Dash is an open-source project that delivers safe decentralized financial solutions.
The Dash Project Team builds and maintains an innovative decentralized payment network which acts as the core of an ecosystem of engaged consumers, merchants, and service providers.
This network provides users with a private, fast, and fungible digital currency that’s as easy to use as cash, credit cards or PayPal.
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Alex Bae, a Princeton University electrical engineering graduate student specializing in computational neuroscience, discusses his lab’s quest to understand the complex processes of the eye in relation to mapping, processing, and sending information to the brain. Computational neuroscience is the applied study of brain function in relation to the processing properties that exist within the nervous system.
It brings together many fields of study such as psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science and computer science, electrical engineering, math and physics.
Bae’s lab, the Sebastian Seung Lab, works with electromicroscopic images and AI to reconstruct cells of a brain neuron to study the connections that could lead to new discoveries in neuroscience. The Princeton University graduate student explains that due to technical limitations at this time, their study is focused primarily on mice, as a mouse’s brain has some similarities to a human brain. However, Mr. Bae’s lab’s study is focused on the retina of a mouse’s eye specifically, as the retina actually processes visual information and computes that information. Additionally, the size of the area they study is small, only a few hundred micrometers, thus the data collected is significant due to the ratio, considering the minuscule size of a mouse.
Specifically, Bae’s team studies the retinal ganglion cell (RGC), as these are the only output cells in the neuron, thus they are the only cells connected to the brain—sending visual information to the brain. The lab finds this study to be most effective in data collection as the RGCs are comprised of approximately 50 types, so it is complicated and sophisticated, yet the retinal circuit is still infinitely simpler than the brain circuit.
The Princeton graduate student discusses how his lab actually developed a game called Eyewire, a computation game with the objective of mapping retinal neurons. Upon releasing the game, Bae’s lab has been able to utilize input from over 30,000 gamers to collect the data set and further their research.
Bae’s hope is that the study of complex interior retinal cells will lead to an understanding of how the retina actually works to process visual information, and provide a glimpse into the inner-workings of the visual cortex in general.
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David Yu – Founder of Ecomi joins Future Tech Podcast to give us insight into ECOMI. ECOMI is a security & economy digital ecosystem supported by ORBIS Blockchain Technologies Ltd. ECOMI aims to bring blockchain technology to the mainstream in one user-friendly platform, offering the many benefits of decentralization, privacy, and control in the palm of your hands with our Secure wallet and ECOMI ONE.
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BitCab is Uber 2.0 for the age of blockchain, an ecosystem and technological model enabled by tokenization.
In addition to standard ride-sharing functionality, it uses blockchain and gamification to strengthen network effects on both supply and demand side, create a self-funding viral growth mechanism and a much more advanced and diverse decentralized ecosystem.
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Castbox is an award-winning global podcast platform that enables anyone to easily find, access, create and enjoy spoken audio content.
They provide our users with access to endless content in multiple languages, from anywhere, across any platform including Android, iOS, desktop, car and smart home devices.
Their proprietary technology includes features like curated podcast recommendations and in-audio deep search to customize our user’s listening experience to change the way we listen to spoken audio.
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JUST is a high-tech, cutting-edge sustainable food company, using plant-based proteins to create nutritious, affordable, and cruelty-free food options.
Dedicated to implementing a more sustainable food system across the globe, JUST is known for its wondrous bean-based egg substitute, Just Egg.
In this interview, Senior Scientist, Vitor Santo, explains the next step for JUST and for the alternative protein revolution: clean meats. Smith informs listeners of what clean meats are, how they are produced, and why they are the key to a sustainable food system.
The scientist explains the process of collecting animal cells and feeding them plant protein to produce ethical, cruelty-free meat.
He continues on to present listeners with the idea that it is possible to consume animal protein without the ethical dilemma of taking the lives of other species. He touches on issues like factory farming’s massive contribution to carbon emissions and water consumption, and offers a hopeful glimpse into a future where every person on earth has access to sustainable, affordable, and ethical animal proteins.
For more information on sustainable foods, plant-based protein sources, and clean meats, visit: www.justforall.com.
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As a professor of biogerontology at the University of Brighton, Richard Farragher has served as Chair of the British Society for Research on Ageing and the International Association of Biomedical Gerontology. He joins the podcast today to discuss something that affects us all: the process of ageing. “Understanding how ageing works is a prerequisite to improving later life health,” says Farragher. So, how does it work?
