Summary: A newly discovered second stem cell population in the mouse brain is responsible for the production of new neurons in the olfactory bulb of adult mice.
Source: Heidelburg University.
In the brain of adult mammals, neural stem cells ensure that new nerve cells, i.e. neurons, are constantly formed. This process, known as adult neurogenesis, helps mice maintain their sense of smell.
Summary: Boosting omega-3 fatty acid intake helps to preserve brain health and improve cognition in middle age, a new study reports. For those with the Alzheimer’s associated APOE4 gene, omega-3 fatty acid intake was associated with greater hippocampal volume and less small vessel disease.
Source: UT San Antonio.
Eating cold-water fish and other sources of omega-3 fatty acids may preserve brain health and enhance cognition in middle age, new evidence indicates.
A multidisciplinary team from two Johns Hopkins University institutions, including neurotoxicologists and virologists from the Bloomberg School of Public Health and infectious disease specialists from the school of medicine, has found that organoids (tiny tissue cultures made from human cells that simulate whole organs) known as “mini-brains” can be infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
The results, which suggest that the virus can infect human brain cells, were published online June 26, 2020, in the journal ALTEX: Alternatives to Animal Experimentation.
Early reports from Wuhan, China, the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, have suggested that 36% of patients with the disease show neurological symptoms, but it has been unclear whether or not the virus infects human brain cells. In their study, the Johns Hopkins researchers demonstrated that certain human neurons express a receptor, ACE2, which is the same one that the SARS-CoV-2 virus uses to enter the lungs. Therefore, they surmised, ACE2 also might provide access to the brain.
This could help us understand diseases better.
Researchers at the University of Utah have developed seed-sized brain organoids that can not only organize themselves but also provide us insights into the causes of autism, a press release said.
Organoids, tiny clusters of tissue derived from stem cells, allow researchers to replicate the complex organs outside the body while also controlling conditions around them… More.
Yueqi Wang.
Discarded electronic devices, such as cell phones, are a fast-growing source of waste. One way to mitigate the problem could be to use components that are made with renewable resources and that are easy to dispose of responsibly. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have created a prototype circuit board that is made of a sheet paper with fully integrated electrical components, and that can be burned or left to degrade.
Most small electronic devices contain circuit boards that are made from glass fibers, resins and metal wiring. These boards are not easy to recycle and are relatively bulky, making them undesirable for use in point-of-care medical devices, environmental monitors or personal wearable devices.
One alternative is to use paper-based circuit boards, which should be easier to dispose of, less expensive and more flexible. However, current options require specialized paper, or they simply have traditional metal circuitry components mounted onto a sheet of paper. Instead, Choi and colleagues wanted to develop circuitry that would be simple to manufacture and that had all the electronic components fully integrated into the sheet.
In a recent study published in the eLife journal, researchers demonstrated that tumor cells evade immunotherapy by generating unique transient cell-in-cell structures, resistant to chemotherapy and destruction by T cells.
Despite some remarkable success stories, cancer immunotherapies that use the body’s immune system to combat cancer stops working in many patients. It is unclear why this occurs, but how the immune system attacks cancer cells might have a role to play in this phenomenon.
Immunotherapies activate specialized killer T-cells, which trigger the immune response to tumors. These cells can identify cancer cells and inject toxic granules through their membranes to kill them. However, killer T-cells are not always effective because cancer cells are inherently good at avoiding detection. During treatment, their genes tend to mutate, giving them novel ways to evade the human immune system.
Mojo Vision’s smart contact lens has finally made the leap to human testing, bringing the future of AR a major step closer.
This video is the 1st of a series of “What is Aging” webinars that aims to unravel what aging is, how we age, why we age, and how to reverse it.
We welcome Jason C. Mercurio, MFE, Dr. Jose Cordeiro, and Dr. Ian Hale to discuss the topic.
Thanks to our transhumanist influencers including:
@G. Stolyarov II @Ray Kurzweil 2017 @The Singularity is Near.
#ageless #agelesspartners #agereveal #longevity #biohacking #biotechnology #agingbackwards.
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Stanford University researchers have discovered a rapid and sustainable way to synthetically produce a promising cancer-fighting compound right in the lab. The compound’s availability has been limited because its only currently known natural source is a single plant species that grows solely in a small rainforest region of Northeastern Australia.
The compound, designated EBC-46 and technically called tigilanol tiglate, works by promoting a localized immune response against tumors. The response breaks apart the tumor’s blood vessels and ultimately kills its cancerous cells. EBC-46 recently entered into human clinical trials following its extremely high success rate in treating a kind of cancer in dogs.
Given its complex structure, however, EBC-46 had appeared synthetically inaccessible, meaning no plausible path seemed to exist for producing it practically in a laboratory. However, thanks to a clever process, the Stanford researchers demonstrated for the first time how to chemically transform an abundant, plant-based starting material into EBC-46.
Companies creating lab-grown steak, chicken, and fish see a recent White House announcement as a signal that meat grown without animal slaughter is on the cusp of being legally sold and eaten in the US.
“We are laser focused on commercial-scale production, and for us, that means moving into competing with conventional meat products in scale,” said Eric Schulze, vice president of product and regulation at Upside Foods, a cultivated meat company, as the industry calls itself. The goal is to be selling its meat on the US market within the year.
The traditional meat and poultry industry reacted strongly to President Joe Biden’s executive order last month on biotechnology and biomanufacturing, which observers say could push federal agencies to allow commercial sales of meat grown from an animal’s cells.
