Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Month: March 2019

As a passionate supporter of the advancement of women and recognition for their immense contributions to our world, I was thrilled to learn of a fascinating new initiative that launched today, in honor of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. This unique AI-powered web experience called Women Who Changed Science highlights the achievements of female Nobel Prize winners who broke new ground in physics, chemistry and medicine. Raising awareness of their tremendous impact, the initiative aims to empower the next generation of scientists.

Women Who Changed Science is an outgrowth of a new collaboration with Nobel Media and Microsoft and is one of Microsoft’s ongoing initiatives to build female inclusion and diversity in STEM fields. This new endeavor trains a lens on the inspiring journeys and contributions of female Nobel Prize winners who’ve significantly impacted our world for the better.

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Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations… If you adopt their attitudes, then the possibility won’t exist because you’ll have already shut it out… You can hear other people’s wisdom, but you’ve got to re-evaluate the world for yourself.

As a physician, Peace Corps volunteer, entrepreneur, teacher, dancer, and astronaut, Jemison has certainly lived her life in protest of people’s limited imaginations. Born in 1956, Jemison’s interest in STEM rooted early, and she enrolled at Stanford University when she was only 16. She majored in degrees in both chemical engineering and Afro-American studies, and she went on to receive an M.D. just four years later.

Jemison worked as a medical practitioner and served for two-and-a-half years in the Peace Corps as a medical officer. When she returned to the United States in 1985, she did something incredibly difficult: She pivoted her career entirely to pursue her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. Jemison applied to the NASA astronaut training program, was selected from a field of 2,000 individuals, and in 1992, became the first African-American woman to go to space.

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A new compound discovered by scientists at Scripps Research may prove to be a powerful weapon in the fight against one of the most aggressive and deadly types of cancer. Just like the cancer it fights, the compound is incredibly strong, selectively targeting the cells that allow glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) to rapidly take over the brain.

The research, which was published in a new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explains how the stem-like cancer cells of GBM promote growth of the tumor while also aiding it in recurrence even after a patient has had surgery. Stopping these cells from doing their deadly deed is crucial to successful treatment, and the new compound — which the scientists have nicknamed RIPGBM — does just that.

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Researchers have developed nanobots that can be injected using an ordinary hypodermic syringe, according to a new release. The nanobots are microscopic functioning robots with the ability to walk and withstand harsh environments. Each robot has a 70-micron length, which is about the width of a thin human hair, and a million can be produced from a single 4-inch silicon composite wafer.

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Unlike thousands of tourists who trek to admire the park’s iconic geysers and hot springs every year, the WSU graduate student was traveling with a team of scientists to hunt for life within them.

After a strenuous seven mile walk through scenic, isolated paths in the Heart Lake Geyser Basin area, the team found four pristine pools of hot water. They carefully left a few electrodes inserted into the edge of the water, hoping to coax little-known creatures out of hiding — bacteria that can eat and breathe electricity.

After 32 days, the team returned to the hot springs to collect the submerged electrodes. Working under the supervision of Haluk Beyenal, Paul Hohenschuh Distinguished Professor in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, Mohamed and postdoctoral researcher Phuc Ha analyzed the electrodes.

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When I joined the artificial intelligence company Clarifai in early 2017, you could practically taste the promise in the air. My colleagues were brilliant, dedicated, and committed to making the world a better place.

We founded Clarifai 4 Good where we helped students and charities, and we donated our software to researchers around the world whose projects had a socially beneficial goal. We were determined to be the one AI company that took our social responsibility seriously.

I never could have predicted that two years later, I would have to quit this job on moral grounds. And I certainly never thought it would happen over building weapons that escalate and shift the paradigm of war.

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Researchers at Cornell University in the US have created wirelessly powered walking robot bugs that are tiny enough to be injected through an ordinary hypodermic needle.

The microscopic robots, which are each just 70 microns long, were produced using a multistep nanofabrication technique that turns a 4-inch specialised silicon wafer into a million microscopic robots in just weeks.

“The really high-level explanation of how we make them is we’re taking technology developed by the semiconductor industry and using it to make tiny robots,” explained Marc Miskin, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who developed the techniques whilst a post-doc at Cornell University with his colleagues professors Itai Cohen and Paul McEuen and researcher Alejandro Cortese.

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A look at the upcoming Undoing Aging Conference on March 28-30th, Berlin, Germany and some musings on why you should consider going.

As Undoing Aging 2019 in Berlin approaches, I have been reflecting on the previous year and the things that I am most looking forward to this year. So, today, as a journalist and longevity advocate, I am going to be sharing some of my personal musings and thoughts about this important event with you.

First of all, for those of you unfamiliar with the event, a little explanation is in order. Undoing Aging is an industry conference on March 28–30, Berlin, Germany that is organized by the SENS Research Foundation and the Forever Healthy Foundation.

The event has a firm focus on the science and progress being made in aging research and will see many of the leading experts come together for three days of exciting scientific talks, panels, and discussions. Undoing Aging 2019 is the second conference in this series and is one of the must-go events of the year.

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