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Breakthrough ultrasound treatment to reverse dementia moves to human trials

An extraordinarily promising new technique using ultrasound to clear the toxic protein clumps thought to cause dementia and Alzheimer’s disease is moving to the first phase of human trials next year. The innovative treatment has proven successful across several animal tests and presents an exciting, drug-free way to potentially battle dementia.

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Man set for world’s first head transplant cancels surgery after falling in love

Earlier posts in Lifeboat followed this research… From what I understand, Italy decided to no longer host the surgery because of opposition by ethics committees, not his research or methods.


Disabled Valery Spiridonov, 33, was ready to have his neck severed by Professor Sergio Canavero — dubbed ‘Dr Frankenstein’ — and his head reattached to a new, healthy body.

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Scientists develop method to visualize a genetic mutation

A team of scientists has developed a method that yields, for the first time, visualization of a gene amplifications and deletions known as copy number variants in single cells.

Significantly, the breakthrough, reported in the journal PLoS Biology, allows early detection of rare genetic events providing high resolution analysis of the tempo of evolution. The method may provide a new way of studying mutations in pathogens and .

“Evolution and disease are driven by mutational events in DNA,” explains David Gresham, an associate professor in New York University’s Department of Biology and the study’s senior author. “However, in populations of these events currently cannot be identified until many cells contain the same mutation. Our method detects these rare events right after they have happened, allowing us to follow their trajectory as the population evolves.”

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Perfect cervical cancer screening results hint at the shadowy role of epigenetics

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer for women yet the leading cause of cancer-related death in developing countries, an unfortunate statistic that highlights the importance of access to screening. Through a comprehensive trial involving thousands of subjects, a newly designed test has been found to greatly outperform current screening methods in terms of both cost and accuracy, while also shedding new light on the mechanics at play.

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MIT Researchers Can Shrink Objects to Nanoscale

MIT researchers invented a method of shrinking objects to the nanoscale.

The team can generate structures one-thousandth the volume of the original using a variety of materials, including metals, quantum dots, and DNA.

Existing techniques—like etching patterns onto a surface with light—work for 2D nanostructures, but not 3D. And while it’s possible to make 3D nanostructures, the process is slow, challenging, and restrictive.

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WOW: Israeli Company Reports New Method Destroys Cancerous Tumors

An Israeli company has announced that it has created a technology that will destroy cancerous tumors.

As The Times Of Israel reports, Alpha Tau Medical has a new treatment called Diffusing Alpha-emitters Radiation Therapy (DaRT). To circumvent the problem of how to prevent alpha particles that kill cancer cells from decaying rapidly, Alpha Tau initiated a method of placing the alpha particles inside a needle containing radium-224, a radioactive isotope. Once the needle is inserted into the tumor, it takes the radium four days to vanish, but during that period the radium transmits “daughter atoms” that spit out alpha particles that rupture the DNA of the cancer cells.

CEO Uzi Sofer told The Times of Israel, “This is the first time in the world that you can treat solid tumors,” with alpha radiation. He asserted that the treatment can be given anywhere; there is no need for a hospital setting, concluding, “It is like going to the dentist.” The whole procedure can take between 30 minutes and two hours.

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