Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,788

Recent events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the use of chemical weapons in the Syria conflict have provided a stark reminder of the plethora of chemical and biological threats that soldiers, medical personnel and first responders face during routine and emergency operations.

Personnel safety relies on which, unfortunately, still leaves much to be desired. For example, high breathability (i.e., the transfer of water vapor from the wearer’s body to the outside world) is critical in protective military uniforms to prevent heat-stress and exhaustion when soldiers are engaged in missions in contaminated environments. The same materials (adsorbents or barrier layers) that provide protection in current garments also detrimentally inhibit breathability.

To tackle these challenges, a multi-institutional team of researchers led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist Francesco Fornasiero has developed a smart, breathable fabric designed to protect the wearer against biological and chemical warfare agents. Material of this type could be used in clinical and medical settings as well. The work was recently published online in Advanced Functional Materials and represents the successful completion of Phase I of the project, which is funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency through the Dynamic Multifunctional Materials for a Second Skin “D[MS]2” program.

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A few years after Li Jinxing graduated from college, he returned to his rural hometown to become a flower farmer. The days were long but the routine familiar: rise early and tend to the blossoms in the morning; trim and package those in bloom during the afternoon; deliver the parcels, delicately stacked in trucks, to customers by late evening.

Where the flowers ended up, Li was never quite sure. From his fields in Yunnan province, China, he sold them to national distributors who sold them to flower shops who sold them to end consumers. He imagined the beautiful fruits of his labor brightening up homes around the country. This had been the life work of his family for generations. It all threatened to come to an end with covid-19.

Li, 27, remembers the exact moment he heard about the viral outbreak: it was past midnight on January 20, 2020. The Chinese New Year was only five days away, and he had spent the day harvesting flowers in preparation for the expected holiday bump in sales. As he swiped through Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, he saw a fleeting mention of the disease. Li wasn’t sure what to think. Wuhan was nearly 1,200 miles away—the problem felt distant and intangible. Days later, it snowed on New Year’s Eve, he remembers. He took it as an auspicious sign.

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“In the 1960s, Italian media uncovered evidence that the Vatican had invested in entities that conflict directly with the church’s holy mission, including Istituto Farmacologico Serono, a pharmaceutical company that made birth control pills, and Udine, a military weapons manufacturer. There have also been unconfirmed rumor of church money in firearms manufacturer Beretta and companies with activities in gambling and pornography. It has been linked to dealings with Nazi gold during World War II as well.”

How much real estate does the Catholic Church own? What are its equity holdings? These questions, and more, not answered.

Author: Emily StewartPublish date:

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There is no vaccine or specific treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2.

Since the outbreak began in late 2019, researchers have been racing to learn more about SARS-CoV-2, which is a strain from a family of viruses known as coronavirus for their crown-like shape.

Northeastern chemical engineering professor Thomas Webster, who specializes in developing nano-scale medicine and technology to treat diseases, is part of a contingency of scientists that are contributing ideas and technology to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fight the COVID-19 outbreak.

The idea of using nanoparticles, Webster says, is that the virus behind COVID-19 consists of a structure of a similar scale as his nanoparticles. At that scale, matter is ultra-small, about ten thousand times smaller than the width of a single strand of hair.

Continue reading “Here’s how nanoparticles could help us get closer to a treatment for COVID-19” | >

Viruses are likely to be widespread across the cosmos, says expert. The good news is that most if not all are unlikely to pose threats to space-faring humans.

As this wretched COVID-19 disease has so acutely demonstrated, we live in an ecological duopoly of predator versus prey. Nothing about this set-up is going to change. At least a part of this microbial world is going to continue to wreak havoc on humans anytime it can.

Thus, in our current quest to move off-world, first to the Moon and Mars, then even further afield what are the chances that any given exo-earth will also harbor microbes that will be lethal to other living organisms? In other words, will this predator versus prey dynamic play out on a grand cosmic scale?

Most if not all ecosystems on Earth depend on some life forms feeding on other life forms for energy or other nutrients. I don’t see any reason that this would not be similar on exoplanets that harbor life, Ken Stedman, a virologist at Portland State University in Oregon, told me.

Continue reading “Viruses Are Likely To Be Ubiquitous Throughout Cosmos” | >

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh in collaboration with Magee Women’s Research Institute are developing a nasal spray that they say can possibly prevent a coronavirus infection.

The active ingredient used in the nasal spray is a protein called Q-Griffithsin, which is extracted from algae and tobacco plants. The researchers believe that this protein molecule will bind to the coronavirus and prevent it from infecting healthy cells.

The protein molecule was originally developed to potentially prevent several other infections. Animal studies revealed that Q-Griffithsin worked effectively against MERS, SARS, hepatitis, Ebola, and several other viruses.

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Dark-matter device will use a Bose–Einstein condensate of rubidium-87 atoms to search for axions. Plus, the science still isn’t clear on how children spread the coronavirus and the month’s best science images. Dark-matter device will use super-cooled atoms to search for axions. Plus, the science still isn’t clear on how children spread the coronavirus and the month’s best science images.

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The company said it expects to “incur significant expenses this year” related to the development of and manufacturing of its potential vaccine. However, it added that it expects “a close matching of expenses and reimbursements for those expenses” from its award by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

BARDA, which is a part of the Department of Health and Human Services, last month warded Moderna up to $483 million in funding to accelerate development of the Covid-19 vaccine candidate.

The race to develop anything to fight the coronavirus is intensely competitive and investors are watching closely for signs of progress on treatments and vaccines. Moderna, as well as other companies in the race, is ramping up manufacturing ahead of approval so that it can rapidly distribute doses if their candidate proves effective against the virus and safe for humans.

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