Compassiona.Tech | Where Cutting-edge Tech Meets the Human Experience

Part 4: Intro to Ethical, Data, and Privacy Concerns in Software

Justin Chud

November 12, 2018

Connecting the world via the internet has opened up a near infinite number of ethical and privacy concerns. What do we do about legal gray areas where companies are bending the law for profits while governments move much more slowly?

Society

Technology

Part 3: Domains, Hosting, and how the Web works

Justin Chud

November 12, 2018

This article will help you understand what's really going on under the hood of the Internet. What happens when you open a browser, type a URL, and go to a webpage.

Technology

Part 2: The Stack & Frameworks

Justin Chud

November 12, 2018

When building an application developers can choose which tools and technologies to use for each part of the stack (remember the stack is the 3 pieces that make up the application: front-end, back-end, & the database).

Technology

Part 1: Understanding how software works for non-technical people

Justin Chud

November 12, 2018

This article will break down the high-level overview of how software works in today’s world — and what all those terms mean that you probably often hear in conversations.

Technology

Industry

World’s First iPSC Factory Opened in Japan

Chelsea Weidman Burke

September 9, 2018

The world’s first commercial induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) factory, named the Sumitomo Dainippon Manufacturing Plant for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Therapy (SMaRT), was opened in March in Osaka, Japan.

Industry

Society

Giving Food a Second Chance

Vitória Moraes

May 16, 2017

When food is lost, many Americans go hungry. How technology can make sure that food gets into bellies and stays out of landfills. or every 6 Americans, one goes hungry. For every 9 humans on this planet, one sleeps on an empty stomach. And for every meal that makes it from the farm to your plate, 4 meals worth of food are lost — either left in the field, wasted in restaurants, or spoiled in transit.

Society

Technology

The Anatomy of Machines, the Chemistry of Transistors

Olivia Jeffers

April 23, 2017

Fundamentally, computing is a all about controlling and managing information over time. Brains can compute, and so can your smartphone. The information that flows through both is fundamentally the same. Today we’re starting with the most commonly...

Technology

Science

The Many Faces of a Neuron: Cell, Wire, and Computer

Olivia Jeffers

April 16, 2017

It seems that somehow, from a dense spaghetti-network of over 100 billion neurons and glial cells* that the experience of consciousness arises. Continuing from last week’s newsletter on the subjective experience of consciousness, today we look at...

Science

Society

Delving Into Consciousness, The Mind of Matter

Olivia Jeffers

April 9, 2017

The study of consciousness for humans, is like the study of water for fish. It's currently impossible with human-made technologies to objectively observe and scientifically study... the way in which we observe and experience. It's a circular...

Society

Science

Transistor, Meet Neuron

Olivia Jeffers

April 2, 2017

Imagine a syringe with a mesh of 16 wires crumpled inside. At the end of each wire is a field-effect transistor, which can measure electrical outputs from individual neurons. The syringe narrows at the very tip to an 80µm needle, the width of a...

Science

Society

Algorithm Serves as Togolese ‘Village Elder’ for Flood Prediction

Olivia Jeffers

March 26, 2017

Each year in West Africa floods take lives dozens of lives, displace thousands of families, and destroy tens of thousands of hectares of cropland. The plus side of all this water is that it has enormous potential for electricity production, making...

Society

Thoughts On Technology after 100 Hours of Meditation

Olivia Jeffers

December 4, 2016

Vipassana means to “to see things as they really are.” As one of many creators in technology, I raise the challenge to all creators: can we figure out a way to profit from engaged users by fostering enthusiasm, joy, and health?

Society

Technologies and Us, Who is the Creator?

Olivia Jeffers

November 27, 2016

Tech leadership now holds more power than any government agency or group of people on this planet. Why? Because they drive the creation and distribution of new and powerful technologies.

Society

Industry

Why Big Ol' Enterprise Companies Still Can't Use Big Data

Olivia Jeffers

November 20, 2016

"Like bills making it to the Congressional floor, 99.9% of predictive models never make it to use,” Kalyan says. His startup FeatureLabs aims to make rapid prototyping of predictive models accessible to enterprise customers.

