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Press Release

Award Program Honors the Achievement.

MOUNTAIN VIEW November 11, 2019 — Sens Research Foundation has been selected for the 2019 Best of Mountain View Award in the Medical Laboratory category by the Mountain View Award Program.

Each year, the Mountain View Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Mountain View area a great place to live, work and play.

Fuel cell drone makes an epic ocean crossing

Although multicopter drones now are being used to transport medical samples and supplies, their 30-minute (or so) battery life limits their range. This week, however, a hydrogen-powered delivery drone managed a one-hour, 43-minute ocean crossing.

The exercise was the result of a collaboration between Texas-based drone development company Guinn Partners, Georgia-based Skyfire Consulting, the US Department of Health, and drone manufacturer Doosan Mobility Innovation – the latter supplied the aircraft, a hydrogen fuel cell-powered DS30 octocopter.

Utilizing its temperature-controlled payload system, the drone was used to transport live bacteria samples from a hospital on the Caribbean island of St. Croix to a testing facility on the neighboring island of St. Thomas. This involved crossing 43 miles (69 km) of open ocean. Upon successfully reaching its destination, the copter reportedly still had almost 30 minutes of flight time left on its fuel cell.

Life-long epigenetic programming of cortical architecture

The evolution of human diets led to preferences toward polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content with ‘Western’ diets enriched in ω-6 PUFAs. Mounting evidence points to ω-6 PUFA excess limiting metabolic and cognitive processes that define longevity in humans. When chosen during pregnancy, ω-6 PUFA-enriched ‘Western’ diets can reprogram maternal bodily metabolism with maternal nutrient supply precipitating the body-wide imprinting of molecular and cellular adaptations at the level of long-range intercellular signaling networks in the unborn fetus. Even though unfavorable neurological outcomes are amongst the most common complications of intrauterine ω-6 PUFA excess, cellular underpinnings of life-long modifications to brain architecture remain unknown. Here, we show that nutritional ω-6 PUFA-derived endocannabinoids desensitize CB1 cannabinoid receptors, thus inducing epigenetic repression of transcriptional regulatory networks controlling neuronal differentiation. We found that cortical neurons lose their positional identity and axonal selectivity when mouse fetuses are exposed to excess ω-6 PUFAs in utero. Conversion of ω-6 PUFAs into endocannabinoids disrupted the temporal precision of signaling at neuronal CB1 cannabinoid receptors, chiefly deregulating Stat3-dependent transcriptional cascades otherwise required to execute neuronal differentiation programs. Global proteomics identified the immunoglobulin family of cell adhesion molecules (IgCAMs) as direct substrates, with DNA methylation and chromatin accessibility profiling uncovering epigenetic reprogramming at 1400 sites in neurons after prolonged cannabinoid exposure. We found anxiety and depression-like behavioral traits to manifest in adult offspring, which is consistent with genetic models of reduced IgCAM expression, to suggest causality for cortical wiring defects. Overall, our data uncover a regulatory mechanism whose disruption by maternal food choices could limit an offspring’s brain function for life.


  • Immediate Communication
  • Published: 18 November 2019
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Study Finds Limited Benefits of Stent Use for Millions With Heart Disease

PHILADELPHIA—Stents and coronary artery bypass surgery are no more effective than intensive drug treatment and better health habits in preventing millions of Americans from heart attacks and death, a large study found, shedding new light on a major controversy in cardiology.

Researchers and doctors have fiercely debated for years how best to treat people who have narrowed coronary arteries but aren’t suffering acute symptoms.

The Times

  • Unruly
  • New Body Structure Might Explain How Cancer Spreads

    It seems incredible that scientists have discovered a new human organ. I mean, they cut people open right and left (living and dead). How could they miss anything?

    Well, they did. A new organ has been identified. Actually, two. Plus a new “structure” that is not quite an organ.

    First, the “structure”: In 2017, an elaborate system of drainage vessels was seen in the brain for the first time. Until then their existence was suspected, but not certain.

    Cryonics: Ambulance To The Future?

    Ira Pastor ideaXme exponential health ambassador interviews Mr. Dennis Kowalski, Cryonics Institute President, EMT-paramedic, certified in advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), advanced pediatric life support (PALS), a CPR Instructor for the American Heart Association, and a fire fighter!

    Ira Pastor comments: Cryonics is defined as the extremely low-temperature freezing (or vitrification — converting into glass or a glass-like substance) usually at −196 °C or −320.8 °F or 77.1 K, and storage of a human body or part of a human body, with the hope that resurrection may be possible in the future.

    Cryonics procedures can legally begin only after clinical death, and cryonics “patients” are legally dead. Cryonics procedures ideally begin within minutes of death, and use cryo-protectants to prevent ice formation during cryo-preservation The first person to be frozen via cryonics was that of Dr. James Bedford in 1967.

    It’s estimated that over 300 bodies had been cryo-preserved in the United States, and a couple thousand people have made arrangements for cryo-preservation to date.

    While it is not yet possible for a dead body to be re-animated after undergoing vitrification, in order to revive patients in the future, it will be necessary to be able to cure any diseases which lead to death, repair cells damaged in the freezing process, and repair cells damaged by the ageing process.

    The Cryonics Institute (CI) is an American not-for-profit corporation that provides cryonics services to both humans and pets.

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