Lifeboat Foundation

DARPA has just launched the Engineering Living Materials program, with a vision to create building materials that grow on-site. The materials would be used to construct buildings that repair themselves and adapt to the environment.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has certainly had its hand in making the gizmos and gadgets we enjoy into a reality. The agency is still hard at work blazing the trail for the tech of the future, issuing challenges for the creation of the most advanced things on this Earth.

Continue reading “DARPA is Working to Make Homes That Grow And Can Repair Themselves” »

Leiden theoretical physicists have proven that DNA mechanics, in addition to genetic information in DNA, determines who we are. Helmut Schiessel and his group simulated many DNA sequences and found a correlation between mechanical cues and the way DNA is folded. They have published their results in PLoS One.

When James Watson and Francis Crick identified the structure of DNA molecules in 1953, they revealed that DNA information determines who we are. The sequence of the letters G, A, T and C in the famous double helix determines what proteins are made ny our cells. If you have brown eyes, for example, this is because a series of letters in your DNA encodes for proteins that build brown eyes. Each cell contains the exact same letter sequence, and yet every organ behaves differently. How is this possible?

Metallic hydrogen could be the room temperature superconductor we’ve been waiting for.

Researchers have used CRISPR—a revolutionary new genetic engineering technique—to convert cells isolated from mouse connective tissue directly into neuronal cells.

In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka, a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto University at the time, discovered how to revert adult connective tissue cells, called fibroblasts, back into immature stem cells that could differentiate into any cell type. These so-called induced pluripotent stem cells won Yamanaka the Nobel Prize in medicine just six years later for their promise in research and medicine.

Since then, researchers have discovered other ways to convert cells between different types. This is mostly done by introducing many extra copies of “master switch” genes that produce proteins that turn on entire genetic networks responsible for producing a particular cell type.

Mirror neurons allow individuals to, in essence, feel what others are experiencing. These neurons fire when an individual experiences something and when they observe the same or similar act happen to another.

Synesthesia, a neurological trait with more than 80 forms and growing numbers of people who recognize it in themselves, is mostly associated with famous creatives who have possessed it–from Pharrell Williams to David Hockney and from Mary J. Blige to Marilyn Monroe.

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Marvin Minsky talks about his love of science fiction.

Temporary tattoos are getting the high tech treatment with a new product that transforms them into multifunctional on-skin user interfaces.

DuoSkin, created at the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab in partnership with Microsoft Research, allows people to control their mobile devices, display information, and store data all while looking stylish with a metallic like tattoo on their skin.

Mars Cube One (MarCO) Mission Overview Engineers for NASA’s MarCO technology demonstration check out a full-scale mechanical mock-up of the small craft in development as part of NASA’s next mission to Mars. Mechanical engineer Joel Steinkraus and systems engineer Farah Alibay are on the team at NASA…

How do we gain the immense benefits of advanced nanotechnology while avoiding its potential misuse?

This was Christine Peterson’s big question when she co-founded the Foresight Institute, a non-profit think tank focused on nanotechnology, three decades ago. And she says it’s still her guiding focus today.

Continue reading “How Nanotech Will Lead to a Better Future for Us All” »