Industry

Tea Ceremony Positions Boston as Harbour for U.S.-China Robotics Cooperation

Olivia Jeffers

October 16, 2016

Coming out of the “Made in China” era of heavy industrial and manufacturing growth, China is now grasping onto emerging technologies and making moves towards creating the future, not just manufacturing it. Xing Jijun, Counselor of Science and Tech...

Industry

Taking Alzheimer's Drugs from the Lab to your Nightstand

Olivia Jeffers

September 25, 2016

In 1996, Dewji and Singer began researching pre-senelins, large molecules associated with amyloid beta reduction [4]. They noticed that certain peptide groups prevented amyloid beta from forming. Over time, they narrowed down the peptide group to...

Industry

Society

It’s Time to Reconsider String Theory

Tom Rudelius

September 19, 2016

The evidence is quickly mounting that when it comes to theories of quantum gravity, string theory is the only game in town. It is not far-fetched to imagine that in our lifetimes, physicists could prove string theory mathematically—no experiments...

Society

Technology

Designing Away the Side Effects of a Former Wonder-Drug

Olivia Jeffers

September 18, 2016

"We make drugs that look like what your body would make itself," says Dr. Way. Epo is a naturally-occurring protein in the body which triggers red blood cell (RBC) production by binding to RBC stem cells in the bone marrow. The problem is that Epo ..

Technology

Science

How Alzheimer's and Diabetes Work at the Nano-Scale

Olivia Jeffers

September 11, 2016

It might not seem that way because our bodies feel so unpredictable, but there is a sublime order underneath the chaos: how molecules talk to each other, what turns certain genes on and off, why some cells become blood cells and others platelets.

Science

Industry

CRISPR: A Billion-Dollar Pie, But Not the Only One

Olivia Jeffers

August 14, 2016

Pharmaceutical companies make money in two ways: drug sales and royalties on intellectual property. Investors are betting that gene therapeutics will be profitable, and patents for CRISPR/Cas9 are held until 2033. Usually companies receive...

Industry

Technology

The Low-Down on Gene Editing: CRISPR and Gene Regulation

Olivia Jeffers

August 7, 2016

Long before complex multi-cellular organisms like humans were in the picture, single-celled bacteria were our planet's dominant form of life. These bacteria competed and formed alliances with each other, and fought to protect themselves from viral...

Technology

Science

From Father to Son: How Fear Changes Your DNA

Tim Hintz

July 31, 2016

Can we inherit memories? In 2014, Brian Dias and Kerry Ressler conducted an experiment to test this. They exposed male mice to an aromatic compound (acetophenone) whose receptor gene (Olfr151) had been sequenced. The mice were not born with a blank..

Science

From Wolf to Puppy: Building the Staircase of Life

Olivia Jeffers

July 24, 2016

We've been genetically engineering for over 10,000 years, taking advantage of random genetic mutations and exerting human selection in the animals and plants around us. Only in the last 50 years have we developed the tools to exert greater...

Science

Society

As genetic engineering improves, what role will race play?

Olivia Jeffers

July 17, 2016

Why would a police officer mistakenly shoot an unarmed black man? In seeking answers, science comes to our aide, showing that racism is deeply rooted in our minds beyond our own awareness. We form thoughts and biases in two ways: the first from...

Society

Industry

Drug Design Re-Emerges With Potential to Lower Pharma Costs

Olivia Jeffers

June 19, 2016

“If we designed airplanes like we design drugs…” alludes Walter Woltosz, CEO and Chairman of Simulations Plus, then you probably wouldn’t feel very safe on an airplane!

Industry

Society

Using AI to Cut Waste, Naturally and Invisibly: Tech You Can Talk To

Ahmed Bouzid

February 9, 2016

The race is now fiercely on for who can deliver value with minimal imposition on the customer. Whatever products and solutions such AI delivers, the interface needs to respect the sanctity of the human action flow by bending the machine to...

Society