Science and Technology micro-summaries for June 18, 2019
Grand challenges for protein design; IEEE Spectrum's weekly selection of awesome robot videos; New thoughts on a spinal condition in archaeological dog remains; Safety issue with touchscreens in cars; A Steem science article about polymer materials...
Straight from my RSS feed:
Links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.
- 5 challenges we could solve by designing new proteins - Biochemist and computational biologist, David Baker gives a TED talk to disuss the possible benefits of protein design. Some specific examples include: improved vaccines, proteins that break down gluten for people who suffer from celiac disease, and new ways to fight cancer. Baker says he wants to build a "Bell Laboratories" for protein design, and pursue 5 grand challenges: A universal flu vaccine; therapeutic candidates for chronic pain; advanced delivery vehicles for medication targeting; smart therapeutics that can do calculations within the body; and new materials to address energy and ecology issues. Baker points out that anyone can contribute to these efforts by connecting our home computing devices to foldit or Rosetta@home (he doesn't mention it, but we can also collect GRC tokens by contributing to Rosetta@home).
- Video Friday: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Tries Dexterous Robot Hands - Last week's videos include videos of Jeff Bezos test-driving a pair of robot hands; A humanoid robot that maintains its balance on one or two legs while being loaded down with heavy objects, or even pushed; A robotic arm that is designed for use in decommissioning the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant; a robot that will perform sample collection on the moon for the European Space Agency; a quadruped that does a barrel role; a robot that flies with flapping wings; and more...
Here is Jeff Bezos with the remote controlled hands
In order to help make Steem the go to place for timely information on diverse topics, I invite you to discuss any of these links in the comments and/or your own response post.
For example, feel free to comment on any or all of these discussion topics:
- Do you contribute your idle computing time to Baker's "Bell Labs for protein design" or any other grid computing project? If not, do you think you might start doing so after viewing the TED talk?
- Which of the IEEE Spectrum's weekly robot videos got your attention? Why?
- Do you agree with Dyer's safety concerns about touchscreen design in your own automobile(s)?
About this series
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This is great, @remlaps-lite
Keep it up.