Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 1332

Because the brain responses in children with different forms of autism overlapped, future therapies that are effective for Phelan-McDermid syndrome could potentially help other autistic children with similar neural patterns, Siper says.

Brain responses to visual stimuli are smaller and weaker in children with Phelan-McDermid syndrome, an autism-linked genetic condition, than in non-autistic children, according to a new study. The difference in response is greater in children with larger genetic mutations.

Mutations or deletions in SHANK3, one of the genes most strongly linked to autism, cause Phelan-McDermid syndrome. More than 80 percent of people with the condition have autism; they also often have intellectual disability, developmental delays and other medical issues, though these traits and their severity can vary widely.

The new study is the first to use electroencephalography (EEG) to measure visual evoked potentials — brain responses that occur shortly after a person views a visual stimulus — in people with Phelan-McDermid syndrome. The team previously identified differences in these responses in people with ‘idiopathic’ autism, or autism with no known genetic cause. Other researchers have linked atypical visual evoked potentials to other single-gene causes of autism, such as Rett syndrome.

Continue reading “Visual response shows promise as biomarker in autism-linked condition” | >

The business of private survival shelters has grown during the pandemic. They’re not just for survivalists and doomsday preppers anymore. Bunkers buried in backyards or remote landscapes are capable of withstanding nuclear fallout and hurricanes, as well as violent conflict.

WATCH MORE SO EXPENSIVE NEWS VIDEOS:
How The Tokyo Olympics Became The Most Expensive Summer Games Ever | So Expensive.

Why The Texas Polar Vortex Is So Expensive | So Expensive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=689nDiplmIk.
Why Is Housing In Hong Kong So Expensive? | So Expensive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs5L3c40cvk.

#SurvivalBunkers #StormShelter #BusinessInsider.

Business Insider tells you all you need to know about business, finance, tech, retail, and more.

Continue reading “Why Survival Bunkers Are So Expensive | So Expensive” | >

The human body can be genetically inclined to attack its own cells, destroying the beta cells in the pancreas that make insulin, which helps convert sugar into energy. Called Type 1 diabetes, this disorder can occur at any age and can be fatal if not carefully managed with insulin shots or an insulin pump to balance the body’s sugar levels.

But there may be another, personalized option on the horizon, according to Xiaojun “Lance” Lian, associate professor of biomedical engineering and biology at Penn State. For the first time, Lian and his team converted human embryonic stem cells into beta cells capable of producing insulin using only small molecules in the laboratory, making the process more efficient and cost-effective.

Stem cells can become other cell types through signals in their environment, and some mature cells can revert to stem cells—induced pluripotency. The researchers found that their approach worked for human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells, both derived from federally approved stem cell lines. According to Lian, the effectiveness of their approach could reduce or eliminate the need for human embryonic stem cells in future work. They published their results today (Aug. 26) in Stem Cell Reports.

Read more | >

Determining the 3D shapes of biological molecules is one of the hardest problems in modern biology and medical discovery. Companies and research institutions often spend millions of dollars to determine a molecular structure—and even such massive efforts are frequently unsuccessful.

Using clever, new machine learning techniques, Stanford University Ph.D. students Stephan Eismann and Raphael Townshend, under the guidance of Ron Dror, associate professor of computer science, have developed an approach that overcomes this problem by predicting accurate structures computationally.

Most notably, their approach succeeds even when learning from only a few known structures, making it applicable to the types of whose structures are most difficult to determine experimentally.

Read more | >

Devices in the submillimetre range – so-called “nano-supercapacitors” – allow the shrinkage of electronic components to tiny dimensions. However, they are difficult to produce and do not usually incorporate biocompatible materials. Corrosive electrolytes, for example, can quickly discharge themselves in the event of defects and contamination.

So-called “biosupercapacitors” (BSCs) offer a solution. These have two outstanding properties: full biocompatibility, which means they can be used in body fluids such as blood, and compensation for self-discharge behaviours through bio-electrochemical reactions. In other words, they can actually benefit from the body’s own reactions. This is because, in addition to typical charge storage reactions of a supercapacitor, redox enzymatic reactions and living cells naturally present in the blood can increase the performance of a device by 40%.

Shrinking these devices down to submillimetre sizes, while maintaining full biocompatibility, has been enormously challenging. Now, scientists have created a prototype that combines both essential properties.

Read more | >

About 11.1 million Americans are living with long COVID-19, according to new estimates from The American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Long COVID-19, or persistent symptoms up to six months after being cleared of the illness, affects around 30 percent of individuals who had COVID-19, according to two recent publications from the Journal of the American Medical Association. Symptoms of long COVID-19 are varied and may include neurological challenges, cognitive problems, shortness of breath, fatigue, pain and mobility issues.

The AAPM&R has developed a dashboard estimating long COVID-19 infections. The model assumes that 30 percent of people who recover from acute COVID-19 develop long COVID-19, but users can adjust estimates based on higher or lower percentages. U.S. case data is pulled from Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 data. U.S. census data uses2019estimates.

Read more | >

In the fictional links he drew between immortal vampires and bats, Dracula creator Bram Stoker may have had one thing right.

“Maybe it’s all in the blood,” says Emma Teeling, a geneticist studying the exceptional longevity of bats in the hope of discovering benefits for humans.

The University College Dublin researcher works with the charity Bretagne Vivante to study bats living in rural churches and schools in Brittany, western France.

Read more | >

Studying Novel Plasma Fractions For Age-Related Diseases And Systemic Rejuvenation — Dr. Harold Katcher Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Yuvan Research Inc.

Dr. Harold Katcher is the Chief Scientific Officer at Yuvan Research Inc., a biotech company exploring the development of novel, young plasma fraction rejuvenation treatments in mammals.

Most recently Dr. Katcher was the Academic Director for Natural Sciences for the Asian Division of the University of Maryland Global Campus and throughout his career, Dr. Katcher has been a pioneer in the field of cancer research, and in the development of modern aspects of gene hunting and sequencing (including as one of the discoverers of the breast cancer gene BRCA1) as part of Myriad Genetics, and carries expertise in bioinformatics, chronobiology, and biotechnology.

Continue reading “Dr. Harold Katcher, PhD — Chief Scientific Officer — Yuvan Research — Rejuvenative Plasma Fractions” | >