Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,598

As if anyone needed any excuse to drink more beer, a team of researchers have managed to produce an alcoholic beverage that also contains probiotics. In a novel breakthrough, they claim that the beer could help improve gut health and immunity, though the science is still out on that last one.

There are plenty of dairy-based probiotics, but currently there are no beers that also contain probiotics, mainly because beer contains something known as hop acids, which limit the growth and survival of potential probiotics. This spurred the researchers at the National University of Singapore to see if they could manage it.

They succeeded in developing a sour beer that can support the probiotic strain known as Lactobacillus paracasei L26. This particular probiotic is already found in the human gut, and there is some evidence that it might be able to regulate the immune system.

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Rapid developments in brain-machine interfacing and neuroprosthetics are revolutionizing the way we treat paralyzed people, but the same technologies could eventually be put to more generalized use—a development that’ll turn many of us into veritable cyborgs. Before we get to that point, however, we’ll need to make sure these neural devices are safe, secure, and as hacker-proof as possible.

In anticipation of our cyborg future, researchers from the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva Switzerland have published a new Policy Forum paper in Science titled, “Help, hope, and hype: Ethical dimensions of neuroprosthetics.” The intent of the authors is to raise awareness of this new breed of neurotechnologies, and the various ways they can be abused. Importantly, the researchers come up with some ways to mitigate potential problems before they arise.

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Philadelphia, PA, USA / Moscow, Russia — Bioquark, Inc., (www.bioquark.com) a life sciences company focused on the development of novel bio-products for regeneration, disease reversion, and healthy aging, and Moscow based, Lakmus LLC, a diversified investment company with business interests in pharmacies, restaurants, and real estate, announced a multi-disciplinary research collaboration with the FSBI Zakusov Institute of Pharmacology, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (http://www.academpharm.ru/), and the Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (http://www.infran.ru/), to jointly study the pharmacotherapeutic longevity enhancement properties of its combinatorial regenerative biologic candidates.

“We are very excited about this continued collaboration with Lakmus,” said Ira S. Pastor, CEO, Bioquark Inc. “The disciplined development of our combinatorial biologic candidates (Bioquantines) for healthy longevity enhancement, represents another important step in our continued evolution as a company focused on a broad range of therapeutic products and services in the regenerative healthcare space.”

Throughout the 20th century, natural products formed the basis for a majority of all pharmaceuticals, biologics, and consumer healthcare products used by patients around the globe, generating trillions of dollars of wealth. However, many scientists believe we have only touched the surface with what the natural world, and its range of organisms, which from a health and wellness perspective are much further advanced than human beings, has to teach us.

The integration of a complex set of newer research disciplines, including interkingdom signaling, semiochemical communication, and evolutionary biology, as well as significant recent activity in the areas of the microbiome, are highlighting a myriad of new ways that non-human bio-products can affect the human genome for positive transitions in health and wellness dynamics.

“Bioquark has spent several years studying the natural ability of many species to turn back biological time in order to maintain health, fitness, and survival, developing a broad understanding of the combinatorial biochemical approaches they use to control nested hierarchies of disease (i.e. gene, cell, tissue, organism, environment),” said Dr. Sergei Paylian, Founder, CSO, and President, Bioquark Inc. “This research initiative is one more step in the path in allowing humans to recapture these capabilities to effectively counter our unfortunate progression into aging, disease and degeneration.”

About Bioquark, Inc.

Bioquark Inc. is focused on the development of natural biologic based products, services, and technologies, with the goal of curing a wide range of diseases, as well as effecting complex regeneration. Bioquark is developing both biological pharmaceutical candidates, as well as products for the global consumer health and wellness market segments.

The aorta is an important blood vessel, to say the least. It’s the body’s main artery, carrying blood from the heart up to the head and down to the other major organs. That’s why aortic aneurysms, or weak spots in the aorta, are so concerning: if they break, the extreme blood loss is often fatal.

Seattle-area biotech startup Aortica is working on a personalized approach to treating aortic aneurysms, specifically complex abdominal aortic aneurysms, which are more tricky to treat. The company has closed just over $1 million out of a $4 million round of insider funding to further develop the treatment, and Aortica CEO and founder Thomas Douthitt told GeekWire the company has commitments to finish the full $4 million round.

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Introducing Lifespan Heroes our new campaign.

Here at Lifespan.io we are funding research to help extend healthy human lifespan, supporting nonprofits and companies working to overcome age-related diseases. By becoming a “Lifespan Hero” you can join us in this humanitarian and necessary effort — http://www.lifespan.io/heroes — and help us end age-related diseases for good.

In this video Lifespan.io / LEAF President Keith Comito explains the work Lifespan.io has done thus far in funding research, educating the public, and building a grass roots movement in support of healthy human lifespan, as well as the work that can be done in the future with the support of heroes willing to stand up and fight against the diseases of aging, like Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and cancer, by addressing their shared root causes.

Together we can do this; please join us.

This video is presented by LEAF. Please support our work to overcome the diseases of aging: http://lifespan.io/hero

Continue reading “Help Us Crowdfund the Cure for Aging — Be a Lifespan Hero: Join Us!” | >

If you are not sure why you should support rejuvenation research, or know people who aren’t, this article explains why rejuvenation would be good for you as an individual.

The reasons why rejuvenation would be good for any given individual should be bleeding obvious. However, you’d be surprised how often people think it all boils down to ‘You’d live forever!’—which by the way is not granted and can be a bit of a controversial concept. The real reasons why rejuvenation would be good for you as an individual are the following.

The elderly of today aren’t exactly famous for their good health, nor for their ability to go about their lives easily and without help in even the simplest tasks. Old people have weaker bodies, weaker immune systems, are prey to a number of horrible diseases and chronic pain, and cannot take care of themselves with the same ease as they did when they were young. Pay attention next time you go downtown. You’ll see elderly people walking slowly and with difficulty, perhaps with the aid of a walker or a cane. They can’t hear well and they can’t see well. Climbing the stairs for them feels like more climbing a mountain. A young person can shake off the flu after a few days of discomfort; an old person may well die of the complications of it, because their weak immune system did not do a very good job. This is, in a nutshell, why young people can take care of themselves and old people end up in hospices or have to be watched over by their families.

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You don’t have to be a gambler to appreciate the complexities of the card game Texas Hold ‘Em. It involves a strategy that needs to evolve based on the players around the table, it takes a certain amount of intuition, and it doesn’t require the player to win every hand. Just a few days ago, an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm named Libratus beat four professional poker players at a no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournament played out over 20 days.

If you have even the slightest understanding of how to write code, you would realize that it is impossible to actually code a software program to do that with such “imperfect information”. The AI algorithm did exceptionally well and was utilizing strategies that humans had never used before. Professional poker players are in no danger of losing their jobs, but the incredible capabilities of what AI is mastering these days should make everyone wonder just how safe their jobs actually are.

Let’s take the $3 billion medical imaging market. It’s no secret that AI is now performing certain medical imaging tasks better than human doctors. Pundits say “well, people will always trust a human doctor over an AI” and the answer we’d have to that is “not if the AI is going to give a more accurate answer “. It’s only a matter of time before every X-ray machine is connected to the cloud and one human doctor per hospital puts his hand on your shoulder when he reads you the output from the AI algorithm. Kind of like this:

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