Lifeboat Foundation

One of the biggest challenges of researching organs in vivo (or as part of an entire, living organism) is that there is little room for error. Finding treatment for a patient’s kidney, intestine, heart, or any organ must be done carefully; if anything goes wrong, it’s the person’s life on the line. Enter the organoid.

First fully realized and developed in the early 2010s, an organoid is a miniaturized and simplified version of an organ produced in vitro (or outside the entire organism: on their own). The organoid has significant use for researchers as it can be grown, researched, then recreated if any treatments cause tissue harm. Isolating the treatments to an in vitro organ gives researchers flexibility; they can focus entirely on targeted treatments without worrying about harming a living patient.

One of the most significant scientific advances of the last ten years, organoids have revolutionized research across several fields, and continue to grow more advanced and helpful year over year. So, what are these microscopic powerhouses, exactly?

The Maui fire. What happened. Many are pointing fingers at Hawian electric with many videos of downed powerlines. There is video taken at the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Makawao appears to show a power pole faulting just before 11 p.m. If Hawai electric turned of power when the winds were very strong there might have been a different scenario. Hundreds of kilometers to the south, Hurricane Dora was moving across the Pacific. On Maui, the wind blew, stronger than is usual for hurricanes on the island. The power then fails. Maui’s first reported wildfire last week may have been caused by damaged power lines, according to newly released research conducted by a power monitoring company. Bob… More.

Videos showing downed power lines apparently sparking some of the early blazes in Maui have become key evidence in search for cause.

Continue reading “Video shows falling tree striking power line ahead of Maui wildfires” »

Researchers from the Department of Physics at Universität Hamburg, observed a quantum state that was theoretically predicted more than 50 years ago by Japanese theoreticians but so far eluded detection. By tailoring an artificial atom on the surface of a superconductor, the researchers succeeded in pairing the electrons of the so-called quantum dot, thereby inducing the smallest possible version of a superconductor. The work appears in the journal Nature.

Usually, electrons repel each other due to their negative charge. This phenomenon has a huge impact on many materials properties such as the electrical resistance. The situation changes drastically if the electrons are “glued” together to pairs thereby becoming bosons. Bosonic pairs do not avoid each other like single electrons, but many of them can reside at the very same location or do the very same motion.

One of the most intriguing properties of a material with such electron pairs is superconductivity, the possibility to let an electrical current flow through the material without any electrical resistance. For many years, superconductivity has found many important technological applications, including magnetic resonance imaging or highly sensitive detectors for magnetic fields.

Plus a monkey who took a selfie and ignited a years-long legal battle and crow pooping antics, and more weird things we learned this week.

A team of scientists took a bunch of macaque monkeys, made them into alcoholics, and then successfully weaned them off the sauce after injecting their brains with a special gene — an experiment, detailed in a new paper published in Nature Medicine, that could potentially provide a compelling new treatment for addiction.

“Drinking went down to almost zero,” Oregon Health and Science University professor and co-author Kathleen Grant told The Guardian. “For months on end, these animals would choose to drink water and just avoid drinking alcohol altogether.”

The researchers set out with the premise that continued alcohol use causes changes to neurons and hampers the dopamine “reward circuitry” in the brain.

Cherenkov radiation achieved in faster than light reactions by SHINE.

SHINE has demonstrated clearly visible Cherenkov radiation produced by fusion for what is believed to be the first time in history. This visible evidence provides further proof that fusion can produce neutrons on par with some nuclear fission reactors.

Here, the authors demonstrate an analogue reversed Cherenkov radiation at mid-infrared frequencies in MoO3, a natural hyperbolic material, and show that the radiation angle and the quality factor can be increased by stacking hBN layers on the MoO3 surface.

In the latest controversial change at Elon Musk’s social network, the service formerly named Twitter reportedly added a five-second delay when users load links to certain news sites and rival social networks. The New York Times and Reuters were affected by the delay with the t.co link-shortening service used by X, according to several news reports published yesterday.

X eliminated the delay in links to news sites yesterday afternoon, according to Reuters and The Washington Post. “When contacted for comment, X confirmed the delay was removed but did not elaborate,” Reuters wrote.

Links from X to the NYT and Reuters loaded almost instantly for us today. But we still found delays of three to five seconds in links to Substack, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads today in our tests.

Since this book is about what I consider intellectual subject matter, I think it’s relevant to keep brains in top shape and thought it would be important to share this. You probably know about this sort of thing but I didn’t know the specific nutrients needed and what was lacking in people with Alzheimer’s. Best wishes.

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease estimated to affect 6 million Americans and 33 million people worldwide. Large numbers of those affected have not yet been diagnosed.

A new study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease by a Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine faculty member shows that brain levels of dietary lutein, zeaxanthin, lycopene, and vitamin E in those with Alzheimer’s disease are half those in normal brains. Higher dietary levels of lutein and zeaxanthin have been strongly linked to better cognitive functions and lower risk for dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

Continue reading “Brains with Alzheimer’s disease have subnormal levels of important dietary antioxidants” »