#DidYouKnow : NASA Dawn Mission is the only spacecraft that has ever orbited two worlds beyond Earth. Watch our experts discuss 11 years of scientific discovery, breathtaking imagery and unprecedented feats of engineering from the mission: https://go.nasa.gov/2qlECc9
If you haven’t heard, universities around the world are offering their courses online for free (or at least partially free). These courses are collectively called MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses.
In the past six years or so, over 800 universities have created more than 10,000 of these MOOCs. And I’ve been keeping track of these MOOCs the entire time over at Class Central, ever since they rose to prominence.
In the past four months alone, 190 universities have announced 600 such free online courses. I’ve compiled a list of them and categorized them according to the following subjects: Computer Science, Mathematics, Programming, Data Science, Humanities, Social Sciences, Education & Teaching, Health & Medicine, Business, Personal Development, Engineering, Art & Design, and finally Science.
A team of Tufts University-led researchers has developed three-dimensional (3D) human tissue culture models for the central nervous system that mimic structural and functional features of the brain and demonstrate neural activity sustained over a period of many months. With the ability to populate a 3D matrix of silk protein and collagen with cells from patients with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other conditions, the tissue models allow for the exploration of cell interactions, disease progression and response to treatment. The development and characterization of the models are reported today in ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering, a journal of the American Chemical Society.
The new 3D brain tissue models overcome a key challenge of previous models –the availability of human source neurons. This is due to the fact that neurological tissues are rarely removed from healthy patients and are usually only available post-mortem from diseased patients. The 3D tissue models are instead populated with human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that can be derived from many sources, including patient skin. The iPSCs are generated by turning back the clock on cell development to their embryonic-like precursors. They can then be dialed forward again to any cell type, including neurons.
The 3D brain tissue models were the result of a collaborative effort between engineering and the medical sciences and included researchers from Tufts University School of Engineering, Tufts University School of Medicine, the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts, and the Jackson Laboratory.
Ms. Powell does not have any easy or obvious ideas for how to address tech’s monoculture. She thinks of her book as starting a conversation. But any solution, she said, will involve “a fundamental, bottoms-up cultural change” — and one that we should not expect to see overnight.
In a satirical new novel, a former Google executive identifies the technology industry’s chief issue: its narrow engineering-focused bubble.
Earlier this year, we hosted the Ending Age-Related Diseases 2018 conference at the Cooper Union in New York City. This conference was designed to bring together the best in the aging research and biotech investment worlds and saw a range of industry experts sharing their insights.
Dr. Oliver Medvedik, LEAF vice president and Director of the Maurice Kanbar Center for Biomedical Engineering at the Cooper Union, chaired a panel with a focus on starting up biotech companies and dealing with the challenges inherent to launching a company in this industry.
The initiation of geoengineering will not involve a global public debate or vote.
Do not bother having debates about if or will we use geoengineering. The best thing is to work out the best combination of approaches to make it work the best way possible and minimize side effects. We will probably end up learning a fair bit after we start implementing.
China controls weather and will not blink before starting geoengineering when they think it is needed.
“Once such superhumans appear, there are going to be significant political problems with the unimproved humans, who won’t be able to compete,” suggests the late physicist and author Stephen Hawking in The Sunday Times. “Presumably, they will die out, or become unimportant. Instead, there will be a race of self-designing beings who are improving themselves at an ever-increasing rate. If the human race manages to redesign itself, it will probably spread out and colonize other planets and stars.”
Hawking has caused an uproar by suggesting a new race of superhumans could develop from wealthy people choosing to edit their DNA. “There is no time to wait for Darwinian evolution to make us more intelligent and better natured. But we are now entering a new phase of what might be called self-designed evolution, in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA. We have now mapped DNA, which means we have read “the book of life”, so we can start writing in corrections.”
Hawking, who died in March, presented the possibility that genetic engineering could create a new species of superhuman that could destroy the rest of humanity. The essays, published in the Sunday Times, were written in preparation for a book that will be published on Tuesday.
The federal government has announced the appointment of Australia’s first Women in STEM Ambassador, with Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith charged with overseeing the country’s attempt to diversify its science, technology, engineering, and mathematics sectors.
An astrophysicist professor, Harvey-Smith will specifically advocate for girls and women in STEM education and careers, aiming also to raise awareness in the male-dominated industry and drive cultural and social change for gender equity.
SEE: The state of women in computer science: An investigative report [PDF download] (TechRepublic cover story)
29 U.S. states have enacted their own laws regulating autonomous vehicles. And governors in 10 states have issued executive orders curbing testing and use.
In 2018, China adopted national self-driving car guidelines that allow any city to perform tests on self-driving cars. China has started engineering multi-tiered roads and entire cities tailored to incorporate driverless vehicles.
