Lifeboat Foundation

Since the start of the pandemic, scientists have learned that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is quite cunning. When the virus enters the body, it’s capable of turning off an entire branch of the immune system, allowing it to spread for days before the immune system can sound the alarm on the intruder. However, researchers still don’t know the full scope of tissues and cell types that are most vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2. Most research has focused on identifying genes and pathways that facilitate the virus’s entry into lung cells – yet both clinical and scientific data indicate that it can cause damage in a wide range of organs. Now, new Cornell research has developed potential roadmaps for how the virus infects these other organs and identifies what molecular factors could help facilitate or restrict infection.

Research from the Feschotte Lab identifies 28 new SARS-CoV-2 and coronavirus associated receptors and factors that predict which tissues are most vulnerable to infection.

🤔 My belief is: Many people have ideas on how to fix the global economy. It is only in trying as many ideas as possible to see what works, and what fails. Personally I believe in the ideologies of Scottish Intellectuals David Hume, and Adam Smith. Capital needs to be broadly spread out to the most productive hands of an economy. Currently that would be creatives. Musk and Bezos have multiplied wealth and created jobs, like Steve Jobs. With people cozy to the idea of working a… See More.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked states to be ready to distribute a coronavirus vaccine by late October. Pfizer (PFE) thinks it will have enough data to ask the US Food and Drug Administration to authorize its potential vaccine next month.

Most experts think it’s unlikely — but not impossible — that a vaccine will be ready ahead of the US election. But with at least seven candidates in phase three trials, it’s very likely that at least one successful vaccine will emerge in the months to come. Pharmaceutical companies are also racing to develop effective treatments for the disease.

Continue reading “A vaccine won’t cure the global economy” »

Circa 2014 o,.o.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has announced the start of a five-year, $26 million effort to develop brain implants that can treat mental disease with deep-brain stimulation.

The hope is to implant electrodes in different regions of the brain along with a tiny chip placed between the brain and the skull. The chip would monitor electrical signals in the brain and send data wirelessly back to scientists in order to gain a better understanding of psychological diseases like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The implant would also be used to trigger electrical impulses in order to relieve symptoms.

Continue reading “DARPA teams begin work on tiny brain implant to treat PTSD” »

Lysol Disinfectant Spray and Lysol Disinfectant Max Cover Mist meet the EPA’s criteria for use against the SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the ongoing pandemic, based on laboratory testing that found both products kill the virus two minutes after contact, the agency announced in a statement Monday.

While there are more than 420 products on the list of disinfectants that the EPA says are strong enough to ward off “harder-to-kill” viruses than the novel coronavirus, the two Lysol products are the first to have been tested directly against the virus and proved effective.

The cyberdelic extravaganza is online for the first time because of the pandemic. But maybe that’s not as strange as it might seem.

COVID-19 has led to limited food budgets, and shelter-in-place adds a layer of complexity to buying and planning meals. At the same time, we’re bombarded with ads shouting “Take this supplement to boost your immunity!” So, what’s a person to do?

Filling your cart with the basics might make you feel secure in the short term. But as Dr. Chu found, it’s a different ballgame when you get these items home. Can you make healthy meals with shelf-stable foods? Will the family eat your creation? And does food really boost our immunity? Yes, yes, and yes – over time.

I field questions like these often as director of UT Southwestern’s Culinary Medicine Program. We help people transform food preparation and eating into a healthier part of their daily lives. The program focuses on creating budget-friendly meals with shelf-stable ingredients, as well as mindful eating practices.

Continue reading “Quarantine cuisine: Easy meals to support a healthy immune system” »

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified a small neutralizing antibody, a so-called nanobody, that has the capacity to block SARS-CoV-2 from entering human cells. The researchers believe this nanobody has the potential to be developed as an antiviral treatment against COVID-19. The results are published in the journal Nature Communications.

“We hope our findings can contribute to the amelioration of the COVID-19 pandemic by encouraging further examination of this nanobody as a therapeutic candidate against this viral infection,” says Gerald McInerney, corresponding author and associate professor of virology at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology at Karolinska Institutet.

The search for effective nanobodies—which are fragments of antibodies that occur naturally in camelids and can be adapted for humans—began in February when an alpaca was injected with the new coronavirus’ spike protein, which is used to enter our cells. After 60 days, blood samples from the alpaca showed a strong immune response against the spike protein.

A new application of the CRISPR/Cas molecular scissors promises major progress in crop cultivation. At Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), researchers from the team of molecular biologist Holger Puchta have succeeded in modifying the sequence of genes on a chromosome using CRISPR/Cas. For the first time worldwide, they took a known chromosome modification in the thale cress model plant and demonstrated how inversions of the gene sequence can be undone and inheritance can thus be controlled specifically. The results are published in Nature Communications.

About 5,000 years ago, genetic information of thale cress was modified. To date, it has spread widely and is of major interest to science. On the chromosome 4 of the plant, a so-called inversion occurred: The chromosome broke at two points and was reassembled again. The broken out section was reinserted, but rotated by 180°. As a result, the sequence of genes on this chromosome section was inverted. This chromosome mutation known as “Knob hk4S” in research is an example of the fact that evolution cannot only modify the genetic material of organisms, but determine it for a long term. “In inverted sections, genes cannot be exchanged between homologous chromosomes during inheritance,” molecular biologist Holger Puchta, KIT, explains.

This is a part of a longer interview which you can watch in parts or listen in one go though it is posted on youtube as audio only for the latter.

Let’s say we find a way to reverse aging. How far could we wind things back and when should we do it?

Continue reading “How Far We Can Wind Back The Clock Ft. David Sinclair | Think Inc.” »