Lifeboat Foundation

The last chimp/human common ancestor died out between five and seven million years ago, giving way to the first pre-humans. But the lineage shared by humans and great apes split several hundred thousand years earlier than we thought, according to new findings. In other words, we split off from our furry friends and began our separate evolution into humans earlier than scientists previously argued.

Building A More Secure World — Dr. James Revill, Ph.D. — Head of Weapons of Mass Destruction & Space Security Programs, UNIDIR, UN Institute for Disarmament Research United Nations.

Dr. James Revill, Ph.D. (https://unidir.org/staff/james-revill) is the Head of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and Space Security Program, at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).

Continue reading “Dr. James Revill, Ph.D. — Head of Weapons of Mass Destruction & Space Security Programs, UNIDIR” »

This time I come to talk about a new concept in this Age of Artificial Intelligence and the already insipid world of Social Networks. Initially, quite a few years ago, I named it “Counterpart” (long before the TV series “Counterpart” and “Black Mirror”, or even the movie “Transcendence”).

It was the essence of the ETER9 Project that was taking shape in my head.

Over the years and also with the evolution of technologies — and of the human being himself —, the concept “Counterpart” has been getting better and, with each passing day, it makes more sense!

Imagine a purely digital receptacle with the basics inside, like that Intermediate Software (BIOS⁽¹⁾) that computers have between the Hardware and the Operating System. That receptacle waits for you. One way or another, it waits patiently for you, as if waiting for a Soul to come alive in the ether of digital existence.

Continue reading “Digital Doubles and Second Selves” »

On 30 January 2020 COVID-19 was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) with an official death toll of 171. By 31 December 2020, this figure stood at 1 813 188. Yet preliminary estimates suggest the total number of global deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is at least 3 million, representing 1.2 million more deaths than officially reported.

With the latest COVID-19 deaths reported to WHO now exceeding 3.3 million, based on the excess mortality estimates produced for 2020, we are likely facing a significant undercount of total deaths directly and indirectly attributed to COVID-19.

Continue reading “The true death toll of COVID-19” »

Klunk and colleagues identify signatures of natural selection imposed by Yersinia pestis and demonstrate their effect on genetic diversity and susceptibility to certain diseases in the present day.

This could give more immunity to viruses with the gene they found helped people survive the black death.

“We all think that COVID-19 was insane and completely changed the world and our societies,” Barreiro says. “COVID has a mortality rate of about 0.05% – something like that. Now try to project – if it’s even possible – a scenario where 30 to 50% of the population dies.”

Now a new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, shows that the Black Death altered more than society: It also likely altered the evolution of the European people’s genome.

Continue reading “Black Death survivors gave their descendants a genetic advantage — but with a cost” »

Scientists have finally solved a centuries-old riddle in the evolution of life on earth, revealing what the first animals to make skeletons looked like. This discovery was possible due to an exceptionally well-preserved collection of fossils discovered in eastern Yunnan Province, China. The results of the research were published on November 2 in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

During an event called the Cambrian Explosion around 550–520 million years ago, the first animals to build hard and robust skeletons appear suddenly in the fossil record in a geological blink of an eye. Many of these early fossils are simple hollow tubes ranging from a few millimeters to many centimeters in length. However, what sort of animals made these skeletons was almost completely unknown, because they lack preservation of the soft parts needed to identify them as belonging to major groups of animals that are still alive today.

A recently released set of topography maps provides new evidence for an ancient northern ocean on Mars. The maps offer the strongest case yet that the planet once experienced sea-level rise consistent with an extended warm and wet climate, not the harsh, frozen landscape that exists today.

“What immediately comes to mind as one the most significant points here is that the existence of an ocean of this size means a higher potential for life,” said Benjamin Cardenas, assistant professor of geosciences at Penn State and lead author on the study recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

Continue reading “Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars” »

The so-called Deltacron variant is back this fall, with the potential to be the next big thing in COVID viral evolution, scientists say.