Quadruple stranded DNA seen in human cells for the first time
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF All of life was created using just two strands of DNA with 4 nucleotides, so what could we achieve with four stranded DNA that has 8 nucleotides? Interested in the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from our XPotential Academy, connect, watch a keynote,...
New Membrane on a Chip tech accelerates COVID-19 vaccine screening
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Human-on-a-Chip technologies could dramatically accelerate drug testing and get vital drugs into the market faster to save lives. Interested in the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. When it comes to testing the efficacy of untested drugs to see whether or not...
Researchers hail 3D printed supercharged “bionic coral” breakthrough
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Corals today are under threat from climate change and warming acidic oceans, and if they can’t recover naturally they may need a helping hand. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. The mass die off of coral reefs is...
Google DeepMind’s AI helps researchers translate ancient languages
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF While AI is being used to help translate modern day languages from one to another, it’s now getting to the point where we can see true universal translators emerging. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is...
IBM’s Project Debater AI barely convinces Cambridge University audience that “AI is good”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF An AI debating whether AI is “good or bad” with people sounds like a good marketing ploy, but it has real world implications for human decision making. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. IBM have just announced that...
Revolutionary AI chip that replaces GPU’s hailed as the “future” by ARM’s founder
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future will be powered by AI and Machine Learning, and it could also be powered by a new type of chip, an “Intelligence Processing Unit,” which is the next evolutionary step after the GPU. What comes after the CPU and the GPU? The...
Breakthrough genetic treatment slows the progression of Huntingdons Disease
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Huntingdons Disease is a debilitating condition that slowly kills a patients brain cells and there is no cure for it, now though a new treatment slows down its progression, and one day it might halt it altogether. This week people suffering from Huntington’s Disease...
Darktrace’s new AI automatically stops cyber attacks
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI’s are increasingly being deployed to expose and eliminate cyber security threats and now fully autonomous cyber security platforms, that take humans out of the loop, are becoming a reality. With the number of cyber attacks rising exponentially and with many organisations now reporting...
Microsoft’s AI has learnt how to write it’s own code and create its own programs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF An AI that can code and build new computer programs from scratch could change the world, give rise to a whole new generation of entrepreneurs. And put a lot of people out of jobs… For many of us the digital world’s an alien place....
NASA just discovered seven Earth like planets
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The more Earth like planets we discover the more new homes we find for humanity when we finally become an interstellar species Not just one, but seven Earth sized planets that could potentially harbour life have been identified orbiting a tiny star not too far...
Scientists have developed the world’s first working artificial womb
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In an age when we can create motherless and fatherless embryos, and where artificial humans are on the horizon, one day artificial wombs could be commonplace. In what’s considered a landmark experiment, researchers in the US and the UK have managed grow human embryos to 14...
In a world first scientists have reversed ageing in mice
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As more scientists treat age as a disease, not as an inevitability, we are discovering more ways to turn back the biological clock, one day these treatments might be applied to humans. Scientists in America have used cellular reprogramming to reverse the ageing process...
Uber pulls the covers off of its new AI lab
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the capability of new artificial intelligence systems improve more organisations are leveraging AI products and tools to help them maintain and extend their competitive edge Uber have announced that they’ve launched an artificial intelligence (AI) lab and acquired Geometric Intelligence, an AI startup,...
Scientists discover a way to delete fears from the brain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Researchers are slowly unravelling the mysteries of the brain and how memories are formed, as we edge nearer to being able to delete memories from peoples minds we also get closer to knowing how to implant artificial memories too. All of us have fears....
New electronics breakthrough lets devices run for years without batteries
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF New transistor design scavenges energy and paves the way for ultra low power electronics. Transistors are found in almost every electronic device and now a new ultra low power transistor design from the engineers at the University of Cambridge that lets them operate by ‘scavenging’ energy...
Stephen Hawking says creating AI is the biggest event of our civilisation
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Artificial intelligence can do great good, or great evil. Speaking at the launch of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI), a new artificial intelligence (AI) think tank based in Cambridge, that aims to help shape how AI is developed, used and...
Day of reckoning as UK scientists eliminate HIV from “Patient X”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF A British man could become the first person in the world to be cured of HIV using a new therapy designed by a team of scientists from five UK universities. Around the world there are thousands of researchers and scientists trying to find a cure...
Scientists re-discover the Laws of Friction
In an age of pen and paper one man stood out, and he’s just surprised us again The advantage of hosting your own blog or magazine is that sometimes you can go off piste and this is one of those times so now we are going to go back to a time...
