Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Scientists have studied the moon’s surface for decades to help piece together its complex geological and evolutionary history. Evidence from the lunar maria (dark, flat areas on the moon filled with solidified lava) suggested that the moon experienced significant compression in its distant past. Researchers suspected that large, arching ridges on the moon’s near side were formed by contractions that occurred billions of years ago—concluding that the moon’s maria has remained dormant ever since.

However, a new study reveals that what lies beneath the lunar surface may be more dynamic than previously believed. Two Smithsonian Institution scientists and a University of Maryland geologist discovered that small located on the moon’s far side were notably younger than previously studied ridges on the near side. Their findings were published in The Planetary Science Journal on January 21, 2025.

“Many scientists believe that most of the moon’s geological movements happened two and a half, maybe three billion years ago,” said Jaclyn Clark, an assistant research scientist in UMD’s Department of Geology. “But we’re seeing that these tectonic landforms have been recently active in the last billion years and may still be active today. These small mare ridges seem to have formed within the last 200 million years or so, which is relatively recent considering the moon’s timescale.”

Read more | >

ANEMEL researchers have created a catalyst for water splitting that’s efficient and stable, without relying on scarce platinum group metals (PGMs). The study, recently published in Energy & Environmental Science, reports a high-performance PGM-free catalyst for the cathode in water electrolysis, responsible for the reaction that creates green hydrogen.

Current anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolyzers rely on PGMs, which are scarce and expensive. Specifically, these metals are used as catalysts at the cathode, where hydrogen is generated. However, ANEMEL AEM electrolyzers avoid PGMs, opting instead for more abundant metals such as nickel. This is essential to enable the wide adoption of electrolyzers: it helps to decrease the cost of electrolyzer components and improve their recyclability, reducing waste and providing a competitive advantage.

This requires investigating innovative ways to ensure electrolyzers perform at least as well, if not better than, those made with PGMs. After all, platinum and other metals in this group offer excellent activity and stability, especially at high current densities in electrolyzer environments, something PGM-free catalysts still don’t.

Read more | >

Link :

RNA sequencing has emerged as a powerful tool for detecting various types of cancers and gaining a deeper understanding of tumor biology.

However, many samples used in these analyses are derived from tumor tissues preserved as formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) blocks. While FFPE blocks are excellent for histological examination, they pose significant challenges for molecular analysis due to the potential degradation or crosslinking of genetic material.

This application note describes the use of targeted custom RNA panels to overcome these challenges by enabling the robust and sensitive detection of gene expression profiles from FFPE non-small cell lung cancer samples.

Continue reading “Future-Proof Your RNA-Seq Workflow” | >

Very interesting paper by Lindley et al. showing that two mRNAs can be spliced together with extremely high efficiency using an optimized ribozyme system, allowing expression of large genes after dual-AAV delivery for treatment of muscular dystrophies. #genetherapy #biotech #synbio

Ribozymes are small catalytic RNA sequences capable of nucleotide-specific self-cleavage found widespread in nature. Ribozyme cleavage generates distinct 2′, 3′-phosphate and 5′-hydroxyl termini that resemble substrates for recently characterized RNA repair pathways in cells. We report that ribozyme cleavage of two separate mRNAs activated their scarless trans-ligation and translation into full-length protein in eukaryotic cells, a process that we named StitchR (for Stitch RNA). Optimization of StitchR activity in mammalian cells resulted in a ~900-fold increase in protein expression that approached levels observed for genes expressed from single vectors. We demonstrate that StitchR can be harnessed for effective dual adeno-associated virus gene therapies to correct muscular dystrophies by restoring large functional muscle proteins to endogenous levels in vivo.

Read more | >

Simultaneous measurements of the optical force and power exerted by a collimated laser beam on a 50-nm-thick silicon nitride lightsail membrane suspended by compliant micromechanical springs quantify the radiation pressure, enabling further multiphysics studies of radiation pressure forces on macroscopic objects.

Read more | >

This may be a global pandemic it is even suspected to hit the USA.

Dengue is sometimes known as “breakbone fever” – a description that resonated with Braga. “I consider myself to have a high pain tolerance, but the pain was so intense.”

She needed hospital treatment, after deteriorating to the point that she was vomiting and could no longer eat or drink. “Even after being hospitalised for five days, I only gradually started getting better. The fatigue, in particular, didn’t leave me for about 15 days,” she says.

The World Health Organization estimates that 4 billion people are at risk of dengue and related viruses, rising to 5 billion by 2050. The rapid spread over recent years is “an alarming trend”, says WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Continue reading “Dengue fever: with a record 12.4m cases in 2024 so far, what is driving the world’s largest outbreak?” | >

Their method scrambles laser beams into chaotic patterns, making decryption impossible without a trained neural network. This innovation could revolutionize cryptography.

Holograms for Next-Level Encryption

As the demand for digital security grows, researchers have developed a new optical system that uses holograms to encode information, creating a level of encryption that traditional methods cannot penetrate. This advance could pave the way for more secure communication channels, helping to protect sensitive data.

Read more | >

Dr James Cooke, PhD trained is a neuroscientist, speaker, and writer. He holds three degrees from Oxford University (a PhD and Masters in Neuroscience & a BA in Experimental Psychology). He has conducted scientific research for over a decade at institutions such as Oxford University, University of California, Berkeley, University College London, Trinity College Dublin, and Riken Brain Sciences Institute in Tokyo. James is the author of The Dawn of Mind: How Matter Became Conscious and Alive (2024), which synthesizes science and spiritual insight to offer a radical solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness. He is the founder of the \.

Read more | >