Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Year: 2018

HANGZHOU, China—In a hospital west of Shanghai, Wu Shixiu since March has been trying to treat cancer patients using a promising new gene-editing tool.

U.S. scientists helped devise the tool, known as Crispr-Cas9, which has captured global attention since a 2012 report said it can be used to edit DNA. Doctors haven’t been allowed to use it in human trials in America. That isn’t the case for Dr. Wu and others in China.

In a hospital west of Shanghai, Wu Shixiu since March has been trying to treat cancer patients using a promising new gene-editing tool.

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By Jeffrey Dastin

SEATTLE (Reuters) — Amazon.com Inc will open its checkout-free grocery store to the public on Monday after more than a year of testing, the company said, moving forward on an experiment that could dramatically alter brick-and-mortar retail.

The Seattle store, known as Amazon Go, relies on cameras and sensors to track what shoppers remove from the shelves, and what they put back. Cash registers and checkout lines become superfluous — customers are billed after leaving the store using credit cards on file.

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Summary: Researchers say coffee prevents Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s for those consuming 3 cups daily. The brain health benefits of the beverage seem to differ between decaf and regular coffee. [Author: Brady Hartman. This article first appeared on LongevityFacts.com.]

Perhaps you’ve heard the latest news – the evidence on coffee’s health benefits is increasing every day.

In fact, new research shows that coffee protects your brain, and recent studies show that daily coffee drinkers have a significantly reduced risk of both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

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WASHINGTON — It should be no surprise that China is moving to challenge the United States for dominance in space, cyber, artificial intelligence and other key technologies that have wide national security applications. But the question that is still being debated is whether the United States is taking this threat seriously.

This may not be a Sputnik moment, but the United States could soon be unpleasantly surprised as China continues to shore up its domestic capacity to produce high-end weapons, satellites and encryption technologies, a panel of analysts told the House Armed Services emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee.

At the Tuesday hearing, Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said lawmakers are not entirely convinced that China’s dominance in many technology sectors is a “foregone conclusion.” But the committee does believe that China’s technological accomplishments should inform U.S. policies and defense investments. [The Most Dangerous Space Weapons Concepts Ever].

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If any organization embodies our idea of the classic mad inventors, just running amock with crazy ideas, it’s DARPA jumping dog robot? Sure. Self-guiding bullets? What can go wrong? Vertical take-off plane? Well, why not? Bioengineered spy plants? Wait, what?

Yes, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – DARPA – the part of the US Department of Defense responsible for developing technologies to be used by the military, is planning to bioengineer plants for intelligence gathering.

DARPA says its new program “envisions plants as discreet, self-sustaining sensors capable of reporting via remotely monitored, programmed responses to environmental stimuli.” Because that doesn’t sound terrifying at all. Somewhere between 1984’s foliage microphones and the classic “bug” in a pot plant.

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In last years CANTOS trial, the anti-inflammatory drug Canakinumab reduced heart attacks 25% and cancer by 50%.

(Part of the look back at the best of 2017)

Summary: The drug Canakinumab reduced heart attacks by 25% and cancer by 50% by reducing chronic inflammation, according to the authors of the recent CANTOS trial. [This report was originally published on LongevityFacts on Aug 27, 2017, and has been updated. Author: Brady Hartman]

In late August, researchers announced that they had found a breakthrough drug which reduces heart attack risk by one-fourth while cutting the risk of cancer in half. The researchers announced that the new medicine can prevent tens of thousands of deaths from heart attack and cancer.

Biggest Breakthrough Since Statins

Harvard researchers said the discovery promises to “usher in a new era” of treatment. Presenting their findings at one of the largest gatherings of heart experts, doctors hail the new drug as the “biggest breakthrough since statins.”

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(Part of the look back at the best of 2017)

Summary: Doctors lengthen telomeres with RNA therapy to reverse aging in human cells, according to a new research report. Telomere attrition is one of the nine hallmarks of aging. [Author: Brady Hartman] This article first appeared on LongevityFacts.]

Dr. John Cooke is department chair of cardiovascular sciences at Houston Methodist Research Institute and is the lead author of a recent paper published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Dr. Cooke’s team used RNA therapy to lengthen the telomeres of patients’ cells, making them younger in the process. In a video statement accompanying the report, the lead author remarked:

“We can make aged cells younger.”

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Back in April of 2017 Bitcoin.com launched a notary service that was based on top of the bitcoin core (BTC) blockchain. However, due to the transaction bottleneck and extremely high fees, the notary service became unsustainable. Now Bitcoin.com has re-launched the notary using the bitcoin cash (BCH) blockchain, and anyone in the world can prove ownership for only 0.0005 BCH (about $0.97).

Also read: Lots of Optimism at the Miami Bitcoin Conference This Week

This week Bitcoin.com has re-launched the blockchain-based notary service that was once tethered to the bitcoin core blockchain. Unfortunately, the service did not work correctly because of transaction backlog, and high network fees to verify documents. Now the infrastructure is tied to the bitcoin cash blockchain making document verification extremely cheap, and fees are practically non-existent. Right now a user can upload a document for only 0.0005 BCH ($0.97), and the network transaction fee is less than a penny. (It’s important to note that records don’t actually “exist” on the chain per say, it is merely timestamped encrypted data that is tied to the file that’s processed into a valid BCH transaction.) Not only that but the proof will be verified in less than ten minutes, and you can rest assure the notarization service will be validated.

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