Lifeboat Foundation

The sleep-wake cycle is among the most well-known circadian rhythms in the body and is severely affected in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). “Eighty percent of patients with AD suffer dysregulation or disruption of circadian rhythms, and the obvious clinical manifestations are the sleep-wake reversals,” Desplats said. “These patients are very sleepy during the day, agitated during the night, more confused, and sometimes aggressive.”

The feeding-fasting cycle is one of the strongest signals you can send the body to entrain the circadian clock.-Paula Desplats, University of California, San Diego

In a recent study published in Cell Metabolism, Desplats’s team used mice that are genetically engineered to develop AD to test whether intermittent fasting improves circadian rhythm abnormalities.³ Rather than restricting calories or making dietary changes, they simply limited food access to a defined six-hour daily window. They found that time-restricted eating improved sleep, metabolism, memory, and cognition, and reduced brain amyloid deposits and neuroinflammatory gene expression. “Many of the genes that are affected in AD are rhythmically expressed in the brain, meaning that they are in direct relation with the circadian clock and are involved in functions that are fundamental to AD pathology,” Desplats said. Intermittent fasting restored the rhythmic activity of these genes, but the real surprise was the extent to which it mitigated brain amyloid deposits and improved cognition and sleep-wake behaviors. “I didn’t expect that it will have such a dramatic impact on pathology,” Desplats said.

Observations from the Event Horizon Telescope show that the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy M87 has twisted magnetic fields that help matter and light escape from the immense gravit.

The regulation of genetic diversity resulting from polyploidization and its impact on environmental adaptability remain unclear. Here, the authors show that

Researchers around the world are working on a network which could connect quantum computers with one another over long distances. Andreas Reiserer, Professor of Quantum Networks at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), explains the challenges which have to be mastered and how atoms captured in crystals can help.

The idea is the same: We use today’s internet to connect computers with one another, while the quantum internet lets quantum computers communicate with one another. But in technical terms the quantum internet is much more complex. That’s why only smaller networks have been realized as yet.

There are two main applications: First of all, networking quantum computers makes it possible to increase their computing power; second, a quantum network will make absolutely interception-proof encryption of communication possible. But there are other applications as well, for example networking telescopes to achieve a previously impossible resolution in order to look into the depths of the universe, or the possibility of synchronizing atomic clocks around the world extremely precisely, making it possible to investigate completely new physical questions.

Biological materials are made of individual components, including tiny motors that convert fuel into motion. This creates patterns of movement, and the material shapes itself with coherent flows by constant consumption of energy. Such continuously driven materials are called active matter.

The mechanics of cells and tissues can be described by active matter theory, a scientific framework to understand the shape, flow, and form of living materials. The active matter theory consists of many challenging mathematical equations.

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden, the Center for Systems Biology Dresden (CSBD), and the TU Dresden have now developed an algorithm, implemented in an open-source supercomputer code, that can for the first time solve the equations of active matter theory in realistic scenarios.

Quantum advantage is the milestone the field of quantum computing is fervently working toward, where a quantum computer can solve problems that are beyond the reach of the most powerful non-quantum, or classical, computers.

Quantum refers to the scale of atoms and molecules where the laws of physics as we experience them break down and a different, counterintuitive set of laws apply. Quantum computers take advantage of these strange behaviors to solve problems.

Continue reading “A scientist explains an approaching milestone marking the arrival of quantum computers” »

To get several of the modified chromosomes into the same yeast cell, Boeke’s team ran a lengthy cross-breeding program, mating cells with different combinations of genomes. At each step there was an extensive “debugging” process, as synthetic chromosomes interacted in unpredictable ways.

Using this approach, the team incorporated six full chromosomes and part of another one into a cell that survived and grew. They then developed a method called chromosome substitution to transfer the largest yeast chromosome from a donor cell, bumping the total to seven and a half and increasing the total amount of synthetic DNA to over 50 percent.

Getting all 17 synthetic chromosomes into a single cell will require considerable extra work, but crossing the halfway point is a significant achievement. And if the team can create yeast with a fully synthetic genome, it will mark a step change in our ability to manipulate the code of life.

Humankind on the verge of evolutionary traps, a new study: …For the first time, scientists have used the concept of evolutionary traps on human societies at large.

For the first time, scientists have used the concept of evolutionary traps on human societies at large. They find that humankind risks getting stuck in 14 evolutionary dead ends, ranging from global climate tipping points to misaligned artificial intelligence, chemical pollution, and accelerating infectious diseases.

The evolution of humankind has been an extraordinary success story. But the Anthropocene—the proposed geological epoch shaped by us humans—is showing more and more cracks. Multiple global crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, food insecurity, financial crises, and conflicts have started to occur simultaneously in something which scientists refer to as a polycrisis.

Continue reading “New research maps 14 potential evolutionary dead ends for humanity and ways to avoid them” »

One AI startup’s undoing is another’s opportunity.

Case in point: Today, AI21 Labs, a company developing generative AI products along the lines of OpenAI’s GPT-4 and ChatGPT, closed a $53 million extension to its previously announced Series C funding round. The new tranche, which had participation from new investors Intel Capital and Comcast Ventures, brings AI21’s total raised to $336 million.

The startup’s valuation remains unchanged at $1.4 billion.