Lifeboat Foundation

Human appetites have transformed the tomato — DNA and all. After centuries of breeding, what was once a South American berry roughly the size of a pea now takes all sorts of shapes and sizes, from cherry-like to hefty heirloom fruit.

Today, scientists are teasing out how these physical changes show up at the level of genes — work that could guide modern efforts to tweak the tomato, says Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Zachary Lippman.

He and colleagues have now identified long-concealed hidden mutations within the genomes of 100 types of tomato, including an orange-berried wild plant from the Galapagos Islands and varieties typically processed into ketchup and sauce.

New research on the two-dimensional (2-D) material graphene has allowed researchers to create smart adaptive clothing which can lower the body temperature of the wearer in hot climates.

A team of scientists from the University of Manchester’s National Graphene Institute have created a prototype garment to demonstrate dynamic thermal radiation control within a piece of clothing by utilising the remarkable thermal properties and flexibility of graphene. The development also opens the door to new applications such as, interactive infrared displays and covert infrared communication on textiles.

The human body radiates energy in the form of electromagnetic waves in the infrared spectrum (known as blackbody radiation). In a hot climate it is desirable to make use the full extent of the infrared radiation to lower the body temperature which can be achieved by using infrared-transparent textiles. As for the opposite case, infrared-blocking covers are ideal to minimise the energy loss from the body. Emergency blankets are a common example used to deal with treating extreme cases of body temperature fluctuation.

One of the human body’s greatest features is its natural antivirus protection. If your immune system is working normally, it produces legions of T-cells that go around looking for abnormalities like cancer cells just to gang up and destroy them. They do this by grabbing on to little protein fragments called antigens that live on the surface of the bad cells and tattle on their whereabouts to the immune system. Once the T-cells have a stranglehold on these antigens, they can release toxins that destroy the bad cell, while minimizing collateral damage to healthy cells.

This rather neat human trick doesn’t always work, however. Cancer cells sometimes mask themselves as healthy cells, or they otherwise thwart T-cell attacks by growing so many antigens on their surface that the T-cells have no place to grab onto.

Medical science has come up with a fairly new method of outfoxing these crafty cancer cells called CAR T-cell therapy. Basically, they withdraw blood from the patient, extract the T-cells, and replace the blood. The T-cells are sent off to a CRISPR lab, where they get injected with a modified, inactive virus that introduces a new gene which causes the T-cells to sprout a little hook on their surface.

No damage caused by strong light, no artificial dyes or fluorescent tags needed.

The insides of living cells can be seen in their natural state in greater detail than ever before using a new technique developed by researchers in Japan. This advance should help reveal the complex and fragile biological interactions of medical mysteries, like how stem cells develop or how to deliver drugs more effectively.

“Our system is based on a simple concept, which is one of its advantages,” said Associate Professor Takuro Ideguchi from the University of Tokyo Research Institute for Photon Science and Technology. The results of Ideguchi’s team were published recently in Optica, the Optical Society’s research journal.

The coronavirus has killed dozens of federal prisons and infected more than 6,000. Prisoners say they have been stuck in grim conditions that make social distancing impossible. To support their claims, some prisoners have used contraband cell phones that have been smuggled into prisons to post videos on Facebook and other social media sites.

VICE News contacted one of the prisoners, 34-year-old Aaron Campbell, held at a federal prison in Ohio, who said he was punished for making his video by being sent to solitary confinement. In a letter, Campbell said officials told him he would not face additional discipline if he issued a statement saying the video was fake. He refused. (The BOP did not respond to questions about his allegations.)

Continue reading “Prisoners Are Using Smuggled Cellphones to Show the Coronavirus Nightmare Behind Bars” »

A neuroscientist’s neon pink arm cast led him and fellow researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to discover previously undetected neuronal pulses in the human brain that activate after an immobilizing illness or injury.

Via Jacob Gunn Glanville

Here’s the Forbes article on our program. Press release and some media to follow. We will be publishing our manuscript within a week to bioarxiv.

Jacob Glanville is an admirer of the human immune system — but he thinks we can do better.

Continue reading “Netflix ‘Pandemic’ Star Just Showed His Covid-19 Antibody Drug Works In Hamsters. How Quickly Could It Treat Humans?” »

A rejuvenation roadmap, and some info on Rejuvenate Bio.

Ray Kurzweil predicted the Technological Singularity will be reached in 2045. This actually means there will be strong AI, something like AGI that is 1 billion times more capable than the human brain in many aspects.

The Madison, Wisconsin-based startup Phoenix has scouted a team of nuclear elites for a new frontier: small reactors that can revolutionize medical imaging, munitions scanning, and even non-destructive testing for quality assurance.

And in the longer term, scientists say training people to run neutron generators helps to familiarize and speed up the future of nuclear fusion.