Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,207

In response to a request from the province of British Columbia (BC), from January 31, 2023 to January 31, 2026, adults (18 and over) in BC will not be subject to criminal charges for the possession of up to 2.5 grams of certain illegal drugs for personal use.

The federal Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health granted the province of British Columbia (BC)’s request for a subsection 56 exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act for adults (18 years of age and older) in the province to possess small amounts of certain illegal drugs for personal use. BC has referred to this as “decriminalization of personal possession of illegal drugs”.

What this means is that from January 31, 2023 to January 31, 2026, adults (18 and over) in BC will not be subject to criminal charges for the possession of a cumulative total of up to 2.5 grams of certain illegal drugs for personal use. Instead, all individuals found in possession of substances listed in the exemption of up to 2.5 grams for personal use will, at minimum, be provided with information on available local health and social services. They can also be provided with assistance to connect with those services if requested. The exemption only covers possession for personal use by adults (18 and over) in BC with no intent to traffic, produce or export.

British Columbia has been greatly impacted by overdose deaths and related harms, and declared the overdose crisis a public health emergency in 2016. As part of the province’s comprehensive public health response, BC requested a subsection 56 exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) so that adults in the province will not be subject to criminal charges for personal possession of small amounts of certain illegal drugs.

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The world’s first exascale computer, capable of performing a billion billion operations per second, has been built by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the US.

A typical laptop is only capable of a few teraflops, or a trillion operations per second, which is a million times less. The exaflop machine, called Frontier, could help solve a range of complex scientific problems, such as accurate climate modelling, nuclear fusion simulation and drug discovery.

“Frontier will offer modelling and simulation capabilities at the highest level of computing performance,” says Thomas Zacharia at ORNL.

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Deep RNA sequencing of 164 blood samples collected from long-lived families was performed to investigate the expression patterns of circular RNAs (circRNAs). Unlike that observed in previous studies, circRNA expression in long-lived elderly individuals (98.3 ± 3.4 year) did not exhibit an age-accumulating pattern. Based on weighted circRNA co-expression network analysis, we found that longevous elders specifically gained eight but lost seven conserved circRNA-circRNA co-expression modules (c-CCMs) compared with normal elder controls (spouses of offspring of long-lived individuals, age = 59.3 ± 5.8 year). Further analysis showed that these modules were associated with healthy aging-related pathways. These results together suggest an important role of circRNAs in regulating human lifespan extension.

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Virusight Diagnostic, an Israeli company that combines artificial intelligence software and spectral technology announced the results of a study that found that its Pathogens Diagnostic device detects COVID-19 with 96.3 percent accuracy in comparison to the common RT-PCR.

The study was conducted by researchers from the Department of Science and Technology, University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy with partner company TechnoGenetics S.p. A.

The Virusight solution was tested on 550 saliva samples and found to be safe and effective.

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Tomatoes gene-edited to produce vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, could be a simple and sustainable innovation to address a global health problem.

Researchers used gene editing to turn off a specific molecule in the plant’s genome which increased provitamin D3 in both the fruit and leaves of tomato plants. It was then converted to vitamin D3 through exposure to UVB light.

Vitamin D is created in our bodies after skin’s exposure to UVB light, but the major source is food. This new biofortified crop could help millions of people with vitamin D insufficiency, a growing issue linked to higher risk of cancer, dementia, and many leading causes of mortality. Studies have also shown that vitamin D insufficiency is linked to increased severity of infection by Covid-19.

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Blockchain technology is spreading like fire across industries and businesses. It is currently used in digital voting, medical recordkeeping, decentralized finance, gaming, capital markets, supply chain management, etc. More and more businesses and individual users want to take advantage of blockchain to increase transparency, security, and communication. To leverage blockchain development in innovative use cases, organizations need to comprehend the programming languages best suited for their upcoming projects. Here are the top 5 hottest blockchain programming languages that are being utilized by start-ups and enterprises today.

A high-level programming language is getting more popularity as a blockchain developer language, particularly for dApps development. If you are looking for a language for developing smart contracts on Ethereum Blockchain, Solidity is the one. It is a contract-based language, allowing to store all the logic in the code of the Blockchain.

With amazing code portability, it is the most popular programming language among application developers. It has been used to create smart contracts such as Truffle, ARK, and some of the popular blockchains that are developed using Java include Ethereum, IOTA, NEM, and NEO.

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Our bodies are pretty ingenious when it comes to self-repair, and scientists have been studying in detail the ways in which the heart patches itself up after a heart attack (myocardial infarction). They hope to find clues that could lead to better treatments for cardiovascular problems.

New research has revealed that the immune response of the body and the lymphatic system (part of the immune system) are crucial in the way that the heart repairs itself after a heart attack has caused damage to the heart muscle.

Key to the study was the discovery of the role played by macrophages, specialist cells that can destroy bacteria or initiate helpful inflammation responses. As the first responders on a scene after a heart attack, these macrophages produce a particular type of protein called VEGFC, the researchers report.

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Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a film that not only protects wounds similar to the way a bandage does, but also helps wounds to heal faster, repels bacteria, dampens inflammation, releases active pharmaceutical ingredients in a targeted manner and ultimately dissolves by itself. This is all made possible by its dedicated design and the use of mucins, molecules which occur naturally in mucous membranes.

Conventional bandages may be very effective for treating smaller skin abrasions, but things get more difficult when it comes to soft-tissue injuries such as on the tongue or on sensitive surfaces like the intestines. What kind of material will adhere there without damaging the tissue or sticking to adjacent points? How can wounds be protected from external influences and bacteria? What kind of substance will allow cells underneath to close the wound, and then ultimately disappear without a trace?

In spite of recent progress in developing materials addressing some of the specific requirements mentioned above, engineering a multifunctional all-in-one solution remains a challenge. A team led by Oliver Lieleg, Professor of Biomechanics at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), has developed a biopolymer film that combines a wide range of different functions at the same time. In a recently published study, the biomolecular “bandage” showed highly promising results and is ready to undergo further testing and tailoring.

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Lack of a robotic hand that can match a human hand will continue to delay full automation.

SINGAPORE, May 30 (Reuters) — After struggling to find staff during the pandemic, businesses in Singapore have increasingly turned to deploying robots to help carry out a range of tasks, from surveying construction sites to scanning library bookshelves.

The city-state relies on foreign workers, but their number fell by 235,700 between December 2019 and September 2021, according to the manpower ministry, which notes how COVID-19 curbs have sped up “the pace of technology adoption and automation” by companies.

At a Singapore construction site, a four-legged robot called “Spot”, built by U.S. company Boston Dynamics, scans sections of mud and gravel to check on work progress, with data fed back to construction company Gammon’s control room.

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