check after all. That’s the tantalizing finding from a new study published today that reveals a way that mice—and potentially humans—can control the makeup and behavior of their gut microbiome. Such a prospect upends the popular notion that the complex ecosystem of germs residing in our guts essentially acts as our puppet master, altering brain biochemistry even as it tends to our immune system, wards off infection and helps us break down our supersized burger and fries.

In a series of elaborate experiments researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital discovered that mouse poop is chock full of tiny, noncoding RNAs called microRNAs from their gastrointestinal (GI) tracts and that these biomolecules appear to shape and regulate the microbiome. “We’ve known about how microbes can influence your health for a few years now and in a way we’ve always suspected it’s a two-way process, but never really pinned it down that well,” says Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, not involved with the new study. “This [new work] explains quite nicely the two-way interaction between microbes and us, and it shows the relationship going the other way—which is fascinating,” says Spector, author of The Diet Myth: Why the Secret to Health and Weight Loss Is Already in Your Gut.

Continue reading “Does our Microbiome Control Us or Do We Control It?” »

It’s not always talked about in polite company, but your body produces a lot of gases scientists know little about.

A new smart pill, designed at Melbourne’s RMIT University, could help us learn more and may eventually assist in customising what we eat to suit our bodies.

Researchers from the Centre for Advanced Electronics and Sensors have developed the pill, which can measure intestinal gases, and they have now undertaken the first animal tests using the technology to examine the impact of fibre on the gut.

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The Wi-Fi Alliance branded its next-generation 802.11ah wireless protocol as Wi-Fi HaLow. It is targeted at the Internet of Things (IoT), which includes the smart home, connected car, and digital healthcare, as well as industrial, retail, agriculture, and smart-city environments. Unlike the older and more familiar 802.11 protocols, which mostly use the 2.4 or 5GHz bands, 802.11ah is a sub-gigahertz protocol that uses the 900MHz band. It has an enviable combination of characteristics.

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Andrew Ng hands me a tiny device that wraps around my ear and connects to a smartphone via a small cable. It looks like a throwback—a smartphone earpiece without a Bluetooth connection. But it’s really a glimpse of the future. In a way, this tiny device allows the blind to see.

Ng is the chief scientist at Chinese tech giant Baidu, and this is one of the company’s latest prototypes. It’s called DuLight. The device contains a tiny camera that captures whatever is in front of you—a person’s face, a street sign, a package of food—and sends the images to an app on your smartphone. The app analyzes the images, determines what they depict, and generates an audio description that’s heard through to your earpiece. If you can’t see, you can at least get an idea of what’s in front of you.

Artificial intelligence is changing not only the way we use our computers and smartphones but the way we interact with the real world.

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Artificial intelligence is moving so fast that within a decade, we will even be able to swallow computers so they can perform internal operations and release drugs.

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Speculations around whether biotech stocks are in a bubble remain undecided for the second year in a row. But one thing stands as indisputable—the field made massive progress during 2015, and faster than anticipated.

For those following the industry in recent years, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

In fact, according to Adam Feuerstei at The Street, some twenty-eight biotech and drugs stocks grew their market caps to $1 billion or more in 2014, and major headlines like, “Human Genome Sequencing Now Under $1,000 Per Person,” were strewn across the web last year.

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