Lifeboat Foundation

A chance lab discovery is opening up the possibility for wide-scale improvements in drug screening, application of selective painkillers, and selectively nuking cancer cells. The mystery material? Graphene, a semi-metal that’s composed of a single layer of carbon atoms. It’s already being used to make flexible OLED displays and reduce the energy costs of desalination, but its potential benefits for the medical field look promising too.

It began with a theory — scientists at the University of California knew graphene could convert light into electricity, and wondered whether that electricity had the capacity to stimulate human cells. Graphene is extremely sensitive to light (1,000 times more than traditional digital cameras and smartphones) and after experimenting with different light intensities, Alex Savchenko and his team discovered that cells could indeed be stimulated via optical graphene stimulation.

“I was looking at the microscope’s computer screen and I’m turning the knob for light intensity and I see the cells start beating faster,” he said. “I showed that to our grad students and they were yelling and jumping and asking if they could turn the knob. We had never seen this possibility of controlling cell contraction.”

Continue reading “Graphene ‘stimulation’ could selectively kill off cancer cells” »

Efforts to connect human brains to computers have taken big leaps forward in recent years. Melding our minds with machines could provide the biggest single upgrade to human intelligence since our species evolved. But are we ready?

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Continue reading “When Thoughts Control Machines” »

Google says it expects to reach an important milestone for quantum computing this year. Not so fast, says Alibaba.

Connecting human brains to computers could provide the biggest single upgrade to human intelligence since our species evolved. Brain-computer interfaces are coming. But are we ready?

While a variety of quantum systems exist today, many are unable to scale to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems. Explaining the real-world obstacles of building a quantum system that scales, this post explores how Microsoft addresses these challenges through a topological qubit.

Many of us think we know what electronic waste is because we wonder what to do with devices we no longer want or need.

It’s the old cellphone and its charger stuffed in the drawer.

It’s that old laptop, monitor or printer packed behind the door or in the basement.

Continue reading “Almost everything you know about e-waste is wrong” »

By combining virtual reality with a brain-based computer interface, researchers hope to create more immersive, lifelike experiences for gaming and health care applications.

New research gives insight into a recent experiment that was able to manipulate an unprecedented number of atoms through a quantum simulator. This new theory could provide another step on the path to creating the elusive quantum computers.

Is it possible to exercise the same kind of control over the most complex network we know of: the human brain?

Rewriting Life.

How network neuroscience is creating a new era of mind control.

Continue reading “Neuroscientists see a new way to manipulate minds” »