April 2021 – Impact Lab

UK Launches Digital Currency Task Force to Explore the Future of Money

April 30, 2021

A British ten pound sterling and five pound sterling note are arranged in a photograph in London.Photo: Justin Tallis (Getty Images)

The Bank of England and the UK’s Treasury have launched a task force to explore the use of a national digital currency, the British government announced in several press releases early Monday as part of April 2021 Fintech Week.

The task force, formally known as the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Taskforce, will examine the pros and cons of issuing a new digital form of money that could be used by British consumers alongside cash. But the government is quick to note it hasn’t yet reached a final decision about issuing a digital currency that would potentially compete with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether.

The British government and Bank of England laid out four primary points of interest and goals for the task force, including:

Coordinate exploration of the objectives, use cases, opportunities and risks of a potential UK CBDC.
Guide evaluation of the design features a CBDC must display to achieve our goals.
Support a rigorous, coherent and comprehensive assessment of the overall case for a UK CBDC.
Monitor international CBDC developments to ensure the UK remains at the forefront of global innovation.

The new task force will be led by the Deputy Governor for Financial Stability at the Bank of England, Jon Cunliffe, and HM Treasury’s Director General of Financial Services, Katharine Braddick, according to a press release.

quantum computing, Science & Technology News

The World’s Highest Performing Quantum Computer is Here

April 30, 2021

Our team of scientists, engineers and technicians, have built what is currently the highest performing quantum computer available.

With a quantum volume of 64, the Honeywell quantum computer is twice as powerful as the next alternative in the industry. That means we are closer to industries leveraging our solutions to solve computational problems that are impractical to solve with traditional computers.

“What makes our quantum computers so powerful is having the highest quality qubits, with the lowest error rates. This is a combination of using identical, fully connected qubits and precision control,” said Tony Uttley, president of Honeywell Quantum Solutions.

Science & Technology News, Video Games

First Prescription Video Game Receives FDA Approval–A Post-COVID Treatment for Persons with ADHD

April 30, 2021

PRESCRIPTION VIDEO GAME AS ADHD TREATMENT?

By Joen Coronel

You won’t believe that health experts have been exploring the capabilities of a video game to contribute to the patients’ well-being during post-COVID-19 treatment. Recovering from the disease might seem to be a long way especially since other people are found to have difficulty in doing their usual tasks.

Even so, symptoms can still linger for some time, and they have not coped up with them for a while.

The first video game to have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for children with ADHD is now out for playing. Particularly, it targets those whose ages range from eight to twelve years old.

The video game called “EndeavorRX” was developed by Akili Interactive last summer when it passed as an official prescription. New York-based neuropsychologist, Faith Gunning thought of this recreation to work similarly to the usual treatment for the symptoms.

However, Gunning not only considered the certain bracket to benefit from playing it, but he also noted that it could also help other people who are not in the same group. It began when she has seen that those COVID-19 patients need something to cope up with their symptoms.

Science & Technology News, Space Flight

Russia is building its own space station to launch in 2025 amid concerns the ISS is becoming too unreliable and ‘endangers the life of the crew’

April 29, 2021

By Ryan Morrison and Will Stewart

The Russian space agency Roscosmos declared the ISS unsafe and a risk to life
They are launching a new station within the next four years in low Earth orbit
This includes a ‘tourist’ module with room for up to four visitors from the Earth
It comes amid increasing tensions between Russia and the West

Russia could withdraw from the International Space Station in 2025 and launch its own facility over concerns the ISS is becoming too unreliable, Roscosmos says.
Dmitry Rogozin, chief of the Russian space agency said work has already begun on the first module of a new station, expected to go into orbit early in 2025.

A top Kremlin official warned that ‘disaster’ was looming for the ISS, putting the lives of crew members at risk due to its age – by 2025 is will be 27 years old and was originally designed to last between 15 and 30 years, according to NASA.

Artificial Intelligence, Science & Technology News

Cerebras launches new AI supercomputing processor with 2.6 trillion transistors

April 29, 2021

By Dean Takahashi

Cerebras Systems has unveiled its new Wafer Scale Engine 2 processor with a record-setting 2.6 trillion transistors and 850,000 AI-optimized cores. It’s built for supercomputing tasks, and it’s the second time since 2019 that Los Altos, California-based Cerebras has unveiled a chip that is basically an entire wafer.

