Lifeboat Foundation

Coming from a long line of educators all the way back to her great-grandmother, Toysha Mayer, D.H.Sc., swore she’d choose a different career.

“I didn’t want to teach, but after becoming a histotechnologist, I ended up working in teaching hospitals. It was a natural progression for me to work with new technicians, residents and fellows,” says the assistant professor and associate program director for Histotechnology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center School of Health Professions (SHP). Histotechnologists prepare patients’ tissues so our pathologists can make precise diagnoses for diseases like cancer.

Managing Director of Cyber Security Consulting at Verizon.

It’s no surprise firewalls and encryption are instrumental to help defend against cyberattacks, but those tools can’t defend against one of the largest cybersecurity threats: people.

Social engineering—manipulating individuals to divulge sensitive information—is on the rise, even as organizations increasingly implement cybersecurity education and training. While social engineering already poses a challenge for organizations, AI might make it even more of a threat.

Evolutionary biologist Jay T. Lennon’s research team has been studying a synthetically constructed minimal cell that has been stripped of all but its essential genes. The team found that the streamlined cell can evolve just as fast as a normal cell—demonstrating the capacity for organisms to adapt, even with an unnatural genome that would seemingly provide little flexibility.

Details about the study can be found in a paper featured in Nature. Roy Z. Moger-Reischer, a Ph.D. student in the Lennon lab at the time of the study, is first author on the paper.

“Listen, if there’s one thing the history of evolution has taught us is that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories, and it crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even dangerously, but… ife finds a way,” said Ian Malcolm, Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurassic Park, the 1993 science fiction film about a park with living dinosaurs.

Sponges might not look like particularly complex animals, but they’ve had billions of years to evolve their own special systems. And one of those systems might involve sending messages through their body in the form of light.

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Continue reading “Can Sponges ‘Think’ Using Light?” »

The term ‘quantum computer’ gets usually tossed around in the context of hyper-advanced, state-of-the-art computing devices, but much as how a 19th century mechanical computer, a discrete computer created from individual transistors, and a human being are all computers, the important quantifier is how fast and accurate the system is at the task, whether classical or quantum computing. This is demonstrated succinctly by [Davide ‘dakk’ Gessa] with 200 lines of BASIC code on a Commodore 64 (GitHub), implementing a range of quantum gates.

Much like a transistor in classical computing, the qubit forms the core of quantum computing, and we have known for a long time that a qubit can be simulated, even on something as mundane as an 8-bit MPU. Ergo [Davide]’s simulations of various quantum gates on a C64, ranging from Pauli-X, Pauli-Y, Pauli-Z, Hadamard, CNOT and SWAP, all using a two-qubit system running on a system that first saw the light of day in the early 1980s.

Naturally, the practical use of simulating a two-qubit system on a general-purpose MPU running at a blistering ~1 MHz is quite limited, but as a teaching tool it’s incredibly accessible and a fun way to introduce people to the world of quantum computing.

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) – Artificial intelligence is already revolutionizing society – from healthcare and education to cybersecurity and even our courts. Despite all of its benefits, it has also given criminals an edge when it comes to deceiving us.

Financial sextortion is a crime in which a bad actor attempts to leverage personal material (think: naked pictures or videos) to force a victim into giving into their demands — usually money or other compromising material.

• Cultivating critical thinking: Emphasizing critical thinking skills equips students with the ability to analyze information, evaluate its credibility and make informed decisions. Encouraging open-mindedness, creativity and curiosity fosters independent thinking and problem-solving abilities.

• Contextual learning: Educators should design learning experiences that integrate real-world contexts, enabling students to understand the dynamic nature of information and adapt their knowledge to diverse situations. This approach encourages adaptability, resilience and a deeper understanding of the implications of changing contexts.

As automation continues to reshape the world of work, recognizing the inherent value of human skills becomes paramount. Emotion and context are two indispensable components that differentiate humans from machines and underpin critical aspects of work, such as effective communication, problem-solving and judgment. Nurturing these skills through educational systems will empower individuals to thrive in an automated future, ensuring they possess the abilities that automation cannot replicate. By embracing a holistic approach to education that integrates technical proficiency with emotional intelligence, critical thinking and contextual understanding, we can prepare the workforce of tomorrow to embrace the opportunities and challenges brought by automation while leveraging their uniquely human capabilities.

Natalie Portman may be an Oscar winner, but don’t count out her other academic achievements. Portman put her acting career on hold to study at Harvard. During her time at the Ivy League school she worked as a research assistant in a psychology lab and managed to have two papers published in professional science journals. All of this on top of the four languages she studied while at school.

Serious Safety Questions about the first paying space tourism flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo while wishing them the best.

Congratulations to Virgin Galactic for a successful mission today! I looked great! But there are still serious safety questions about the missions going forward about paying space tourism flights on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo. I do wish Virgin Galactic the best on their venture going forward!

Continue reading “Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Safety Questions” »