Lifeboat Foundation

But previous examination of the fungal “molecular clock,” using DNA-based methods, suggested that fungi may have evolved much earlier, between 760 million and 1.06 billion years ago. Extracted from Arctic Canadian shales, the newly discovered billion-year-old fossilized fungal spores and hyphae (long thin tubes) plug the gap in the fossil record and suggest that fungi may have occupied land well before plants.

The fungal fossils were found in rocks that were probably once part a shallow-water estuary. Such environments are typically great for fungi thanks to nutrient-rich waters and the build up of washed-up organic matter to feed on. The high salinity, high mineral and low oxygen content of these ancient coastal habitats also provided great conditions to perfectly preserve the tough chitin molecules embedded within fungal cell walls that otherwise would have decomposed.

While it’s not certain whether the newly-discovered ancient fungi actually lived within the estuary or were washed into the sediments from the land, they show many of the distinctive features you’d expect in modern terrestrial fungi. The germinating spores are clearly defined, as are the branching, thread-like tubes that help fungi explore their environment, named hyphae. Even the cell walls are distinctively fungal, being made up of two clear layers. In fact, if you didn’t know they were so old, you’d be hard-pressed to distinguish them from modern fungi.

Continue reading “Ancient fungi may have laid the groundwork for complex life” »

Is aging a natural process that we simply have to accept as a fact of life?

A philosopher would say yes. Many doctors would also agree: that our cells eventually reach a point where they can no longer divide and either die or reach senescence, a retirement phase. Many scientists believe in the “Hayflick limit” — that no one can live past about 120 years old. These people might also say that aging — and dying — is a good thing; that the world is already overcrowded, that we already cannot handle our aging populations, that life must be finite to appreciate it, that all good things must come to an end.

But there’s a growing group of people — including gerontologists, biologists, engineers, and futurists—who believe that aging is a disease in itself, a disease that can be cured. That aging is not an immutable process, an inevitable “dying of the light,” to quote poet Dylan Thomas, but one we can “rage against” — through science, drugs, and lifestyle changes.

Continue reading “What’s Telling About Telomeres (and the Aging Process)” »

Ira Pastor, ideaXme longevity and aging ambassador and founder of Bioquark interviews Luba Greenwood J.D., Strategic Business Development and Corporate Ventures, Verily (Google Life Sciences), Board Member Mass Bio and Brooklyn ImmunoTherapeutics LLC.

Note: Following this interview, Verily announced a major set of collaborations with big pharma companies, further executing on its strategy in healthcare. Breaking news: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/20/alphabet-verily-doing-clinic…T4eLzIucEI

Continue reading “Building the Future of Global Health: Big Tech’s Big Ideas” »

Brain implants are the neural implants that directly connected to the brain. These implants electrically stimulate, block or record the signals from the brain. It enables communication between the brain and electronic devices, thus permitting brain activity to be modified, recorded or translated. This growth is primarily driven by Increased Neurological Disorders Like Alzheimer’s disease and Rise in Geriatric Population.

Advance Market Analytics recently introduced Brain Implants Market study with in-depth overview, describing about the Product / Industry Scope and elaborates market outlook and status to 2025. Brain Implants Market explores effective study on varied sections of Industry like opportunities, size, growth, technology, demand and trend of high leading players. It also provides market key statistics on the status of manufacturers, a valuable source of guidance, direction for companies and individuals interested in the industry.

Alongside our Ending Age-related Diseases 2019 annual conference, we are proud to announce the launch of a special pre-conference biotech workshop led by Dr. Kelsey Moody, CEO of Ichor Therapeutics, a successful and rapidly growing rejuvenation biotechnology company.

This joint event between the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation and Ichor Therapeutics is an essential workshop where you will learn about the fundamentals of launching and growing a successful biotechnology company with an emphasis on the nuances specific to the emerging rejuvenation biotechnology industry.

Snake venom has some amazing medical applications!

A device that converts the heart’s mechanical energy into electrical energy has been successfully tested in pigs.

• By Harini Barath on May 28, 2019

An intriguing new study from researchers at Stockholm University and Karolinska Institutet has described a mechanism by which virus particles can interact with proteins in biological fluids and become more infectious, while also accelerating the formation of plaques often associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

It’s comforting to think of the body as a machine we can trick out. It helps us ignore the strange fleshy aches that come with having a meat cage. It makes a fickle system—one we truly don’t understand—feel conquerable. To admit that the body (and mind that sits within it) might be far more complex than our most delicate, intricate inventions endangers all kinds of things: the medical industrial complex, the wellness industry, countless startups. But it might also open up new doors for better relationships with our bodies too: Disability scholars have long argued that the way we see bodies as “fixable” ultimately serves to further marginalize people who will never have the “standard operating system,” no matter how many times their parts are replaced or tinkered with.

Tech gurus are obsessed with treating bodies like machines—something a 30-year-old cartoon about a tricked-out detective suggests won’t work.