Lifeboat Foundation

Summary: A new AI algorithm inspired by the genome’s ability to compress vast information offers insights into brain function and potential tech applications. Researchers found that this algorithm performs tasks like image recognition and video games almost as effectively as fully trained AI networks.

By mimicking how genomes encode complex behaviors with limited data, the model highlights the evolutionary advantage of efficient information compression. The findings suggest new pathways for developing advanced, lightweight AI systems capable of running on smaller devices like smartphones.

Stem cells grown in microgravity aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have unique qualities that could one day help accelerate new biotherapies and heal complex disease, two Mayo Clinic researchers say. The research analysis by Fay Abdul Ghani and Abba Zubair, M.D., Ph.D., published in NPJ Microgravity, finds microgravity can strengthen the regenerative potential of cells. Dr. Zubair is a laboratory medicine expert and medical director for the Center for Regenerative Biotherapeutics at Mayo Clinic in Florida. Abdul Ghani is a Mayo Clinic research technologist. Microgravity is weightlessness or near-zero gravity.

“Studying stem cells in space has uncovered cell mechanisms that would otherwise be undetected or unknown within the presence of normal gravity,” says Dr. Zubair. “That discovery indicates a broader scientific value to this research, including potential clinical applications.”

Dr. Zubair has launched stem cell experiments from his lab on three different missions to the ISS. His review paper provides data on the scientific question, “Is space the ideal environment for growing large numbers of stem cells?” Another key concern is whether cells grown in space could maintain their strength and function after splashdown on Earth.

Viruses known as bacteriophages are difficult to study, but they are beginning to give up their secrets.

“Life is incredible.” Here’s how a brain implant changed the life of Jon Nelson, who long suffered from severe depression. Now a patient advocate for startup Motif, he spoke to Emily Chang about the hope of using neurotech to treat mental illnesses.

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Advance paves the way for broad applications in medicine and biotech. Researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and the University of Rome Tor Vergata in Italy have developed synthetic genes that function like the genes in living cells.

The artificial genes can build intracellular structures through a cascading sequence that builds self-assembling structures piece by piece. The approach is similar to building furniture with modular units, much like those found at IKEA. Using the same parts, one can build many different things and it’s easy to take the set apart and reconstruct the parts for something else. The discovery offers a path toward using a suite of simple building blocks that can be programmed to make complex biomolecular materials, such as nanoscale tubes from DNA tiles. The same components can also be programmed to break up the design for different materials.

The research study was recently published in Nature Communications and led by Elisa Franco, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and bioengineering at UCLA Samueli. Daniela Sorrentino, a postdoctoral scholar in Franco’s Dynamic Nucleic Acid Systems lab, is the study’s first author.

The secret to cellular youth may depend on keeping the nucleolus—a condensed structure inside the nucleus of a cell—small, according to Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The findings were elucidated in yeast, a model organism famous for making bread and beer and yet surprisingly similar to humans on the cellular level.

The study, published Nov. 25 in Nature Aging, may lead to new longevity treatments that could extend human lifespan. It also establishes a mortality timer that reveals how long a cell has left before it dies.

As people get older, they are more likely to develop health conditions, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative diseases.

The genome-editing technology can be supercharged by artificial intelligence—and the results are already being felt.

Summary: Researchers have developed a new method to profile gene activity in the living human brain, offering new insights into neurological conditions like epilepsy. By analyzing RNA and DNA collected from electrodes implanted in patients’ brains, the study linked molecular data with electrical recordings of seizures, creating a detailed snapshot of gene activity.

This approach enhances understanding of seizure networks, potentially improving the precision of epilepsy surgeries for patients who don’t respond to medication. Beyond epilepsy, the method could have applications in studying Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and schizophrenia, advancing knowledge of brain disorders at the molecular level.

This is the first symposium of Xapiens at MIT — “The Future of Homo Sapiens”

The future of our species will be majorly influenced by the technical advancements and ethical paradigm shifts over the next several decades. Artificial intelligence, neural enhancement, gene editing, solutions for aging and interplanetary travel, and other emerging technologies are bringing sci-fi’s greatest ideas to reality.

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