Lifeboat Foundation

What if prospective parents had the opportunity to make decisions ahead of time about the combination of genetic traits their child would inherit? The question is more than science fiction, says Hank Greely, a law professor at Stanford University.

The underlying science and technology are advancing rapidly—and now is the time to consider carefully “what kind of legal changes would be necessary to try to maximize the benefits and minimize the harm of this new approach to making babies,” he says.

Greely explored the legal, ethical, and societal implications of emerging biotechnologies for a new book, The End of Sex and The Future of Human Reproduction (Harvard University Press, 2016), that envisions a world where procreation may not start in bedrooms, but rather in a petri dish in a medical clinic.

A new programming language allows scientists to custom-code bacteria that can measure the health of other cells, and administer drugs when necessary.

Like this article highlights; we will see a day soon when all techies will need some level of bio-science and/ or medical background especially as we move closer to Singularity which is what we have seen predicted by Ray Kurzweil and others. In the coming decade/s we will no longer see tech credentials relying strictly on math/ algorithms, code, etc, Techies will need some deeper knowledge around the natural sciences.

If you are majoring in biology right now, I say to you: that was a good call. The mounting evidence suggests that you placed your bet on the right degree. With emergent genetic recombination technologies improving at breakneck speed alongside a much deepened understanding of biological circuitry in simple, “home grown” metabolic systems, this field is shaping up to be a tinkerer’s paradise.

Many compare this stage of synthetic biology to the early days of microprocessing (the precursor to computers) when Silicon Valley was a place for young entrepreneurs to go if they needed a cheap place to begin their research or tech business. One such tech entrepreneur, the founder of O’Reilly media, Tim O’Reilly — who also coined the term “open source” — made this comparison in an interview with Wired magazine., O’Reilly further commented on synthetic biology saying, “It’s still in the fun stage.”

Continue reading “Introduction: Explaining the Future of Synthetic Biology with Computer Programming’s Past” »

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BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – The number of people being diagnosed with diabetes is growing. Every third American adult will develop type 2 diabetes within the next 35 years. But there may be a new way to manage the illness.

A new device might make managing your insulin levels or even treating allergies virtually painless. We know Western New York is becoming a hub for nano-medicine. Now a local organization is on the front lines of whats called nano- patch technology.

Continue reading “Nano-technology patch could help manage diabetes, treat allergies” »

Stuart Russell received his B.A. with first-class honours in physics from Oxford University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford in 1986. He then joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, where he is Professor (and formerly Chair) of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and holder of the Smith-Zadeh Chair in Engineering. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Neurological Surgery at UC San Francisco and Vice-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Council on AI and Robotics. He has published over 150 papers on a wide range of topics in artificial intelligence including machine learning, probabilistic reasoning, knowledge representation, planning, real-time decision making, multitarget tracking, computer vision, computational physiology, and global seismic monitoring. His books include “The Use of Knowledge in Analogy and Induction”, “Do the Right Thing: Studies in Limited Rationality” (with Eric Wefald), and “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach” (with Peter Norvig).

Abstract:

Autonomous weapons systems select and engage targets without human intervention; they become lethal when those targets include humans. LAWS might include, for example, armed quadcopters that can search for and eliminate enemy combatants in a city, but do not include cruise missiles or remotely piloted drones for which humans make all targeting decisions. The artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics communities face an important ethical decision: whether to support or oppose the development of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS).

This revolutionary surgery could change the way doctors treat knee injuries.

April 5, 2016, New York — People are using brain-machine interfaces to restore motor function in ways never before possible — through limb prosthetics and exoskletons. But technologies to repair and improve cognition have been more elusive. That is rapidly changing with new tools — from fully implantable brain devices to neuron-eavesdropping grids atop the brain — to directly probe the mind.

These new technologies, being presented today at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) annual conference in New York City, are mapping new understandings of cognition and advancing efforts to improve memory and learning in patients with cognitive deficits.

Eavesdropping on neurons

“A new era” of electrophysiology is now upon us, says Josef Parvizi of Stanford University who is chairing the CNS symposium on the topic. “We have gotten a much sharper view of the brain’s electrophysiological activity” using techniques once relegated to science fiction.

Continue reading “Invading the brain to understand and repair cognition” »

A Technicolor scientist surrounded by the latest virtual reality technology inspects a vial containing a few droplets of water—and one million copies of an old movie encoded into DNA.

The company has come a long way since the Hollywood golden age, when the world gazed in awe at the lush palette of “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gone with the Wind” provided by its three-strip cameras.

Now celebrating its centenary year, Technicolor’s laboratories are at the cutting edge of the science of filmmaking, leading a worldwide revolution in immersive entertainment.

A new programming language allows researchers to quickly design a DNA sequence with specific functions for living cells.