Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 284

Some of our closest invertebrate cousins, like this Acorn worm, have the ability to perfectly regenerate any part of their body that’s cut off — including the head and nervous system. Humans have most of the same genes, so scientists are trying to work out whether human regeneration is possible, too.

Regeneration – now that’d be a nice superpower to have. Injure an arm? Chop it off and wait for it to grow back. Dicky knee? Ingrown toenail? Lop off your leg and get two for one!

It sounds ridiculous, but there’s a growing number of scientists that believe body part regeneration is not only possible, but achievable in humans. After all, not only are there plenty of animals that can do it, we can do it ourselves for our skin, nails, and bits of other organs.

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The Internet Archive has lost a major legal battle—in a decision that could have a significant impact on the future of internet history. Today, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled against the long-running digital archive, upholding an earlier ruling in Hachette v. Internet Archive that found that one of the Internet Archive’s book digitization projects violated copyright law.

Notably, the appeals court’s ruling rejects the Internet Archive’s argument that its lending practices were shielded by the fair use doctrine, which permits for copyright infringement in certain circumstances, calling it “unpersuasive.”

In March 2020, the Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, launched a program called the National Emergency Library, or NEL. Library closures caused by the pandemic had left students, researchers, and readers unable to access millions of books, and the Internet Archive has said it was responding to calls from regular people and other librarians to help those at home get access to the books they needed.

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In H.G. Wells’ 1,897 science fiction novel, “The Invisible Man,” the protagonist invents a serum that makes the cells in his body transparent by controlling how they bend light.

More than 100 years later, scientists have discovered a real-life version of the substance: A commonly used food coloring can make the skin of a mouse temporarily transparent, allowing scientists to see its organs function, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Science.

The breakthrough could revolutionize biomedical research and, should it be successfully tested in humans, have wide-ranging applications in medicine and health care, such as making veins more visible to draw blood.

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The vision of people with a rare inherited condition that causes them to lose much of their sight early in childhood was 100 times better after they received gene therapy to address the genetic mutation causing it. Some patients even experienced a 10,000-fold improvement in their vision after receiving the highest dose of the therapy, according to researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania who co-led the clinical trial published in The Lancet.

“That 10,000-fold improvement is the same as a patient being able to see their surroundings on a moonlit night outdoors as opposed to requiring bright indoor lighting before treatment,” said the study’s lead author, Artur Cideciyan, Ph.D., a research professor of Ophthalmology and co-director of the Center for Hereditary Retinal Degenerations.

“One patient reported for the first time being able to navigate at midnight outdoors only with the light of a bonfire.”

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A common food dye can turn the skin of living mice transparent, enabling researchers to peer inside the body without surgery.

This is the first time scientists have used the technique to visualize the tissues of living mice under the microscope. They used a food-safe dye, which can likely be found in snacks in your pantry, and several fundamental physics principles to render the mice see-through.

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What is it about human brains that enable both the regulation of bodily activities and the generation of mental thoughts? What are the mechanisms of human brain function? How do they integrate to give the sense of mental unity? What happens when something in the brain goes wrong—abnormalities, injury, disease? What is the future of brain science?

Dr. Kelsey Martin is Dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA as well as a professor of biological chemistry, psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences. Her research focuses on the cell biology of transcription-dependent forms of synaptic plasticity, particularly those underlying learning and memory.

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Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

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Their…

A multi-university research team co-led by University of Virginia engineering professor Gustavo K. Rohde has developed a system that can spot genetic markers of autism in brain images with 89 to 95% accuracy.

Their findings suggest doctors may one day see, classify and treat autism and related neurological conditions with this method, without having to rely on, or wait for, behavioral cues. And that means this truly personalized medicine could result in earlier interventions.

“Autism is traditionally diagnosed behaviorally but has a strong genetic basis. A genetics-first approach could transform understanding and treatment of autism,” the researchers wrote in a paper published June 12 in the journal Science Advances.

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About the Episode

What if it were possible to generate tissues and cells that replicate the functions of human organs, and then use them to study and treat human conditions?

It’s an area of research Dr. Thomas Hartung has been extensively involved with for decades. As the former head of the European Commission Center, he was in tune with all the ways researchers tried to study diseases through alternative methods. He strongly believes organoids have the intelligence necessary to accelerate research and therapeutic development without the need for animal models.

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