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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,813

French Church abuse: 216,000 children were victims of clergy

One form of “self-sacrifice” was to stand on the banks of the Nile and masturbate into the river as offering to honour Lord Amen (this sacred act was how Amen, Cyclical Eternity, came into being originally). Lots of the neurosis around today are because of the biblical view of “onanism” The term “Onanism” is associated with personal indulgence, or excess (even mortal sin for Catholics) perhaps giving rise to infantilised and repressed sexuality and a PANDEMIC of Christian paedophilia. 216,000 children — shouldn’t the Church in France be closed down?

The Church asks for forgiveness as an inquiry says it treated victims with “cruel indifference”.

Anti-amyloid antibody receives Breakthrough Therapy Designation in US

Roche’s gantenerumab is an anti-amyloid beta antibody developed for subcutaneous administration in Alzheimer’s disease patients.

Roche’s gantenerumab, an anti-amyloid beta antibody developed for subcutaneous administration, has been granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of people living with Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

So-Called Junk DNA — Genetic “Dark Matter” — Is Actually Critical to Survival in Mammals

Knocking out transposon promoter leads to pup death in mice; similar promoters found in many mammals.

Nearly half of our DNA

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a molecule composed of two long strands of nucleotides that coil around each other to form a double helix. It is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms that carries genetic instructions for development, functioning, growth, and reproduction. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).

New Duke University-led Study Shows That Vaxart’s Oral COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Reduces Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Animal Model

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Oct. 7 2021 /PRNewswire/ — A Duke University-led study published in bioRxiv showed that Vaxart, Inc.’s (NASDAQ: VXRT) investigational oral tablet vaccine reduced the airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus in an animal model.

These results are consistent with those from Vaxart’s Phase II human flu challenge study, which showed that Vaxart’s oral tablet vaccine was better at reducing shedding than the injectable flu vaccine comparator.

A limitation of the currently approved injected COVID-19 vaccines is that airborne transmission occurs in people who have received them. The preclinical study also demonstrated that Vaxart’s oral vaccine platform induces robust systemic and mucosal responses.

Press release content from PR Newswire. The AP news staff was not involved in its creation.

Alzheimer’s Mystery Solved: How Amyloid Beta Forms in Brain Nerve Cells

Only a matter of time til we can have nanobots clearing this out.

In a major breakthrough, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have discovered how amyloid beta — the neurotoxin believed to be at the root of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) — forms in axons and related structures that connect neurons in the brain, where it causes the most damage. Their findings, published in Cell Reports, could serve as a guidepost for developing new therapies to prevent the onset of this devastating neurological disease.

Among his many contributions to research on AD, Rudolph Tanzi, PhD, vice chair of Neurology and co-director of the McCance Center for Brain Health at MGH, led a team in 1986 that discovered the first Alzheimer’s disease gene, known as APP, which provides instructions for making amyloid protein precursor (APP). When this protein is cut (or cleaved) by enzymes — first, beta secretase, followed by gamma secretase — the byproduct is amyloid beta (sometimes shortened to Abeta). Large deposits of amyloid beta are believed to cause neurological destruction that results in AD. Amyloid beta formed in the brain’s axons and nerve endings causes the worst damage in AD by impairing communication between nerve cells (or neurons) in the brain. Researchers around the world have worked intensely to find ways to block the formation of amyloid beta by preventing cleavage by beta secretase and gamma secretase. However, these approaches have been hampered by safety issues.

Despite years of research, a major mystery has remained. “We knew that Abeta is made in the axons of the brain’s nerve cells, but we didn’t know how,” says Tanzi. He and his colleagues probed the question by studying the brains of mice, as well as with a research tool known as Alzheimer’s in a dish, a three-dimensional cell culture model of the disease created in 2014 by Tanzi and a colleague, Doo Yeon Kim, PhD. Earlier, in 2,013 several other MGH researchers, including neurobiologist Dora Kovacs, PhD (who is married to Tanzi), and Raja Bhattacharyya, PhD, a member of Tanzi’s lab, showed that a form of APP that has undergone a process called palmitoylation (palAPP) gives rise to amyloid beta. That study indicated that, within the neuron, palAPP is transported in a fatty vesicle (or sac) known as a lipid raft. But there are many forms of lipid rafts.

Experiments reveal formation of a new state of matter: Electron quadruplets

The central principle of superconductivity is that electrons form pairs. But can they also condense into foursomes? Recent findings have suggested they can, and a physicist at KTH Royal Institute of Technology today published the first experimental evidence of this quadrupling effect and the mechanism by which this state of matter occurs.

Reporting today in Nature Physics, Professor Egor Babaev and collaborators presented evidence of fermion quadrupling in a series of experimental measurements on the iron-based material, Ba1−x Kx Fe2As2. The results follow nearly 20 years after Babaev first predicted this kind of phenomenon, and eight years after he published a paper predicting that it could occur in the material.

The pairing of electrons enables the quantum state of superconductivity, a zero-resistance state of conductivity which is used in MRI scanners and quantum computing. It occurs within a material as a result of two electrons bonding rather than repelling each other, as they would in a vacuum. The phenomenon was first described in a theory by, Leon Cooper, John Bardeen and John Schrieffer, whose work was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1972.

Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft HoloLens 2 show off augmented reality’s impact in the automotive space

Forward-looking: The service department can seem like the slowest part of a dealership, especially when it’s your car getting worked on. But Mercedes-Benz is infusing its dealerships with AR technology to speed up the diagnosis and repair of tricky and complex issues with its Virtual Remote Support, powered by Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist. I visited one of Mercedes’ showcases last week to check out the implementation and get some hands-on time with the HoloLens 2.

For customers that bring in a hard-to-solve problem, it was common for Mercedes-Benz to call in a flying doctor, an expert from HQ that would fly in and get hands-on with an issue. That could take days to arrange, not to mention the costs and environmental impacts associated with flying in these technical specialists from all over the country. All the while, the customer is left without their luxury automobile.

While many shoppers go with a Mercedes for the styling and performance, it’s the service experience that impacts their future purchases. Long waits could see someone changing brands in the future.

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