Lifeboat Foundation

Anxious Astronaut has suffered an anxiety attack in space. It could be debilitating, they’re not sure. And unlike, say, a broken arm, it is not immediately visible to Anxious’ co-workers. Anxious Astronaut is good at hiding their problem, which is how they got through the screening process on Earth. But Anxious Astronaut needs to be operating at peak functionality, which Anxious Astronaut knows, which is making them more stressed, and they haven’t even acknowledged to themselves that they’re undergoing a silent crisis. Stress is tough.

Anxious Astronaut does not want to give up their duties, so they’re not taking time to self-evaluate. And besides, any human diagnosis is millions of miles of way, considering Anxious Astronaut and their team are halfway to Mars. So how can Anxious Astronaut’s team figure out what’s wrong? A biosensor. A small, nearly invisible biosensor placed on Anxious Astronaut’s forehead has detected unusually high cortisol, which the body releases when stressed. The data is shared with the medical staff on the mission, and Anxious is able to have their workloads reduced until they’re feeling up to snuff.

Thanks to developments in biosensors that NASA and outside group NextFlex are working on today, Anxious or Unhealthy Astronaut might be able to figure out what’s ailing them at speeds unimaginable today.

The immune response can be modulated by bacterial signaling molecules.

Any comments?

Ultraprecise 3D printing technology is a key enabler for manufacturing precision biomedical and photonic devices. However, the existing printing technology is limited by its low efficiency and high cost. Professor Shih-Chi Chen and his team from the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), collaborated with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to develop the Femtosecond Projection Two-photon Lithography (FP-TPL) printing technology.

By controlling the laser spectrum via temporal focusing, the laser 3D printing process is performed in a parallel layer-by-layer fashion instead of point-by-point writing. This new technique substantially increases the printing speed by 1,000—10,000 times, and reduces the cost by 98 percent. The achievement has recently been published in Science, affirming its technological breakthrough that leads nanoscale 3D printing into a new era.

Continue reading “New technique increases 3D printing speed by 1,000 to 10,000 times” »

From the beginning of time, humankind has searched for the secret to a long life. Now science may have found an answer, in the form of molecular augury. The pattern of chemical chains that attach to the DNA in your cells—on-off switches known as epigenetic markers—can reveal how swiftly you are aging, and perhaps even how much longer you will live. While genetic testing might tell you where you came from, epigenetics promises a glimpse into the future. Now, a handful of companies are offering commercial blood or saliva tests based on the science of epigenetics—a chance to find out how old you truly are.

Companies claim they can now easily calculate your biological age. Should you take them up on it?

To that end, Fields decided to ask a Florida judge to grant him a warrant that would override the new policy, allowing him to search GEDmatch’s entire database, including users who hadn’t opted in — and Judge Patricia Strowbridge did just that, the detective announced at a recent police convention, according to the NYT.

Legal experts told the NYT that this appears to be the first time a judge has approved a DNA website warrant this broad, with New York University law professor Erin Murphy calling it “a huge game-changer.”

“The company made a decision to keep law enforcement out, and that’s been overridden by a court,” Murphy told the newspaper. “It’s a signal that no genetic information can be safe.”

Objective Failing to properly repair damaged DNA drives the ageing process. Furthermore, age-related inflammation contributes to the manifestation of ageing. Recently, we demonstrated that the efficiency of repair of diethylnitrosamine (DEN)-induced double-strand breaks (DSBs) rapidly declines with age. We therefore hypothesised that with age, the decline in DNA damage repair stems from age-related inflammation.

Design We used DEN-induced DNA damage in mouse livers and compared the efficiency of their resolution in different ages and following various permutations aimed at manipulating the liver age-related inflammation.

Results We found that age-related deregulation of innate immunity was linked to altered gut microbiota. Consequently, antibiotic treatment, MyD88 ablation or germ-free mice had reduced cytokine expression and improved DSBs rejoining in 6-month-old mice. In contrast, feeding young mice with a high-fat diet enhanced inflammation and facilitated the decline in DSBs repair. This latter effect was reversed by antibiotic treatment. Kupffer cell replenishment or their inactivation with gadolinium chloride reduced proinflammatory cytokine expression and reversed the decline in DSBs repair. The addition of proinflammatory cytokines ablated DSBs rejoining mediated by macrophage-derived heparin-binding epidermal growth factor-like growth factor.

Read more

Rejuvenation Roundup November 2019

Quite a number of readily understandable reviews were published this month, along with an X10 episode on epigenetic alterations; if you’re new to the biology of aging or want to introduce someone else to the topic with new material, this is a great time to start.

LEAF News

Continue reading “Rejuvenation Roundup December 2019” »

Researchers have found a woman with a rare genetic mutation that has protected her from dementia even though her brain has developed major neurological features of the disease.