While research efforts to answer this question are ongoing, Farragher believes that there are three primary mechanisms of ageing: the cessation of cell division (aka ‘cellular senescence’), the decline in efficiency of nutrient recycling in the body, and the restriction of a DNA-based process referred to as ‘slicing.’ Farragher explains each one in detail and explores the ways in which they could be addressed in order to improve and prolong health.
Farragher will be speaking at New Scientist Live in the UK this September, and is always happy to answer questions via email. Tune in for the full discussion.
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Kurt Schmidinger, founder of Future Food, an internet-oriented initiative based out of Austria takes us on a lively discussion of the foods we eat and the future of our diets. Future Food’s mission is largely comprised of distributing information about the many alternatives to animal-derived products, and supporting the research and development of in vitro meat, also known as lab-grown, or clean meat.
Schmidinger discusses his organic path, from a geophysics background to food science, toward the development of Future Food’s premise.
From an environmental standpoint, the harvesting of meat for food is a major contributor to the destruction of rain forests, pollution, water waste, and climate change. He’ll explain how the confluence of animal welfare, human health, and environmental preservation makes our future food perhaps one of the most important issues we face globally.
The food scientist discusses how the most logical path to moving consumers toward a plant-based, or synthetic-based, diet is through the offering of alternative food choices, as opposed to using ethics or reason as a springboard for change. He’ll provide insight into the methods used to harvest animal cells that ultimately lead to consumer meats, and the challenges food companies face in their quest to bring costs down, and on par with traditional meat products. From a cautionary perspective, Schmidinger details the dangers of industrial livestock farming as it pertains to antibiotics, and how resistance to antibiotics could pose serious risks to human health.
Schmidinger provides an overview of the benefits to human health that may be coming with future foods. He’ll detail how clean meat could be low in cholesterol and saturated fats, but high in the health-boosting omega-3 fatty acids that our bodies need.
Hungry venture capitalists are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into food companies’ coffers for research and development, and the race is on to deliver alternative meat products that pass the taste, texture, and cost tests.
And while it is only his best guess, the food technologist estimates that alternative meats may be gracing dinner tables in as little as five years.
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Dr. Panta Sutardja – Founder of LatticeWorks inc joins Future Tech Podcast to discuss the solutions that LatticeWorks provides as an alternative to cloud storage among other things.
LatticeWorks is a technology consulting company delivering DevOps and Cloud Computing (AWS) solutions.
They are passionate about helping customers fulfill their business needs by enabling them with build/release automation, infrastructure as code, automated testing, and event-driven security/compliance.
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Gijs Den Butter, CEO of Sense Glove, discusses his company’s vision of advanced design robotic gloves for rehabilitation and B2B training that can enhance a user’s experience in a virtual environment. Haptics, the science of using touch sensation to interact with computer applications, is an exploding field that technology innovators are gravitating toward to aid them in the development of products that enhance the human experience.
Den Butter’s glove allows for the user to feel not only vibration responses, but also actual resistance when grasping virtual objects thus it greatly enhances the user’s experience. The prognosis for Sense Glove’s success in regard to patient rehabilitation is excellent, as the advanced glove technology allows for better engagement, but also, importantly, allows for the collection of data. And this data can be used to provide a physical therapist with specific information that will inform her or him which physical therapy techniques may be most advantageous. The glove technology enables learning, and thus creates an environment where real time data can be used to help a user translate their virtual experience onto true-life tasks, from buttoning a shirt to tying shoes and beyond.
While the technology is in its infancy, progress is being made daily. The Sense Glove CEO will provide details on the state of the technology to date. One goal would be to enable users to feel the difference between a plastic, wood, metal, or any number of other surfaces. But currently, the glove can help decipher a difference, but not yet exact data to differentiate from the many surfaces that exist in the real world.
Den Butter’s glove can help with the simulation for a myriad of advanced tasks from surgery to welding pipes, as the user can feel the sensitivity and pressure on the hand and can thus pursue any endeavor utilizing the virtual knowledge. Sense Glove is heavily focused on B2B training, and though Dem Butter does see an opportunity for his technology within the virtual reality gaming world, currently the glove’s entry into that market is user cost prohibitive.
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