Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,947

Wow

WASHINGTON – A mysterious brain disorder can be confused with early Alzheimer’s disease although it isn’t robbing patients of their memories but of the words to talk about them.

It’s called primary progressive aphasia, and researchers said Sunday they’re finding better ways to diagnose the little-known syndrome. That will help people whose thoughts are lucid but who are verbally locked in to get the right kind of care.

“I’m using a speech device to talk to you,” Robert Voogt of Virginia Beach, Virginia, said by playing a recording from a phone-sized assistive device at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “I have trouble speaking, but I can understand you.”

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Very nice.

NEW YORK: Enriching T cells — a type of white blood cell — to attack certain cancerous diseases may prove beneficial to an increasing number of children during immunotherapy, says a study.

Younger T cells, classified as either naive T cells (newly minted cells) or stem central memory T cells (self-renewing, highly proliferative cells) were the most effective in immunotherapy, the study showed.

“Our main finding is that younger T cells are critically important in T cell immunotherapy,” said David M. Barrett, paediatric oncologist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), University of Pennsylvania, US.

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WIKIPEDIA, AYACOP Boosting levels of ghrelin, a hormone involved in hunger, keeps aging-related declines at bay in mice, according to a study published yesterday (February 2) in Molecular Psychiatry.

The authors gave mice a traditional Japanese medicine called rikkunshito or an extract from rikkunshito to stimulate hormone production. In three different mouse lines—two with shortened lifespans and another with a normal lifespan—the treatment resulted in the animals living longer.

“These findings suggest that the elevated endogenous ghrelin signaling has an important role in preventing aging-related premature death,” Akio Inui of Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences and colleagues wrote in their report.

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A group of scientists are calling on the WHO to classify aging as a disease, asserting that we need to create a better classification for what happens to our bodies as we get older.

A new controversy is brewing, as one group of scientists is recommending that aging be considered a disease.

Scientists from Insilico Medicine are highlighting the need to create a more granular and applied classification for what happens to our bodies when we age. Their work is outlined in a recent paper published in Frontiers in Genetics. The classification that they argue for is based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11), which is expected to be finalized in 2018.

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Cotton Candy’s new inspiration.

Scientists are now able to spin a three-dimensional slab of gelatin that contains a microvascular network, something very like our capillaries, using a cotton candy-esque machine.

What do cotton candy and artificial organs have in common? More than you might think.

Leon Bellan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University, is using a cotton candy machine to spin out networks of tiny threads comparable in size, density, and complexity to the patterns formed by capillaries.

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Research, innovation, discovery, and evolution that causes amazing science and technology disruptions is a beautiful thing. And, we each have our own story and passion in why and what drives us.

And, occasionally in our drive to make change or disruption happen; reality grounds us back on what is important and why we do what we love. In my own case is to finally see things like cancer eradicated.

A finger prick test for cancer may soon be possible as research have developed a new technology to detect disease biomarkers in the form of nucleic acids, the building blocks of all living organisms.

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As much as this article wants to promote that by 2020 that we will have terminator style robots acting as an in home nurse with patients (at least in the US) will be very hard to see. Most elderly as well as young children need more of human or personable interaction in their lives. I do highly suggest researchers (especially those that have studied children in orphanages where limited human interaction was available) to share your own insights of what happens to children who are without human contact at long periods as well as the elderly. I believe folks will rethink somethings and be more pragmatic in what these robots can and can do.

Published on Feb 3, 2016

A new generation of humanoid robots are coming in the 2020s, says innovation and industry expert Alec Ross. They will care for our aging populations and revolutionize manufacturing. Ross’ book is “The Industries of the Future The Industries of the Future.

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When I was a kid I remember being a member of Ms. Frizzle’s classroom. We went on adventures under the ocean, into the rainforest, out to the stars, and even to the center of the Earth and it was amazing.

Of course I am talking about my time on the Magic School Bus.

A relic of the nineties, the Magic School Bus starred Lily Tomlin as Ms. Frizzle, an eccentric teacher who owned a magic school bus that she used to take her students on fantastical journeys. The show and subsequent video games were a big part of my, and thousands of other children of the nineties’, formative years as it presented educational topics in an engaging way that made you curious to learn more.

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While curious minded people might like to understand exactly why something happens, there are many examples where you don’t have to understand everything that’s going on to fix the problem. After all, your average car might break down every few years but by replacing the parts you can keep it going for decades; you don’t have to redesign the car so it never breaks down again. This is where reparative strategies come in, aiming to rejuvenate and repair accumulated damage. These strategies are immensely challenging, but in comparison to an overhaul of the human genome, they’re arguably easier to implement and we’re already working on many of the tools that would be needed.

Out with the old, in with the new

Proposed by Francesco Cortese from the ELPIs Foundation for Indefinite Lifespans and Dr. Giovanni Santostasi, from the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, WICT (Whole-body Induced Cell Turnover ) is a comprehensive strategy that involves replacing your entire body with shiny new cells, flushing the body of any old, damaged ones.

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