Lifeboat Foundation

Vegetarians and vegans pay heed: New research shows plants know when they’re being eaten. And they don’t like it.

That plants possess an intelligence is not new knowledge, but according to Modern Farmer, a new study from the University of Missouri shows plants can sense when they are being eaten and send out defense mechanisms to try to stop it from happening.

The study was carried out on thale cress, or Arabidopsis as it’s known scientifically, which is closely related to broccoli, kale, mustard greens, and other siblings of the brassica family and is popular for science experiments. It is commonly used in experiments because it was the first plant to have its genome sequenced, and scientists are intimately familiar with how it works.

Continue reading “Researchers Have Found That Plants Know They Are Being Eaten” »

Was this story the inspiration for the Neural Lace Idea?

The influence of the groundbreaking 1995 anime movie “Ghost in the Shell” can be seen in everything from “The Matrix” to “Ex Machina.”

One of the best-known regions of the brain, the cerebellum accounts for just 10 percent of the organ’s total volume, but contains more than 50 percent of its neurons.

Despite all that processing power, it’s been assumed that the cerebellum functions largely outside the realm of conscious awareness, instead coordinating physical activities like standing and breathing. But now neuroscientists have discovered that it plays an important role in the reward response — one of the main drives that motivate and shape human behaviour.

Not only does this open up new research possibilities for the little region that has for centuries been primarily linked motor skills and sensory input, but it suggests that the neurons that make up much of the cerebellum — called granule cells — are functioning in ways we never anticipated.

Continue reading “Neuroscientists Have Accidentally Discovered a Whole New Role for the Cerebellum” »

Philosopher Alva Noë says there’s a big problem with neuroscience: It assumes brains produce consciousness.

Elon Musk wants to connect your brain to a computer.

By the age of four years we suddenly start to understand what other people think and that their beliefs about the world might differ from our own. We then manage to do what 3-year-olds are not yet capable of – we can put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig were able to show what supports this milestone in development: the maturation of a critical fibre connection in the brain.

Summary: Researchers identify brain areas associated with developing the ability to “put ourselves in other people’s shoes”.Source: Max Planck Institute. By the age of four years we suddenly st.

In this video series the Galactic Public Archives takes bite sized looks at a variety of terms, technologies, and ideas that are likely to be prominent in the future.

In this entry, we take a look at the rapidly developing technology of Brain to Machine interfaces.

Continue reading “Brain to Machine Interface: Future A to Z” »

History has shown us that only violence or huge disasters tend to reduce inequality. Which is frightening on it’s own.

The Great Leveller: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century By Walter Scheidel. Princeton University Press; 504 pages; $35 and £27.95.

AS A supplier of momentary relief, the Great Depression seems an unlikely candidate. But when it turns up on page 363 of Walter Scheidel’s “The Great Leveler” it feels oddly welcome. For once—and it is only once, for no other recession in American history boasts the same achievement—real wages rise and the incomes of the most affluent fall to a degree that has a “powerful impact on economic inequality”. Yes, it brought widespread suffering and dreadful misery. But it did not bring death to millions, and in that it stands out.

Continue reading “The lessons of violence and inequality through the ages” »

Somewhere in his packed schedule, he has found time to start a neuroscience company that plans to develop cranial computers, most likely to treat intractable brain diseases first, but later to help humanity avoid subjugation at the hands of intelligent machines.