Lifeboat Foundation

What has been shaping the human mind throughout the history of mankind? What is the difference between mind and consciousness? What links quantum physics to consciousness? What gives rise to our subjective experience? What drives our accelerating evolution?

If you’re eager to familiarize with probably the most advanced ontological framework to date or if you’re already familiar with the Syntellect Hypothesis which, with this series, is now presented to you as the full-fledged Cybernetic Theory of Mind, you should get this book two of the series which corresponds to Part II of The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution. This volume two contains some newly-introduced and updated material if compared with the originally published version and can be read as a stand-alone book. At the same time, it is highly recommended to obtain The Syntellect Hypothesis as the original coherent version of the same theoretical framework instead of waiting for all five books to come out and if you don’t need extra detailing.

Continue reading “TECHNOCULTURE: The Rise of Man | The Cybernetic Theory of Mind” »

From the data, the GTEx team could identify the relationship between specific genes and a type of regulatory DNA called expression quantitative trait loci, or eQTL. At least one eQTL regulates almost every human gene, and each eQTL can regulate more than one gene, influencing expression, GTEx member and human geneticist Kristin Ardlie of the Broad Institute tells *Science*. Another major takeaway from the analyses was that sex affected gene expression in almost all of the tissue types, from heart to lung to brain cells. “The vast majority of biology is shared by males and females,” yet the gene expression differences are vast and might explain differences in disease progression, GTEx study coauthor Barbara Stranger of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine tells *Science*. “In the future, this knowledge may contribute to personalized medicine, where we consider biological sex as one of the relevant components of an individual’s characteristics,” she says in a statement issued by the Centre for Genome Regulation in Barcelona, where some of the researchers who participated in the GTEx project work. Another of the studies bolsters the association between telomere length, ancestry, and aging. Telomere length is typically measured in blood cells; GTEx researchers examined it in 23 different tissue types and found blood is indeed a good proxy for overall length in other tissues. The team also showed that, as previously reported, shorter telomeres were associated with aging and longer ones were found in people of African ancestry. But not all earlier results held; the authors didn’t see a pattern of longer telomeres in females or constantly shorter telomeres across the tissues of smokers as previous studies had. Not everyone is singing the project’s praises. Dan Graur, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Houston who often criticizes big projects like GTEx, tells *Science* the results are hard to parse and there was little diversity, with 85 percent of the tissue donors being white. He also was critical of the use of deceased donor tissue, questioning if it truly reflects gene activity in living humans. “It’s like studying the mating behaviour of roadkill.” Other scientists say there’s much work to be done. The gene regulation map leaves many unanswered questions about the exact sequences that cause disease and how gene regulation systems work in tandem. Genomicist Ewan Birney, the deputy director general of EMBL, tells *Science*, “We shouldn’t pack up our bags and say gene expression is solved.”

A decade-long effort to probe gene regulation reveals differences between males and females, points to essential regulatory elements, and offers insight into past work on telomeres.

Continue reading “New Map Charts Genetic Expression Across Tissue Types, Sexes” »

Women with Alzheimer’s disease tend to live longer than men with the disease — and a new study suggests that a gene on the X chromosome may help explain why.

Each person typically has one pair of sex chromosomes in each cell of their body. People assigned female at birth typically have two X chromosomes, while people assigned male at birth typically have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome.

Researchers say a gene called KDM6A may explain why women with Alzheimer’s disease tend to live longer than men with the same condition.

Continue reading “This Gene May Be Why Women with Alzheimer’s Disease Live Longer” »

Two groups of nerve cells may serve as “on-off switches” for male mating and aggression, suggests a new study in rodents. These neurons appear to send signals between two parts of the brain—the back tip, or posterior, of the amygdala and the hypothalamus—that together regulate emotions including fear, anxiety, and aggression.

Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the study showed that male mice struggled to have sex in experiments that blocked signals from one amygdala cell group that communicates with the hypothalamus (MPN-signaling cells). When the same signals were instead bolstered, the animals were not only able to mate but would repeatedly court unreceptive females, something they would not do normally.

Similarly, when the action of a second cell group in the amygdala that also communicates with the hypothalamus (VMHvl-signaling cells) was blocked, the rodents attacked unfamiliar males half as often. When these same neurons were triggered, the mice became unusually aggressive, even attacking their female mates and familiar males.

UC Davis scientists spent years editing a sex-determining gene into bovine embryos using Crispr. In April, Cosmo arrived—and his DNA reveals how far the field has to go.

Theoretical Physicist Lawrence Krauss writes in the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ: In the 1980s, when I was a young professor of physics and astronomy at Yale, deconstructionism was in vogue in the English Department. We in the science departments would scoff at the lack of objective intellectual standards in the humanities, epitomized by a movement that argued against the existence of objective truth itself, arguing that all such claims to knowledge were tainted by ideological biases due to race, sex or economic dominance.

It could never happen in the hard sciences, except perhaps under dictatorships, such as the Nazi condemnation of “Jewish” science, or the Stalinist campaign against genetics led by Trofim Lysenko, in which literally thousands of mainstream geneticists were dismissed in the effort to suppress any opposition to the prevailing political view of the state.

:oooooo.

The battle of the sexes is a never-ending war waged within ourselves as male and female elements of our own bodies continually fight each other for supremacy. This is the astonishing implication of a pioneering study showing that it is possible to flick a genetic switch that turns female ovary cells into male testicular tissue.

For decades, the battle of the sexes has been accepted by biologists as a real phenomenon with males and females competing against each other — when their interests do not coincide — for the continued survival of their genes in the next generation. Now scientists have been able to show that a gender war is constantly raging between the genes and cells of one individual.

One of the great dogmas of biology is that gender is fixed from birth, determined by the inheritance of certain genes on the X and Y sex chromosomes. But this simplistic idea has been exploded by the latest study, which demonstrated that fully-developed adult females can undergo a partial sex change following a genetic modification to a single gene.

Continue reading “Simple gene technique changes sex of a mouse” »

In a study published on May 7, 2020, in Current Biology, researchers from University of Sydney have identified the single gene that determines how Cape honey bees reproduce without ever having sex. One gene, GB45239 on chromosome 11, is responsible for virgin births.

“It is extremely exciting,” said Professor Benjamin Oldroyd in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences. “Scientists have been looking for this gene for the last 30 years. Now that we know it’s on chromosome 11, we have solved a mystery.”

Behavioral geneticist Professor Oldroyd said: “Sex is a weird way to reproduce and yet it is the most common form of reproduction for animals and plants on the planet. It’s a major biological mystery why there is so much sex going on and it doesn’t make evolutionary sense. Asexuality is a much more efficient way to reproduce, and every now and then we see a species revert to it.”

Continue reading “Scientists Buzzing Over Virgin Birth and Genetic Mystery That’s Been Solved” »

In the future, people getting ready for a flight — and fearing impending jet lag — might fit an assortment of additions into their carry on: masks, gloves, and maybe a medicinal mushroom hailed for delivering animalistic sex drive.

That’s because a new study suggests that a synthetic form of cordycepin, a compound found in a medicinal fungus with a reputation for keeping bedroom doors closed, may help ease the pain of jet lag.