Category Archives: Transhuman News

In the US, there are 5.5 million Americans with Alzheimers adiseasedefined by the progressive deterioration of brain function, most often affecting thinking and memory, that typically begins during middle or old age. Among the 5.5 million patients, the vast majorityare at least 65 years old, while an estimated 200,000 suffer from whats known as early-onset Alzheimers.

Assessing someones lifetime risk ofcontracting the disease is of concern not just to patients and families,but also healthcare providers. Alzheimers risk factors are notoriously hard to identify, but getting that information as early as possible can help prepare patients and families to manage the disease, andin many cases support preventative efforts.

Gaining more insight into a patients risk may soon becomeremarkably easier: researchers from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and University of California San Francisco (UCSF) have createda genetic test that can calculate a patients age-specific risk of Alzheimers.

The method looks for 31 genetic markers,gathered from over 70,000 individuals, including patients suffering from Alzheimers as well ashealthy elderly patients. Scientists based the test on background genetic variations which, individually, have a tiny influence on Alzheimers but collectively, their effect is substantial enough that they can accurately predict an individuals risk of developing the disease.

Preventing the development of dementia symptoms is the holy grail of Alzheimers research but to succeed we first need accurate methods to predict who is most likely to develop the condition. This studys approach was fairly successful at predicting the likelihood of someone developing dementia over the coming year, but needs to be tested further in mixed, non-US populations, said James Pickett, head of research at Alzheimers Society in a report published by The Guardian.

It should be noted that scoring high on this genetic test doesnt automatically mean someone will develop Alzheimers. Nor does it imply that scoring low means someone would be considered immune to the disease. Genetics is one of several factorsthat determines a persons risk fordevelopingany disease, including Alzheimers.

From a clinical perspective, the [test] provides a novel way not just to assess an individuals lifetime risk of developing Alzheimers disease, but also to predict the age of disease onset, said senior author Dr Anders Dale, of the University of California San Diego School of Medicine.

While we have yet to find a viable treatment for the disease, experts believe that we are getting close. To that end, they assert that once a cure isfound, it would still need to be administered as early as possible in the course of the disease, to ensure that damage done to the brainis at a minimum.

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A New Genetic Test Predicts If and When You'll Develop Alzheimer's - Futurism

In Brief Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and founder of BlueOrigin, unveiled the world's first manned bipedal robot at the MARS conference this week. The 4-meter-tall (13-foot-tall) robot suit, called Method 2, weighs in at 1.5 tons and could be used to work in areas that are too hazardous for humans to go unprotected. A Supervillain Billionaire?

One of the worlds billionaires now has built and tested his own gigantic robotsuit. No, Im not talking about the infamous antagonist of the superman series, Lex Luthor. Instead, its the well-known CEO of Amazon, founder of BlueOrigin, and owner of the WashingtonPost, Jeff Bezos, who, now that you mention it, might not look too different from Lex Luthoror even Jeff Bridges character from Iron Man.

Amazon hosted its invitation-only Machine-Learning, Automation, and Space Exploration (MARS2017) conference this week. This is where Bezos introduced the Method 2. The company CEO gladly stretched his arms wide while sitting the robust machine, having the suit mimic his movements and display its physical prowess to the audience of the highly coveted conference. While other reports are alarmed by Bezos acquisition of the robot, his genuinely excited smile assured many of his continued interest in investing in new, beneficial technology.

The 4-meter-tall (13-foot-tall) robot suit, weighing in at 1.5 tons,was created by the South Korean technology firm, Hankook Mirae Technology,that claims the robot is the worlds first manned bipedal robot and is built to work in extreme hazardous areas where humans cannot go (unprotected). The comments come from Mirae company chairman, Yang Jin-Ho, who might have to jump a few more hurdles before The Method 2 is fully completed. Reports suggest that the $8.3 million robot might not be able to walk yet, let alone take on demilitarized war zones between North and South Korea.

Pushing aside the technological specifics, if you think the suit looks familiar, thats because it is. The suit itself was designed by Vitaly Bulgarov, someone recognized for his work on transformers, terminator, robo-cop, and even Boston Dynamics bipedal robots.

