NEWS, COMMENTARY, DEBATE AND ACCESS TO FUTUREWORLD'S COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE BASE
Yes, creating edible protein from electricity just became a reality. Although this was done in the lab, it could be scaled up to produce food for livestock or say, refugees from a shipping container sized 'factory'.
CRISPR, the revolutionary gene editing technique that makes the science of altering genetic structures as easy as cut-and-paste, is screaming ahead .New trials are about to start in China to alter the genome in cells inside the body, aimed at eliminating cancer before it starts.But there is concern as the long-term effects of this technique have not been explored. Nonetheless, as many as 20 ...
Well, it's not really fake - it's blood cultured in a lab from your own stem cells. Why go to all the trouble and expense of getting blood safely donated when you can "grow your own"? Biotech advances will revolutionise healthcare and extend human longevity. The future potential is amazing.
"UNSW researchers have made a discovery that could lead to a revolutionary drug that actually reverses ageing, improves DNA repair and could even help NASA get its astronauts to Mars.In a paper published in Science today, the team identifies a critical step in the molecular process that allows cells to repair damaged DNA.Their experiments in mice suggest a treatment is possible for DNA damage ...
"For two years, Impossible Foods founder and CEO Patrick Brown managed to keep a pretty good secret.While food industry analysts guessed at when innovative meat-alternative companies would be able to scale their production, Brown and his team quietly continued tinkering away at the taste of their faux-beef product—made of wheat, coconut oil, potatoes, and heme, an iron-containing compound ...
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, an ingestible nanobot called 'Nanoboy', which I found wrapped up under the tree. It used to be that an apple a day kept the doctor away, but now it will be Nanoboy who keeps me out of the GP's office (or off his iPhone screen, if you're a fan of telehealth). This little wonder is so intelligent, it will alert me on my phone if my organs need help or any cells are going mad. Instead of having to go for my annual check-up, I will be pinged the ...
To boost the brain, or not to boost the brain? That's the latest differentiating factor that is dividing clients and determining their choice of service providers. No one is sure exactly how the nut should be cracked, but in the most progressive markets some executives are already taking a stand. The German engineering firm AUB has implemented pioneering policies relating to the (non)-use of brain enhancing drugs at work. Their belief? Increased productivity and innovation is necessary and very ...
"If you thought the pseudo-scientific anti-GMO movement was annoying now, just you wait and hear what they have to say about this! Located in a garden just outside of Umeå, Sweden, there is a special kind of cabbage plant. So special that, despite guaranteed push back by certain neo-luddite activists, we could very well be witnessing the future of food production as we know it."
Genomics entrepreneur Craig Venter has created a synthetic cell that contains the smallest genome of any known, independent organism. Functioning with 473 genes, the cell is a milestone in his team’s 20-year quest to reduce life to its bare essentials and, by extension, to design life from scratch.How long will it be before genes can be simply 'printed' out on a bio-printer from digital ...
Of course we can make synthetic food, and increasingly we can make synthetic food that tastes like the real thing. But is it affordable, and when it becomes cheap enough, should we do it on a mass scale?There's a big debate brewing over the future of lab meat; an interesting aspect though, is that it's pretty natural - real organic cells that are cultured with nutrients. What's your stand on ...
As computer power, machine learning and artificial intelligence continue to grow in power exponentially, we ask...what is the future of humans? Given how we are destroying the planet, why should we even survive?
A new method from Stanford researchers paves the way for preventing and reversing the effects of aging on human cells. Perhaps the elixir of youth is closer than we think?
The year 2015 was packed with breakthroughs in biotechnology. This roundup by MIT Technology Review provides fascinating reading.
It's a sobering thought to consider what exponential advances in biotech could bring in the coming decades. Ray Kurzweil says that genetic manipulation will be a million times more powerful in twenty years - that's 20 exponential steps.So if you're in your 50s today, by the time you are in your 70s, the ability to prolong average life will be vastly increased, and by the time you're 100, it ...
An American association for aging research has managed to get approval for trials of an existing drug to see if it helps not to 'cure' aging, but improve 'healthspan' which in turn can increase lifespan.http://singularityhub.com/2015/12/06/longer-life-in-a-pill-may-already-be-available-at-your-local-drug-store/ ...
Here's another article on CRISPR and the potential it holds for reversing aging in humans.The author again asks the inevitable question: Once we are able to do it, should we? Perhaps in the future the real revolutionaries will the ones that opt out of the search for perfection, and endure and enjoy life as nature intended! ...
Too busy or unable to exercise regularly. Now that researchers have fully mapped the molecular reactions to exercise, it should be possible to develop drugs that give all the benefits of exercise - without moving a muscle.Seven years ago we suggested that might happen, with this MindBullet. ...
...and there's always Dignitas! ...
It's tough being 122. If you thought puberty or being a twenty-something was challenging, just wait until you get to 120-something! You've got the body of a 90-year-old; so what? It's still an effort to get out of bed, and those neuroprosthetic implants keep your mind sharp, but the constant software updates are literally giving you headaches. Slowing and reversing physical aging has become more than a science - now it's an industry, and once you're on that bandwagon, you're hooked for (the rest of ...
A furious ethical row has reignited after Chinese and North Korean scientists proposed applying gene-editing techniques used to create 'super-pets' to humans. Opinions are loudly divided over whether the new technology will help eradicate dread diseases - or create a feared 'super-race'. This follows the announcement in 2015 that scientists at the Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health were creating extra-muscular beagle dogs, ostensibly for ...
