Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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CRISPR to improve shelf life of vegetables and fruits. I magine what this would mean for populations in remote locations with horrible climates or in disaster zones that need fresh foods.

Yinong Yang, a Penn State University researcher, has used a famous gene editing tool known as CRISPR/Cas9 for cutting out a small piece of DNA from one specific gene in a white button mushroom. With this, Yang was able to stop the gene, which in turn cuts the production of an enzyme known as polyphenol oxidase in mushroom. With this gene editing of white mushrooms, the mushroom doesn’t get spoiled as natural mushrooms.

You might have heard something like this earlier as scientists have also developed non-browning versions of apples and potatoes. However, those crops were called GMOs as scientists had put in new, slightly altered genes within those plants to ‘silence’ the natural gene.

Last fall, Yang wrote a letter to the US Department of Agriculture, wherein he asked whether his mushroom would be subject to regulation by the USDA. The USDA replied this week saying no.

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Hmmm; I want to see a real humanoid truly interact and move seamlessly like folks rushing to catch the tram, or BART/ Marta and hustle in rushing to meetings and multi-tasking in a high pressure office or trading floor. Until we see this level of fluid responsiveness; humanoid is only a pale imitation at best.

You might to do a double take when you see this new interactive robot, as it ‘looks very much like a real woman’.

Dubbed ‘robot goddess’, Jia Jia has the long flowing locks and rosy red cheeks as a human, but is being taught deep learning abilities.

This humanoid is designed with natural eye movement, speech that is syncs with its lip movements and refers to its male creators as ‘lords’.

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I was asked recently if I had money given to me to invest in anything that would result in the betterment of people what would that be. I quickly shared “Gene Editing” such as CRISPR and Quantum. These 2 areas is changing our lives over the next 7 to 10 years in ways that we have only dreamed about. I love this article.

TENS of thousands of blind people could have their sight restored after scientists discovered how to manipulate genes at the back of the eyes.

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The researchers took T cells from the tumour, removed PD-1, multiplied the T cells and put them back into the mice and found that the tumours shrank.

They then inserted the enzyme and found that these T cells were able to keep up the fight at the tumour site.

The team is preparing for clinical trials and has started a company, PanTher Therapeutics, to develop the implant for patient use.

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Nice

Authors of the new study included The Scripps Research Institute’s (left to right) Research Associate Ze Liu, Research Associate Yunchao Gai and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience Ron Davis.Researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) identified a gene that suppresses memory in the brain cells of fruit flies, and the findings could provide targets for potential new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

The team, led by Ron Davis, chair of TSRI’s Department of Neuroscience scanned about 3,500 Drosophila genes, and found multiple dozen memory suppressor genes that help the brain prioritize information and keep certain important memories.

The gene known as DmSLC22A was of particular interest, and when the team disabled it they found the flies’ memory improved nearly two-fold. “The fact that this gene is active in the same pathway as several cognitive enhancers currently used for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease suggests it could be a potential new therapeutic target,” Davis said in a prepared statement.

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Nthing new; nice to see more folks waking up.

We’re moving beyond just prosthetics and wearable tech. Soon, we’ll all by cyborgs in one way or another.

From The Six Million Dollar Man to Inspector Gadget to Robocop, humans with bionic body parts have become commonplace in fiction. In the real world, we use technology to restore functionality to missing or defective body parts; in science fiction, such technology gives characters superhuman abilities. The future of cyborgs may hinge on that distinction.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to develop a brain implant that links human brains to computers. Under the Obama administration’s Brain Initiative, DARPA has developed eight programs designed to enhance human physical and cognitive capabilities. The Neural Engineering System Design program seeks to “bridge the bio-electronic divide” via a small implant that acts as a translator between the brain and the digital world, giving humans improved sight and hearing.

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