Currently, there are claims that the suits will help clean up and restoreFukushimain response to the 2011 nuclear energy accident. Moreover, others are keen to militarize the concept if the model proves successful and versatile.

Hopefully, they are looking for more test pilots, because it does look like fun.

Continue reading here:
Amazon's CEO Just Demoed the World's First Manned Bipedal Robot - Futurism

Investing in the Future

Today,seed funding provider Y Combinator introduced 52 startups at Day One of its W17 Demo Day, which is actually a two-day event. The companies hailed from a wide range of industries, including artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), and health and medicine, and many showcased apps that aim to improve one aspect or another of our daily lives.

After the last Demo Day, we highlighted 10 of the most promising startups featured on Day One. Now, well give you the five companies we thought were the most futuristic or, at the very least, interesting.

Though the technology has been around for a while, VR remains a potential game changer, andPantheon VRwants you to be part of that change. Its VR game creation tool lets you sculpt and add textures toshapes. You can create your VR world, then use a drag-and-drop tool to add insimple game mechanics. Creators can publish their works instantly to the platform, which hopes to become the YouTube of VR gaming.

Vinsightwants to help farmers earn more money by not losing crops due to bad forecasting. The startups crop yield forecasting tooluses machine learning, satellite imagery, weather data, and historical reports to generate insight or actionable intelligence that the company claims is four times better than whats currently available. Vinsight is already being used by the worlds largest winery and second largest almond producer. It charges $25 per acre, which isnt muchcompared to the $11 billion a year that U.S. farmers lose from bad forecasting.

Of course, in any lineup of futuristic tech, youll find at least one focused on robotics or, in this case, robot prosthetics. Cambridge Bio-Augmentation Systems (CBAS)wants to be the standard for bionic implants. We work on solving and standardizing the connection between bionic devices and neural & soft-tissue systems within the body, according to their website. Currently, the company is working on a low-cost implant that can connect a bionic device to any part of the body.

Because helping animals stay healthy is part of any happy future, Demo Day also featured a startup that wants to do just that for bovines. Cowlar is a wearable tech for cows (obviously) that keeps track of the animals temperature, activity, and other data. It uses a solar-powered cow router to collect all this data in real-timeand then makes it available to farmers.

Flexible displays are gaining traction, and Sinovia Technologies hopes to be at the forefront of the trend. The startup wants to make OLED displays for devices with smaller screens 80 percent cheaper using a technology that allows them to print paper-thin, transparent, flexible displays roll-to-roll, the same way newspapers and magazines are printed.

Truly, the event featured far too many interesting startups to mention them all here, and were only through Day One. Tomorrow is sure to bring just as much innovation though perhaps not quite as many wearables for farm animals.

Excerpt from:
The Most Futuristic Companies That Just Launched at Y Combinator Demo Day 1 - Futurism

Keeping the Wilderness Wild

Prompted by the 10 million acre gift of Parque Pumaln, the Chilean government has announced a massive conservation campaign. President Michelle Bachelet signed an agreement which merged 10 million acres of federal land with the million acres of Pumaln, creating five new national parks and placing all of it under the strict environmental protection afforded to designated national parklands. Miles of undeveloped coastline, virgin forests, and active volcanoes grace the area which dwarfs all other protected areas in Chilean history.

The 11 million acres of Patagonian wilderness arent dissimilar to the granite cliffs and icy peaks of Yosemite but the Yellowstone and Yosemite park areas together make up less than one third of the area now contained in Chiles new protected parklands. Put another way, the parklands are 5,000 times larger than Manhattans Central Park. This single act places Chile in the neighborhood of Costa Rica, one of the worlds countries with the highest percentages of protected lands.

Bachelet praised Americanphilanthropists Doug Tompkins and Kristine McDivitt Tompkins for their work in support of the preservation of Patagoniaa passion project theyve beenpursuing for decades. Doug Tompkins didnt liveto see his dream come to fruition; he died in a kayak accident in 2015. At the time of the announcement there was no opposition to the conservation project, but Tompkins had fought major resistance mostly from local politiciansoften taking the form of a personal smear campaignfor years.

