A new chip can replace a non-functioning retina and restore a patient’s ability to detect light and shade.
The plan has four phases, starting with launching low-orbit telescopes that will pay for themselves as scientific instruments while incidentally scoping out nearby asteroids to find ones worth mining. Later phases involve more powerful telescopes to more accurately measure the resource potential of likely asteroids, and finally multiply-redundant swarms of semi-autonomous mining robots that will fly to asteroids and work in teams to extract resources. It’s pretty heady stuff. Just the phrase “asteroid-mining startup” makes it sound like the future.
History records a “first sleep” and a “second sleep” with a gap as long as two hours between them, during which people read, talked, or had sex.
It can only handle relatively simple things like viruses and bacteria, but hey, wasn’t it just a decade ago when sequencing a genome took room-sized computers months to complete?
It turns out they are basically the same price, you just have to replace cheap ones a lot more often.
When discussing climate change, it’s important to take these things into account. I feel like there should probably be an equivalent table for tech developments, too.
This is causing a huge problem for the world of science, leading to attempts to re-define the kilogram as some universal constant, in the same way that other measures have been, like the meter, which was changed from a metal rod, also in France, to the distance travelled by light in a certain amount of time. (Time, incidentally, being defined as a certain number of releases of radiation by the element Caesium 133)
cwnl:
‘Magic Mushrooms’ Statistically Shown to Improve Long Term Psychological Health
The psychedelic drug in magic mushrooms may have lasting medical and spiritual benefits, according to new research from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
The mushroom-derived hallucinogen, called psilocybin, is known to trigger transformative spiritual states, but at high doses it can also result in “bad trips” marked by terror and panic. The trick is to get the dose just right, which the Johns Hopkins researchers report having accomplished.
In their study, the Hopkins scientists were able to reliably induce transcendental experiences in volunteers, which offered long-lasting psychological growth and helped people find peace in their lives — without the negative effects.
“The important point here is that we found the sweet spot where we can optimize the positive persistent effects and avoid some of the fear and anxiety that can occur and can be quite disruptive,” says lead author Roland Griffiths, professor of behavioral biology at Hopkins.
Giffiths’ study involved 18 healthy adults, average age 46, who participated in five eight-hour drug sessions with either psilocybin — at varying doses — or placebo. Nearly all the volunteers were college graduates and 78% participated regularly in religious activities; all were interested in spiritual experience.
Fourteen months after participating in the study, 94% of those who received the drug said the experiment was one of the top five most meaningful experiences of their lives; 39% said it was the single most meaningful experience.
The study was published in the journal Psychopharmacology
(Source: ikenbot)
