Lifeboat News: The Blog – Safeguarding Humanity

Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.

Jul 27
2025

Injured once, triggered forever? How the brain rewrites stress responses

A wound can leave a lasting imprint—even after it has healed. A new study in Current Biology finds that past injuries can quietly prime the body to overreact and be more sensitive to stress, pain and fear long after the damage is gone.

These findings may help explain how early injuries or trauma can set the stage for chronic pain conditions, where the nervous system remains hypersensitive long after the initial damage has healed. can set the stage for chronic pain conditions, where the nervous system remains hypersensitive long after the initial damage has healed.

Researchers at the University of Toronto Mississauga discovered that mice with a history of injury responded more intensely to the scent of a predator, an extremely stressful event for mice. These mice showed exaggerated fear and developed long-lasting pain in both hind paws, including the uninjured side. Strikingly, the symptoms lasted more than six months, long after the original injury had physically healed.

Jul 27
2025

How the Brain Reactivates Emotional Experiences

A new study using direct recordings from human brains reveals how the amygdala and hippocampus coordinate to form and retrieve emotional memories.

Jul 27
2025

Early developmental origins of cortical disorders modeled in human neural stem cells

The implications of early telencephalic development in cortical disorders remain elusive. Here, the authors define risk gene dynamics and perturbation effects in neural stem cells, revealing vulnerability phases during early human corticogenesis.

Jul 27
2025

The Prototype: Bringing Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Back To The U.S.

In this week’s edition of The Prototype, we look at a quantum computing milestone for biotech, a new way to get forever chemicals out of the water supply and more.

Jul 27
2025

NEAT for Longevity: The Biohacker’s Guide to Daily Movement

A science-backed guide to using NEAT for energy, metabolism, and healthy aging

Jul 27
2025

How Astrocytes Keep Neural Teams in Sync

A new study shows that astrocytes use a protein called Gat3 to manage ambient GABA levels, helping neurons work together to encode visual input.

Jul 27
2025

Researchers create safer nonstick surface, cutting use of ‘forever chemicals’

A new material developed by researchers from University of Toronto Engineering could offer a safer alternative to the nonstick chemicals commonly used in cookware and other applications.

The new substance repels both water and grease about as well as standard nonstick coatings—but it contains much lower amounts of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a family of chemicals that have raised environmental and health concerns.

“The research community has been trying to develop safer alternatives to PFAS for a long time,” says Professor Kevin Golovin, who heads the Durable Repellent Engineered Advanced Materials (DREAM) Laboratory at U of T Engineering.

Jul 27
2025

Washington People

They look like futuristic eyewear. But the goggles developed by Samuel Achilefu, PhD, and his team at the School of Medicine have a much greater purpose: They help surgeons see and remove cancer. Achilefu discusses his journey from childhood to the development of the goggles, to what he hopes is yet to come.

Jul 26
2025

Engineering Wonder

DEEP revolutionises underwater exploration with modular habitats and advanced research to expand human access and understanding of the ocean.

Jul 26
2025

Imaging Copper Levels during Life in the Brain and beyond Using a Fluorescent Copper Sensor with Multimodal Capacity

Copper is an essential trace element for normal development and function throughout the body, including the central nervous system (CNS). Alterations to cellular copper levels result in severe neurological consequences and are linked to a range of CNS disorders, positioning treatments that restore copper balance as promising therapies for these disorders. However, despite the clear relationship between copper balance and CNS health, there are limited tools to measure copper levels in vivo in humans. This constitutes a significant challenge for both diagnosing disorders of copper imbalance and monitoring the efficacy of copper-altering treatments for these disorders. Here we report the synthesis and characterization of Fluorine-labeled Naphthalimide Copper sensor 1 (F-NpCu1), a fluorescent sensor for copper that contains a fluorine atom for future radiolabeling for clinical application. We demonstrate that the probe exhibits good stability and is highly selective for copper above other transition metals present in biological tissues. Copper binding promotes covalent bond formation between the sensor and proximal cellular proteins. F-NpCu1 is nontoxic and can be measured using fluorescence microscopy in living cells and fixed tissue sections from both mouse brain and pancreas. Furthermore, F-NpCu1 exhibits good blood-brain-barrier permeability and can report differences in brain copper levels induced by copper modulating therapies in living mice using intravital fluorescence microscopy. This study represents a promising advance toward the development of the first clinical tool for measuring copper in living humans, including in the CNS, with radiolabeling studies underway to develop 18F-NpCu1 for PET imaging of copper in vivo.