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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1866
Built on decades of previous research, a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison teased out a tiny chunk of brain tissue within the thalamus, a nub above the brain stem, as a critical part of NCC. As proof of concept, they gave it several bouts of electrical shocks, and restored awareness in unconscious monkeys under heavy anesthesia.
The crux? As soon as the electrical stimulation stopped, the monkeys’ awareness also slipped away.
Although the thalamus has long been thought of as somehow involved in supporting consciousness, the study is one of the first to pinpoint exact neural circuits—highways between the thalamus and parts of the cortex—as “switches” for consciousness that we can control using brain stimulation. And that’s wonderful news for comatose patients.
If you can’t defeat death, what if you could postpone it, or at least postpone the diseases commonly associated with getting old?
Many people, especially the ultra-wealthy in Silicon Valley, are investing money into companies trying to answer exactly those questions.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and billionaire PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel have both invested in South San Francisco-based Unity Biotechnology, a company whose mission is to “extend human healthspan, the period in one’s life unburdened by the disease of aging.”
Super Market of Italy Empty fear of coronavirus.
La gente en milan Italia esta vaciando los supermercados después del brote de coronavirus al norte de italia.
“The possibility that 100 years old might become the new 60” : EXCELLENT SLOGAN that doesn’t resort to the troublesome” I word” (“Immortality”)! Good article to share with non-science friends: light on hard science, but good emotional impact, incl. that catchy slogan.
Technology hasn’t just improved our lives; it’s also extended them — considerably.
For most of history, humans lived about 25 years. Real acceleration emerged at the turn of the 20th century, when everything from the creation of antibiotics to the implementation of better sanitation to the increased availability of clean water, and the ability to tackle killers like cancer and heart disease has us living routinely into our 80s. But many scientists believe we’re not stopping there.
Technological convergence is fueling this conviction. The intersection of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, networks, sensors, robotics, massive datasets, biotechnology and nanotechnology is taking direct aim at the limits of human lifespan.
People with diabetes are at a higher risk of fracturing a bone than the general population. And if they do break one it also takes longer than normal to heal.
In the March issue of Biomaterials, Henry Daniell, Shuying (Sheri) Yang, and colleagues at Penn’s School of Dental Medicine share promising findings from an animal model in which a plant-grown protein drug sped healing of a bone fracture. The work, which used the protein insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), showed that an orally delivered, shelf-stable medication grown in lettuce plants could stimulate the growth of bone-building cells and promote bone regeneration.
“It’s amazing how one protein impacted fracture healing,” says Daniell, corresponding author on the paper. “The current drug for diabetic patients with a fracture requires repetitive injections and hospital visits and as a result patience compliance is low. Here we gave an oral drug once a day and saw healing to be greatly accelerated.”
Four years ago, Todd Rider was on top of the world. The MIT-trained bioengineer had developed a radical idea for killing viruses. Initial test results showed that his therapy, called DRACO, could kill every virus he threw it at: 15 viruses were killed in human cells, and two in mice.
It seemed like there was a chance it could be the biggest discovery in medicine since the invention of antibiotics. Enthusiastic headlines praised the potentially world-changing panacea. “Todd Rider Has a Kill Switch for Viruses,” wrote Bloomberg Businessweek. The Verge: “Killing sickness: is DRACO a doomsday device for viruses?” Time magazine declared it one of the top 50 inventions of the year.
Yet over the next few years, things started going wrong. Rider moved from lab to lab and says he couldn’t raise the money to continue testing DRACO, despite, he claims, the continued promise of the concept.
The Season of the Dragon continues with The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr and beyond. Dragons have emerged from the Halls of Colossus, and they now threaten to burn down all of Tamriel. Wielding powerful new weapons and abilities, unlikely allies must band together in order to defeat these legendary monsters.
The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr is now live on PC/Mac, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Starting with the Wrathstone DLC game pack and ESO: Elsweyr Chapter (both now live), the Season of the Dragon continues with the upcoming Scalebreaker DLC and will conclude with the Dragonhold DLC late 2019. Keep an eye out for more information on both Scalebreaker and Dragonhold at Quakecon!
To learn more about The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr, visit these sites:
Official Site: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com
QuTech has resolved a major issue on the road toward a working large-scale quantum computer. QuTech, a collaboration of TU Delft and TNO, and Intel have designed and fabricated an integrated circuit that can controlling qubits at extremely low temperatures. This paves the way for the crucial integration of qubits and their controlling electronics in the same chip. The scientists have presented their research during the ISSCC Conference in San Francisco.
Quantum computers
“This result brings us closer to a large-scale quantum computer which can solve problems that are intractable by even the most powerful supercomputers. Solutions to those problems can make a strong impact on everyday life, for instance in the fields of medicine and energy,” said team lead Fabio Sebastiano from QuTech and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science.
But apart from a few small-scale examples, the only stem cell-based medical treatment practised in clinics uses haematopoietic stem cells found in the blood and bone marrow – which only produce blood cells – for transplants in blood cancer patients. These cells are taken from a patient’s sibling or an unrelated donor, before being infused into a patient’s blood, or they’re taken from a patient’s own blood before being reinfused. The procedure has been used to treat blood malignancies for almost half a century, and recently multiple sclerosis too. So how likely is it that the predictions about stem cells’ longevity-enhancing powers will become a reality?
Startups are offering stem cells as the cure to everything from age-related illness to wrinkles. But the science is far from clear-cut.