158 points by artninja1988 1 day ago | 118 comments | View on ycombinator
doctoboggan 1 day ago |
pfisherman 1 day ago |
daoboy 1 day ago |
SMEs please correct the record if I'm mistaken.
undefined 1 day ago |
usernametaken29 1 day ago |
> Cryopreservation + Demonstrate the ability to cryopreserve and recover live wild-type mice with high viability. Specifically, demonstrate the reversible cryopreservation of live, intact, wild-type adult mice in a whole-body frozen or vitrified state. The mice must remain frozen or vitrified for at least 24 hours, must be recovered with >99% viability, and must not suffer any permanent organ damage or bodily harm. Somatic genetic engineering is discouraged but permitted. All experiments must be conducted with ethics approval.
This has been done in the 50ies, freezing and thawing mice with microwaves. IIRC the recovery rate was about 74% with no observed side effects. The research was given up on because in this specific case a mouse is a bad biological model. Thawing agents must scale cubically with size. The author says that at approximately the size of a cat you can’t quickly enough evaporate all the agent because the energy required will simply burn the tissue.
TLDR: it’s possible, it’s been done, it could be perfected if necessary, it does NOT scale beyond mice
bonsai_spool 1 day ago |
Arguably, the origin of life is a question for all time -- no way that a VC webpage is going to change whether someone takes that problem on, and it will be commercialized with big-name capitalists instead of 'FutureHouse' should it ever be developed in the lab.
PaulKeeble 1 day ago |
None of these is likely the root to the wide array of chronic illnesses we can't treat and those seem like the next step to really put a lot of research into given how many people suffer from them and where we are today they seem achievable with the right investment.
rdtsc 1 day ago |
Wait, isn’t this an already solved problem? I remember in the 90s school books (material written in the 80s-70s likely) it was presented as “so and so did electric discharges in an atmospheric gas mixtures and they got organic molecules” therefore the origins of life is solved. I remember thinking how cool that was. I guess the “therefore” step was sort of a lie if it’s still an open problem…
unknown-unknown 1 day ago |
freebsd_lovefes 1 day ago |
ak_111 1 day ago |
thehamkercat 1 day ago |
Demonstrate the ability to cryopreserve and recover live wild-type mice with high viability.
> 06 - Somatic limb regeneration
Demonstrate the ability to regenerate lost limbs in adult wild-type mice.
Interesting, but looks like these problems are proposed in September 2026, unlike original 7 Millennium Prize Problems of Maths
dnautics 1 day ago |
Reverse translatase and protein amplification in particular.
How the fuck do you plan on selectively priming protein amplification. If you know ANY protein chemistry, you will know "the juice is not worth the squeeze" -- how would I exponentially amplify a protein? I'd do mass spec proteomics, synthesize the DNA, and express it.
Simply amazing that electrofixation is not on the list.
hirako2000 1 day ago |
magistra about 18 hours ago |
hn3ufz62f7 1 day ago |
ferd 1 day ago |
sajithdilshan 1 day ago |
Also if you think humans would ever become a space faring species, would it really make sense to stick to our carbon based biology or should we invest in transforming into silicon based beings
the__alchemist 1 day ago |
xybuller about 24 hours ago |
xybuller 1 day ago |
Haunt1000 1 day ago |
yewenjie 1 day ago |
randomImmigrant about 23 hours ago |
Rodriques is CEO of Edison scientific, which is going all in on agentic biology. These problems are all benchmarkable, and have been selected to allow for agentic exploration. That is, the tool is driving the problem selection more than genuine value to the field in solving these problems.
Still, if someone takes any of this up and manages something, it’ll be cool.
Q6T46nT668w6i3m 1 day ago |
cupantae 1 day ago |
Protostome 1 day ago |
Edit: A true expert would never define a problem in such a sloppy way: "Specifically, the protein must convert N₂ to ammonia at rates that are at least of a similar order of magnitude to the rates of naturally occurring proteins, and must fall well below the sequence- and structure-similarity thresholds relative to all known nitrogenase and nitrogenase-like proteins. The protein may be designed de novo, discovered in nature, or engineered or evolved from naturally occurring starting points."
himinlomax 1 day ago |
alabhyajindal 1 day ago |
Mistletoe 1 day ago |
shevy-java 1 day ago |
> Specifically, demonstrate the unassisted emergence of self replicating RNA- and protein-based cells from a plausible primordial soup with a plausible energy source. A “cell” may be any compartment with a defined boundary.
So, right now, nobody can explain how life originated. Proving that aminoacids, DNA or RNA form, does NOT mean that this is equal to life. This is a problem that the whole field has - it still can not explain how life originated. Showing that individual components can arise spontaneously, is not the same as showing e. g. how a cell formed and so forth. Where does the encoding problem fit into any of that, for instance? You need to prove how you can assemble systems. Just having a working ribosome does not connect it to DNA as a genetic backup system; and RNA tends to be unstable. Even when you have assumptions how this works together, you need to prove that this is how things originate(d). Nobody has done so since decades. It is an unsolved problem.
monegator 1 day ago |
hnrprtlpdb 1 day ago |
hnx0rqy49u 1 day ago |
tajtaj 1 day ago |