Today, it seems that everyone in the countrys government agrees onthebenefits parklands will bring to the country. This move toward conservation is smart for ecological reasons, and represents a massive safeguard against habitat destruction. Its also a clevereconomic move for Chile: the parklands are among the nations biggest drivers of tourism, and most of the trails, infrastructure, cabins, and other related services are already in place. The formal protection will now ensure that the parklands are guarded as they are enjoyed by tourists and locals alike.

National parks are the gold standard of conservation, said Hernn Mladinic, a longtime advocate of protecting southern Chiles ecosystems.

For every dollar you invest in national parks, you get 10 back; its more profitable than copper.

The new parks will be modeled after the wild and scenic highways aesthetic American parks are known for: artfully designed signage, scenic lookout points, and roads that avoid disturbing the naturally rugged terrain, instead following its contours. Kris Tompkins oversees rewilding programs in Argentina, which have been successful at bringing many species back from the brink of extinction. She hopes they will implement similar programs in Chile.

This action of aggressive conservation by the Chilean government on behalf of the people stands in clear contrast tothe current political climate in the U.S.Although the parklands in Chile are being designed after a classically American model for national parks, new U.S. policies reversing preservation accords,slashing budgets directed towards environmental science and conservation, and rejecting climate science threaten the integrity of U.S. parklands that have served as the gold standard for the rest of the world for so long.

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Chile Just Converted a Staggering 11 Million Acres of Land into Protected National Parks - Futurism

Y Combinators Demo Day is a time when startups get to present their ideas to investors, an audience that can actually fund these big dreams. In a gathering of people with so many smart ideas, theres bound to be some that are more futuristic than others. Or better still, some ideas soar above the rest literally, in the case of Wright Electric.

At the second day of Demo Day W17, this one-year-old startup presented a bold idea that can change future of passenger planes. This is one of best hard tech teams Ive seen said Michael Seibel, who heads Y Combinators accelerator program, in an interview with TechCrunch.

Wright Electrics idea is for a commercial passenger airplane thats battery-powered. Designed for flights under 480 km (300 miles), the electric plane can seat 150 people and is designed to disrupt the Boeing 737 market. To put itsdesign on the air, Wright Electric has partnered with budget British airline EasyJet. Italso hired a team that had been previously funded by NASA to figure out just how possible electric planes are. Working with all these people has put Wright Electric ahead of its competition, according to co-founder Jeff Engler.

Our aero team has decades of experience in aircraft design, electric planes, and certification. Our battery team has decades of experience in battery design, battery manufacturing, and early stage startup R&D, Engler wrote in a blog post. This is just about the best group of people one could imagine embarking on a such a journey.

At their Demo Day presentation, the ambitious startup was able to show off their electric plane aptly named the Wright One in the parking lot. Though limited to just short-haul trips, its still going to disrupt a sizable market. According to Englers estimations, short-haul trips represent about 30 percent of all flightsand 50 percent of regional flights. Also, these flights make upa $26 billion market. For reference, Airbus and Boeing sold 967 narrowbody planes in 2016, Engler wrote in a blog post.

A fully-electric Wright One depends on developments in battery technology in the next decade or so. If batteries dont get dramatically better in the next decade, we design our plane as a hybrid with electric motors, like a [Chevrolet] Volt, Engler wrote in a blog post. It still has great cost savings as compared to todays planes, and it doesnt require massive battery advances.

The Wright One would drastically decrease consumption of fossil fuels by planes, whether it becomes a fully electric model or a hybrid one. Currently, a 10-hour international flight consumes 50,000 liters (36,000 gallons) of fuel. A Boeing 747, which is a bigger plane meant for long-haul flights, can burn roughly 12 liters of fuel per kilometer (5 gallons per mile).

Theres a long way to go before their electric plane finds itself on a runway. But, the potential it presents to cut down on fossil fuels makes the Wright One a flight worth waiting for.

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Electric Flights Are Coming: Engineers Unveil a 150-Seat Battery-Powered Plane - Futurism