Lifeboat Foundation

SpaceX’s CEO shrugs off 20 years of NASA research.

SORRY, ELON. To be ready for human occupants, Elon Musk has long called Mars a “fixer-upper of a planet.” But according to a new NASA-sponsored study, a better description might be a “tear-down.” The scientists behind that project say it’s simply not possible to terraform Mars — that is, change its environment so that humans can live there without life support systems — using today’s technology.

BUILDING AN ATMOSPHERE. Mars has a super thin atmosphere; a human unprotected on the surface of Mars would quickly die, mostly because there’s not enough atmospheric pressure to prevent all your organs from rupturing out of your body (if you survived a little longer, you could also suffocate from lack of oxygen, freeze from low temperatures, or get fried from too much ultraviolet radiation).

Continue reading “Scientists Say We Can’t Terraform Mars. Elon Musk Says We Can” »

Besides healing wounds, this technique could be useful for repairing skin damage, countering the effects of aging, and better understanding skin cancer.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease with characterization of deficits in progressive memory loss, cognitive and behaviour functions. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a predromal stage of AD, displaying cognitive deficit but neither marked functional impairment nor satisfying established clinical criteria for dementia or probable AD. However, not all MCI patients may eventually progress to AD (progressive MCI, pMCI)^{https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2013.10.}

(2014)." href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-31794-8#ref-CR2" id="ref-link-section-d1856e5935"]2, and some remain unchanged (stable MCI, sMCI), or are recovered from. Therefore, differential diagnosis of MCI types and earlier diagnosis of AD and prediction of disease evolution are difficult

This extraordinary case shows that organ transplants can not only pass on infectious diseases, but also cancer, at least in some rare cases.

New research published in PLOS One has found that virtual reality use impairs physical and cognitive performance while trying to balance.

“I became interested in this topic because virtual reality headsets have recently become widely available, with great potential to make rehabilitation more enjoyable and varied for patients,” said study author Steven M. Peterson of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

“While many studies have explored upper-limb activities, I wanted to understand how immersive and mentally challenging a virtual reality headset is when the user is walking around and not seated. We decided to test the realism of virtual reality by looking for stress at high heights because just the perception of heights can affect how people walk and how cautious they are.”

Continue reading “People wearing virtual reality headsets have worse balance and increased mental exertion” »

Promising approach to deliver personalized and non-invasive brain stimulation in clinical settings.

BrainsWay’s Brain Stimulation Device Receives FDA Approval to Treat Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (IEEE Spectrum):

In 2013, Jerusalem-based BrainsWay began marketing a new type of brain stimulation device that uses magnetic pulses to treat major depressive disorder.

Continue reading “FDA clears deep transcranial magnetic stimulation device to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder” »

Researchers have found a way to short-circuit the “immortality switch” that cancer cells use to divide indefinitely.

He says this has been done successfully with mice. They have mice live twice as long. They are testing aging reversal in dogs in 2018–2019. Human treatments could be available on a general basis by 2025.

George Church is developing better and better organs using pigs. They are working to slow or reverse the aging in the organs to be used for transplant.

Continue reading “George Church talks about reversing human aging and claims they made mice live twice as long” »

Earlier this year, we heard how scientists from the University of California San Diego had developed a flexible ultrasound patch that allows users to see the inner structure of irregular-shaped objects. Well, now they’ve made one that measures a patient’s blood pressure from deep within the body.