Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers have discovered that the powerhouses of our cells, the mitochondria, also play a role in triggering cells to enter senescence, a dormant state in which cells cease to divide and begin to shut down, ready to die.

Mitochondria trigger cytoplasmic chromatin and inflammation

The new study shows that the mitochondria in each cell communicate with its nucleus, causing it to shut down and enter a senescent state [1]. Dr. Peter Adams, one of the study’s researchers, has spent over a decade investigating how chromatin clusters, a mixture of DNA and proteins typically encountered in the cell nucleus, actually leak out of the nucleus and into the cytoplasm in senescent cells. This leaking then triggers a cascade of inflammatory signals, which are linked to the onset of various age-related diseases.

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A new study suggests a better way to match patients with depression to a medication.

I get emotional talking about my lung cancer. When I was first diagnosed and learned how serious it was, I thought it was a death sentence. And it all started with something so small: a cyst under my armpit.

My husband and I usually go to all of our routine doctor’s visits together. At one of my husband’s appointments, I happened to mention the cyst, since it had been bothering me. I was hoping the doctor could help, but he said it was too big to take care of in the office, and made me an appointment with a surgeon.

At the time, the cyst removal didn’t seem like a big deal, and I didn’t think much of it. I was 72 years old, and I didn’t feel sick in any way. As part of the routine procedure prep, my surgeon ordered a chest X-ray. We were all surprised when the imaging showed that I had a cancerous tumor in my right lung that needed to be surgically removed. Initially, my surgeon told me it was Stage I, small, and not serious, so I wasn’t too concerned.

In some biology classes, teachers will place vials of spit into a funny looking contraption and let it spin around the samples until the stringy DNA separates from the rest of the saliva. It’s a pretty rudimentary experiment, but it quickly gets to the heart of not only your own genetic material, but also how centrifugal force works: Spinning really fast in a circle creates a force strong enough to push a moving object out and away from the center of its path.

But what happens when that moving object is a rocket that weighs thousands of pounds? We might find out as soon as this year, when a cryptic startup called SpinLaunch starts suborbital test flights of a rocket that is launched using an enormous centrifuge.

Here’s the gist: A centrifuge the size of a football field will spin a rocket around in circles for about an hour until its speed eventually exceeds 5,000 miles per hour. At that point, the rocket and its payload will feel forces 10,000 times stronger than gravity. When the centrifuge finally releases the rocket at launch speed, it should, practically speaking, fly through the stratosphere until it fires its engines at the periphery of our atmosphere.

Using clever chemical wizardry, researchers have made human organs see-through. The dazzling 3D maps could one day lead to organs made in the lab.

A deep-learning model identifies a powerful new drug that can kill many species of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

These limping AI models could be a medical breakthrough 😮

Via Seeker

Team at MIT says halicin kills some of the world’s most dangerous strains.