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Cryogenics are an old science fiction dream, but today we still struggle to store large tissues without harming them. Now a breakthrough could lead to a safer, more reliable approach.

” This could be an important step toward the preservation of more complex tissues and structures”

Overcoming past challenges

Cryopreservation of biological material is commonplace, but there are remaining challenges. The initial problem with freezing any cell is crystallization, in which ice crystals form and rupture cells. This was overcome by using molecules like ethylene glycol, which essentially act like anti-freeze and prevent crystallization from happening. These are very effective, but they’re also often toxic; damaging or killing some cells in the process. This has made storage of larger tissues very challenging.

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NEW YORK, Aug. 26, 2015 /PRNewswire-iReach/ — The Life Extension Advocacy Foundation (LEAF) officially launches Lifespan.io, an online platform designed to bridge the gap between longevity researchers and the public who support breakthroughs happening in this burgeoning field.

Lifespan.io is a website designed to house today’s most promising life extension projects. People are invited to contribute financially to the ones they wish to support. This unique approach to crowdfunding gives the public the opportunity to learn about longevity research, meet the people making it happen, and allows them to be a part of promising, historical breakthroughs in life extension technologies.

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It’s rare to see technology sectors advance as quickly as metal 3D printing has. Until very recently, the technology was lagging a bit behind other forms of 3D printing. Its cost, plus the size of the printers required, limited it mostly to large industrial companies, but just in the last few months there’s been a burst of innovations making metal printers smaller, cheaper and more accessible. From startups like Desktop Metal to major corporations like Additive Industries, this year’s major focus seems to be on advancing metal 3D printing.

The latest company to announce a new metal printer is Toshiba Corporation, which has, in conjunction with its machine tools unit Toshiba Machine, developed a prototype for a metal printer that promises to be ten times faster than most powder bed fusion sintering printers.

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20151120-go-board-game-google-ai

“When the world’s smartest researchers train computers to become smarter, they like to use games. Go, the two-player board game born in China more than two millennia ago, remains the nut that machines still can’t crack.”

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