Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biological

The Observer Effect in Everyday Life

Daily reflection is a way to apply this principle in our everyday lives. It shines a spotlight on the behavior itself. And when behavior is observed consistently, it solidifies into neural pathways in the brain. We start behaving differently, not because someone else is judging us, but because we are measuring ourselves. The simple act of asking ourselves reflective questions each day shapes the behaviors in our lives, which, in turn, make us the people who exhibit those behaviors.

Another principle from quantum theory, entanglement, might also be at play when we do daily reflection. Quantum entanglement describes how particles can become linked to one another so that a change in one results in a change in the other. In the same way, the effort we make to change in one part of our lives is rarely confined to that part. Instead, our behaviors extend outward and affect those in relationship to us and around us. For example, your attempt to speak in positive terms, rather than negative ones, can influence your colleagues at work. Your intention to control your emotional outbursts can affect your family. Your efforts to build positive relationships at work or in your community can change the dynamics of those relationships. And when you combine these intentions with daily reflection, you’re not only strengthening a positive personal trait within yourself, but also influencing the bigger, interpersonal systems around you.

Philosophers, physicians, and physicists are forever debating what consciousness is. Is who we are just a byproduct of biology and the brain’s physiology, or is who we are more fundamental and exists irrespective of the brain’s neural firing? We may never know. That said, one thing is true: Conscious awareness shapes who we are. Without reflection, behavior defaults to habit. With reflection, possibility re-enters the system. The practice of asking yourself daily reflective questions puts you in the role of an observer rather than an actor. And from there, you can be intentional about who you choose to be tomorrow.

The Strehler-Mildvan mortality correlation arises from changes in the variability of ageing

As global human life expectancy continues to rise, accompanying increases in healthspan that prevent morbidity expansion become increasingly imperative. Population lifespan can increase in distinct ways, for instance through rectangularisation (steepening) or triangularisation (flattening) of survival curves. These two demographic changes, particularly rectangularisation, occur frequently across human and model organism populations, yet their biological determinants and effects on healthspan and morbidity are largely unknown. Notably, these modes of life-extension occur when parameters of the Gompertz mortality model (capturing exponential age-increases in mortality rate) change inversely, a widely-reported phenomenon known as the Strehler-Mildvan correlation — whose biological basis also remains unexplained. We therefore investigated longitudinal health, morbidity and lifespan in 30 Caenorhabditis elegans cohorts using multiple life-extension protocols. We report that survival curve rectangularisation results from healthspan expansion in short-lived population members, whereas triangularisation from healthspan and morbidity expansion in long-lived population members. Interestingly, rectangularisation and triangularisation respectively decrease and increase inter-individual variation in the ageing process, and the mode of life-extension that occurs depends on levels of existing variation. Notably, triangularisation was more effective at extending lifespan without morbidity expansion. Analysis of fruit fly and mouse data show that these biological determinants of the Strehler-Mildvan correlation are also largely evolutionarily conserved.

PubMed Disclaimer

Water-window X-rays without a synchrotron: How graphite flakes could shrink bioimaging tools

Researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have found a new way to produce X-rays with wavelengths in what is called the “water window.” This new method holds promise in making bioimaging X-ray machines smaller and more flexible to use.

Water-window X-rays are useful for bioimaging because they visualize biological cells at high contrast without staining them or requiring potentially damaging preparation.

However, some tabletop machines only produce radiation in a fixed range of energies, so more machines are needed if X-rays of varying energies are required to improve image contrast. Even then, they cannot cover the full spectrum of energies in the water window. There are single machines that can flexibly produce X-rays of different energies, but these are expensive synchrotrons larger than a house and difficult for most researchers to access.

Will self-driving ‘robot labs’ replace biologists? Paper sparks debate

I’d certainly like to see more experiments automated, yet I wonder if widespread automation would result in less resources directed to novel experimental designs (or new tools) that fall outside of automated workflows. Hopefully a balance can be attained!

AI-driven autonomous robots are coming to biology laboratories, but researchers insist that human skills remain essential.

Introduction: The Parkinson’s pandemic: prioritizing environmental policy and biological resilience

Via the gut.

Bianca Palushaj & Robin M Voigt puts forward a strategy for altering the trajectory of this modern epidemic.

1Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

2Rush Center for Integrated Microbiome and Chronobiology Research.

3Department of Internal Medicine, and.

4Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Continue reading “Introduction: The Parkinson’s pandemic: prioritizing environmental policy and biological resilience” | >

Scientists put forward a new theory of brain development

Your brain begins as a single cell. When all is said and done, it will house an incredibly complex and powerful network of some 170 billion cells. How does it organize itself along the way? Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory neuroscientists have come up with a surprisingly simple answer that could have far-reaching implications for biology and artificial intelligence.

Stan Kerstjens, a postdoc in Professor Anthony Zador’s lab, frames the question in terms of positional information. “The only thing a cell ‘sees’ is itself and its neighbors,” he explains. “But its fate depends on where it sits. A cell in the wrong place becomes the wrong thing, and the brain doesn’t develop right. So, every cell must solve two questions: Where am I? And who do I need to become?”

In a study published in Neuron, Kerstjens, Zador, and colleagues at Harvard University and ETH Zürich put forward a new theory for how the brain organizes itself during development.

The dynamic and heterogeneous composition of biomolecular condensates and its functional relevance

Biomolecular condensates are non-membrane-encapsulated compartments that control various biological processes. Recent studies have revealed that condensates change in response to stimuli and over time. This Review discusses the heterogeneity and composition changes of nuclear and cytoplasmic condensates, their regulation and how the changes affect cellular biochemical reactions.

/* */