Biotech/medical – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Jan 18
2020

How To Hack A Human Brain | VICE on HBO

Advancements in neurotechnology are blurring the line between biology and technology. There is an emerging push to implant electronic devices inside the human body, hardwire them to our brains, and allow us to not only overcome disadvantages or injury but open up entirely new avenues of human experience.

VICE’s Thomas Morton got an inside look at what might be the next evolutionary step for humankind.

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Jan 18
2020

Functional brain architecture is associated with the rate of tau accumulation in Alzheimer’s disease

Tau accumulation is associated with disease progression in Alzheimer’s disease. Here the authors use resting state fMRI and tau-PET to demonstrate that baseline connectivity in Alzheimer’s disease is associated with tau spreading.

Jan 18
2020

7 rules to reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s and keep your brain healthy

This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org.

During the last Alzheimer’s disease support meeting I attended at my mother’s assisted living center, I sheepishly asked if anyone else was worried about their own risk for the disease.

A lot of hands went up.

Jan 18
2020

Diabetic Smart Contact Lenses Developed by South Korean Research Team

POHANG, South Korea, Jan. 15, 2020 — A research team from Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea (POSTECH) developed technology that allows diagnosis of diabetes and treatment of diabetic retinopathy by wearing smart light-emitting diode (LED) contact lenses.

Jan 18
2020

Meet the xenobot: world’s first living, self-healing robots created from frog stem cells

Scientists have created the world’s first living, self-healing robots using stem cells from frogs.

Named xenobots after the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) from which they take their stem cells, the machines are less than a millimeter (0.04 inches) wide — small enough to travel inside human bodies. They can walk and swim, survive for weeks without food and work together in groups.

These are “entirely new life-forms,” said the University of Vermont, which conducted the research with Tufts University.

Jan 17
2020

Concerns over new virus from China prompt rare airport screenings for some travelers

The virus is from the same family as MERS and SARS, which caused deadly international outbreaks.

Jan 17
2020

Belgian brain doctor awarded for easing coma survivors’ return

Not all patients who fall into a coma return, and when they do it can mark a moment of joy for their loved ones—but their troubles are rarely over.

Often, brain damage leaves them paralysed or unable to communicate.

Belgian neurologist Steven Laureys has dedicated himself to the question of how to improve the lives of the formerly comatose, and of their families.

Jan 17
2020

Antiaging Treatments that are Closest to FDA Approval

There are a few dozen antiaging rejuvenation treatments that are progressing through pre-clinical and clinical trials.

Lifespan.io is tracking the antiaging rejuvenation treatments on a rejuvenation roadmap.

Two treatments are in phase 3 clinical trial.

Jan 17
2020

The CIA’s Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A ‘Poisoner In Chief’

‘Poisoner In Chief’ Details The CIA’s Secret Quest For Mind Control Journalist Stephen Kinzer reveals how CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb worked in the 1950s and early ’60s to develop mind control drugs and deadly toxins that could be used against enemies.

Jan 17
2020

Common foods can help ‘landscape’ the jungle of our gut microbiome

Researchers at San Diego State University have found a new way to harness food as medicine, which has far reaching implications to control harmful microbes in our gut while balancing microbial diversity by fostering the growth of beneficial bacteria.

Foods we eat commonly affect our gut microbiota. New research shows they do so by triggering the production of bacteriophage—viruses that infect and replicate inside bacteria. Compounds in these foods have an antimicrobial effect which causes the phage to replicate.

The researchers began by identifying which foods were antimicrobial, then analyzed them before narrowing it down to a shortlist. When examining growth curves of bacteria, they observed that while bacteria multiply over time, eventually their numbers plateau. However, if phages are activated, then bacterial growth stops altogether and their numbers drop dramatically until they’re depleted.