Chipmakers normally slice a wafer from a 12-inch-diameter ingot of silicon to process in a chip factory. Once processed, the wafer is sliced into hundreds of separate chips that can be used in electronic hardware.

But Cerebras, started by SeaMicro founder Andrew Feldman, takes that wafer and makes a single, massive chip out of it. Each piece of the chip, dubbed a core, is interconnected in a sophisticated way to other cores. The interconnections are designed to keep all the cores functioning at high speeds so the transistors can work together as one.

3D Printer, Science & Technology News

This ceramic ink can 3D-print bones directly into a patient’s body. Here’s how

April 29, 2021

A newly discovered 3D-printing method could be revolutionary for bone cancer treatment.

By Douglas Broom

How can patients recover from surgery that removes parts of their bones?
Up to now the answer has been to build a ceramic replica in a laboratory.
But now scientists have invented a way to 3D-print bone tissue inside the body.
Ceramic material that mimics bone structure is mixed with living cells.
Its inventors say it will reduce suffering and speed up recovery.

A new 3D printing process which can be used inside the human body is offering hope to trauma and cancer patients who need bone replacements, reducing pain and speeding up recovery time.

The treatment of bone cancers can lead to sections of bone being removed and accident victims may require extensive bone repairs. Up to now, 3D bone printing has involved producing material outside the patient’s body.

But now a new technique developed at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, offers the prospect of doctors being able to create new bone tissue exactly where it is needed during a surgical operation.

Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Scientists Create First Human-Monkey Embryos That Could Potentially Produce Organs for Transplants

April 28, 2021

The part-human, part-monkey embryos were kept alive for 20 days, giving researchers enough time to learn about how animal and human cells communicate

By Georgia Slater

Scientists have successfully created the first embryos containing both human and monkey cells, an important step in helping researchers find ways to produce organs for transplants.

The results of the groundbreaking experiment, published Thursday in the journal Cell, describe the first mixed-species embryos known as chimeras.

The research team in China was led by Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, who has previously experimented with human and pig embryos. The team injected 25 human stem cells into the embryos of macaque monkeys.

Elon Musk, Science & Technology News

ELON MUSK’S STARLINK INTERNET WILL BE ‘FULLY MOBILE’ SERVICE LATER THIS YEAR

April 28, 2021

Service uptime, bandwidth & latency are improving rapidly. Probably out of beta this summer’, Mr Musk tweeted

Adam Smith

Elon Musk has revealed that Starlink, SpaceX’s internet service, is likely to move out of beta testing this summer.

“Service uptime, bandwidth & latency are improving rapidly. Probably out of beta this summer”, Mr Musk tweeted. The change could mean more people will be able to sign up to the service, which currently has over 10,000 users.

In a subsequent post, Mr Musk said that it will also be “fully mobile later this year, so you can move it anywhere or use it on an RV or truck in motion.”

He added: “We need a few more satellite launches to achieve compete coverage [and] some key software upgrades.”

Genetics, Science & Technology News

Scientists are on a path to sequencing 1 million human genomes and use big data to unlock genetic secrets

April 27, 2021

BY XAVIER BOFILL DE ROS

The first draft of the human genome was published 20 years ago in 2001, took nearly three years and cost between US$500 million and $1 billion. The Human Genome Project has allowed scientists to read, almost end to end, the 3 billion pairs of DNA bases – or “letters” – that biologically define a human being.

That project has allowed a new generation of researchers like me, currently a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute, to identify novel targets for cancer treatments, engineer mice with human immune systems and even build a webpage where anyone can navigate the entire human genome with the same ease with which you use Google Maps.

The first complete genome was generated from a handful of anonymous donors to try to produce a reference genome that represented more than just one single individual. But this fell far short of encompassing the wide diversity of human populations in the world. No two people are the same and no two genomes are the same, either. If researchers wanted to understand humanity in all its diversity, it would take sequencing thousands or millions of complete genomes. Now, a project like that is underway.

Genetics, Science & Technology News

Scientists Have Just Successfully Made A Human-Monkey Hybrid

April 27, 2021

By DOUG NORRIE

You’ve seen Planet of the Apes right? Did you like how that movie turned out in the end? I’ll give you the cliff notes. The apes won. Well, it appears scientists didn’t get the memo about what happens when we start supercharging primates or just start combining human-related things with monkeys. And sure, I know that monkeys and apes aren’t the same thing, but for our dystopian sci-fi purposes let’s just call it a wash. Because this latest news is pretty groundbreaking. According to a journal article published in The Cell, it turns out that scientists have successfully combined human and monkey embryos for the first time. Good luck world, I think we know how this ends.

