Lifeboat Foundation

In a world’s first, surgeons from NYU Langone Health performed a successful fully roboitc double lung transplant.

A research team led by Prof. Wang Haoyi from the Institute of Zoology (IOZ) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell exhaustion model and a functional screening platform for identifying compounds that can rejuvenate exhausted T cells.

Using this innovative platform, the team identified the small-molecule compound miltefosine, which significantly enhances the tumor-killing activity of CAR-T cells. This study was published in Cell Reports Medicine on December 9.

T cell exhaustion is a differentiation state that arises when T cells are exposed to persistent antigen stimulation. This state is characterized by a progressive loss of effector functions, sustained expression of inhibitory receptors, impaired proliferation, and compromised mitochondrial respiration and glycolysis capacity.

Scientists have discovered that cosmic filaments, the largest known structures in the universe, are rotating. These massive, twisting filaments of dark matter and galaxies stretch across hundreds of millions of light-years and play a crucial role in channeling matter to galaxy clusters. The finding challenges existing theories, as it was previously believed that rotation could not occur on such large scales. The research was confirmed through both computer simulations and real-world data, and it opens up new questions about how these giant structures acquire their spin.

After reading the article, a Reddit user named Kane gained more than 100 upvotes with this comment: “What if galaxy clusters are like neuron and glial clusters in a brain. And dark matter is basically the equivalent of a synapse. It connects galaxies and matter together and is responsible for sending quantum information back and forth like a signal chain.”

Though Elon Musk’s Neuralink put wireless brain implants in the spotlight — in early 2024, Musk announced his company’s first implant was successful — the research and development of these devices has spanned decades. The BrainGate clinical trials have been underway for 20 years, and the consortium’s wireless implant marks the first time a person has used an implant with high bandwidth capabilities.

Wireless technologies are opening doors in neuroscience, enabling new capabilities in communication, treatment, and research. Because wireless implants can monitor the brain for long periods of time, they offer a unique opportunity to examine neural dynamics, increasing our understanding of the human mind. Their cord-free design also benefits people hoping to use these devices outside a research setting and improve their quality of life.

The first brain implant is credited to neurologist Phil Kennedy, who had the device surgically affixed to his brain. Today, wired implants are less invasive and widely used. They can help prevent seizures, manage OCD symptoms, and treat movement disorders.

When you stare for long enough into the heart of a galaxy to try to catch a glimpse of the black hole that lurks therein, that may not be all you catch.

When a huge collaboration directed telescopes around the world to the heart of galaxy M87 in 2018 in an ultimately successful effort to capture detail of its supermassive black hole, they also managed to observe some of the wild shenanigans such a black hole engages in.

Now, astronomers discovered that one of those shenanigans was a colossal belch – a gamma-ray eruption from one of the powerful jets of plasma launched from the black hole’s poles as it feeds.

Quantum calculations of molecular systems often require extraordinary amounts of computing power; these calculations are typically performed on the world’s largest supercomputers to better understand real-world products such as batteries and semiconductors.

Now, UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researchers have developed a new machine learning method that significantly speeds up atomistic simulations by improving model scalability. This approach reduces the computing memory required for simulations by more than fivefold compared to existing models and delivers results over ten times faster.

Their research has been accepted at Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) 2024, a conference and publication venue in artificial intelligence and machine learning. They will present their work at the conference on December 13, and a version of their paper is available on the arXiv preprint server.

The study offers new genetic insights into dietary preferences and suggests the potential to target SI as a means to selectively decrease sucrose consumption on a population scale.

The study was led by Dr. Peter Aldiss, now a group leader in the School of Medicine at the University of Nottingham, alongside Assistant Professor Mette K Andersen, at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Basic Metabolic Research in Copenhagen and Professor Mauro D’Amato at CIC bioGUNE in Spain and LUM University in Italy. It also involves scientists internationally from Copenhagen, Greenland, Italy, and Spain as part of the ‘Sucrase-isomaltase working group’

“Our data support early resistance rehabilitation as a promising treatment to increase bone formation, bone healing strength, and promote full restoration of mechanical properties to pre-injury levels,” said Dr. Bob Guldberg.

How can implantable sensors help patients during their recovery? This is what a recent study published in npj Regenerative Medicine hopes to address as a team of researchers led by the University of Oregon investigated the use of implantable strain sensors to aid bone healing during rehabilitation from bone defect injuries. This study holds the potential to help provide patients with improved options regarding bone defect injuries while significantly reducing their rehabilitation time.

When it comes to rehabilitation, patients and doctors have always tried to find a middle-ground regarding the amount of strain needed to achieve the most desired outcomes, commonly called the “Goldilocks” principle. Therefore, this new study developed implantable sensors designed to monitor bone healing and determine if resistance training is a sufficient rehabilitation tool for patients. The researchers conducted an 8-week trial with laboratory rats split into three groups: resistance-trained, sedentary (inactive), and non-resistance.

Continue reading “Tiny Sensors Revolutionize Bone Injury Recovery with Real-Time Data” »

Dr. Marta di Forti: “Our study indicates that daily users of high potency cannabis are at increased risk of developing psychosis independently from their polygenic risk score for schizophrenia.”

Is there a connection between cannabis use and developing psychosis? This is what a recent study published in Psychological Medicine hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how frequent cannabis use combined with a genetic predisposition for schizophrenia could lead to developing psychosis later in life. This study holds the potential to help researchers, medical professionals, and the public better understand how to identify the signs of psychosis in cannabis users and take necessary steps to address them as soon as possible.

For the study, the researchers conducted an observational study by obtaining data records of almost 150,000 individuals registered in United Kingdom and European Union medical databanks, one of which was the European Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions (EU-GEI), to examine records regarding patients who self-reported use and psychosis diagnoses. In the end, the researchers discovered a connection between individuals who self-reported lifetime frequent cannabis use and psychosis diagnoses, specifically regarding high potency cannabis which contains 10 percent or greater Delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Continue reading “Cannabis Use and Schizophrenia Genetics: Separate Routes to Psychosis Risk” »