This study that landed monkey and human embryos all mixed up together started like all of these things usually do, with someone trying to solve a medical issue. Sure, fine enough. The problem, in this case, had to do with organ transplants and finding a way to better source said organs for procedures. In doing so, scientists began experimentation around cross-breeding these embryos, finding that those of the monkey allowed the process to speed up. Whether this ultimately becomes a good thing in their findings remains to be seen, but for the time being, they have at least proved it to be possible.

The article was published on April 15th as part of a larger study in which human stem cells were injected into monkey embryos. The results were nearly immediate with researchers showing signs of growth within more than 100 monkeys. They are titling this process, an ominous one called a chimeric embryo, relating to the chimera of Greek Myth. You might know this bad boy as the combination of a bunch of different animals to form one scary super animal. This isn’t an interpretation, this is something actually quoted in the study. Though they stop short of referencing the exact fire-breathing monster the Greeks came up with that’s equal part lion, goat, and serpent.

Higher Education, Science & Technology News

These 10 Colleges Have Produced The Most Billionaire Alumni

April 27, 2021

By Kenrick Cai

American universities dominate, but it’s not all Ivy Leaguers on the 2021 World’s Billionaires list.

The 2,755 people on Forbes’ 2021 World’s Billionaires list received their undergraduate degrees all over the world, from Al-Azhar University in Egypt to the Zhejiang University of Technology in China. Hundreds did not attend college at all, or left before obtaining a diploma, including a pair of Harvard dropouts who are among the five richest people in the world: Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

But among the billionaires who completed their undergraduate education, a few schools stand out. Harvard leads the way, with at least 29 billionaire alumni on the Forbes list. (We found information about the undergraduate education of a majority, but not all, of the list members.) Four other Ivy League universities make the top ten. Nine of these ten schools are located in the United States—MIT and a trio of California schools round out the American colleges—although their alumni hold diverse citizenship, from Colombia to Ireland to the Philippines. The lone non-U.S. school? The University of Mumbai, a public university in India that is one of the largest colleges in the world by enrollment. Just missing the cut are South Korea’s Seoul National University and China’s Tsinghua University.

Here are the ten colleges with the most billionaire undergraduate alumni, based on education data collected by Forbes; net worths are as of March 5, 2021.

Cancer, Science & Technology News

Innovative technique developed to destroy cancerous kidney cells

April 26, 2021

Figure 1 Cathepsin S (CS) protein expression levels are induced through the -1048 promoter fragment from the CTTS gene upon Paclitaxel or hydrogen peroxide stimulation. HEK293 and 769P cells were stimulated with increasing doses of Paclitaxel (Pac) and hydrogen peroxide (HP) and soluble lysates prepared after 24 h and equal volumes analyzed by Western blotting for cathepsin S (CS), BAX and actin expression (Panel A). Similarly, total RNA was isolated from cells stimulated for 24 h with increasing doses of Pac or HP and equal quantities of template cDNA analyzed for transcriptional expression of CS, BAX and Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAP-DH, Panel B). Promoter fragments, derived from the transcriptional start site of the CTTS gene to -1048 and -564, were PCR cloned and fused to a promoter-less GFP encoding plasmid (Panel C) and evaluated for GFP expression in equal volumes of HEK293 and 769P cleared whole cell lysates (WCLs) under Pac (10 μg/mL and 5 μg/mL, respectively) or HP (5 μM) stimulatory conditions. GFP expression was also quantified, standardized and corrected against GFP expression from cells stimulated with carrier alone and is shown as a fold change over basal GFP expression (Panel D). HEK293 cells transfected with pCS-1048 or pCS-564 and stimulated with Pac (5 μg/mL) for 24 h were also fixed and visualized for GFP expression using laser scanning confocal microscopy (Panel E). The red bar indicates 1 micron. Quantified data are presented as the mean ± SEM and its significance (where p < 0.05) determined, using a two-way Student’s t-test (* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01 and *** p < 0.001).

An innovative new technique that encourages cancer cells in the kidneys to self-destruct could revolutionize the treatment of the disease, a new study in the journal Pharmaceutics reports.

During this unique study, researchers from the University of Surrey and Sechenov First Moscow State Medical Universityin Russia investigatedwhethercertain naturally occurring proteins within the body can be used treat cancer.