Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 342

Since the public release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, artificial intelligence (AI) has quickly become a driving force in innovation and everyday life, sparking both excitement and concern. AI promises breakthroughs in fields like medicine, education, and energy, with the potential to solve some of society’s toughest challenges. But at the same time, fears around job displacement, privacy, and the spread of misinformation have led many to call for tighter government control.

Many are now seeking swift government intervention to regulate AI’s development in the waning “lame duck” session before the inauguration of the next Congress. These efforts have been led by tech giants, including OpenAI, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, under the guise of securing “responsible development of advanced AI systems” from risks like misinformation and bias. Building on the Biden administration’s executive order to create the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute (AISI) and mandate that AI “safety tests,” among other things, be reported to the government, the bipartisan negotiations would permanently authorize the AISI to act as the nation’s primary AI regulatory agency.

The problem is, the measures pushed by these lobbying campaigns favor large, entrenched corporations, sidelining smaller competitors and stifling innovation. If Congress moves forward with establishing a federal AI safety agency, even with the best of intentions, it risks cementing Big Tech’s dominance at the expense of startups. Rather than fostering competition, such regulation would likely serve the interests of the industry’s largest corporations, stifling entrepreneurship and limiting AI’s potential to transform America—and the world—for the better. The unintended consequences are serious: slower product improvement, fewer technological breakthroughs, and severe costs to the economy and consumers.

Read more | >

We all want to ‘age successfully’ with as few health issues as possible. A new study suggests getting more than seven hours of sleep a night could go a long way to achieving that goal.

The study involved 3,306 participants aged 45 and over, whose sleep habits were recorded in 2011, 2013, and 2015, followed by a health check five years later. The data, analyzed by a team from Wenzhou Medical University in China, showed that those who bank at least seven hours of sleep a night tend to have significantly better health later in life.

“Successful aging was evaluated in 2020 and was defined as being free of major chronic diseases, no physical impairment, high cognitive function, good mental health, and active engagement with life,” write the researchers in their published paper.

Read more | >

Novel magnetic nanodiscs could provide a much less invasive way of stimulating parts of the brain, paving the way for stimulation therapies without implants or genetic modification, MIT researchers report.

The scientists envision that the tiny discs, which are about 250 nanometers across (about 1/500 the width of a human hair), would be injected directly into the desired location in the brain. From there, they could be activated at any time simply by applying a magnetic field outside the body. The new particles could quickly find applications in biomedical research, and eventually, after sufficient testing, might be applied to clinical uses.

The development of these nanoparticles is described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, in a paper by Polina Anikeeva, a professor in MIT’s departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences, graduate student Ye Ji Kim, and 17 others at MIT and in Germany.

Read more | >

New research into a chemical from a caterpillar fungus, known for its potential as a cancer treatment, has shown how it interacts with genes to disrupt cell growth signals. This finding marks a promising step toward developing new cancer drugs.

The chemical, called cordycepin, interrupts overactive cell growth signals common in cancer, potentially offering a treatment approach that could be gentler on healthy tissues compared to many existing therapies.

Caterpillar fungus: a potential cancer treatment.

Read more | >

Healthcare start-up Tennr reports a $37 million Series B fundraising round – nine months after raising an $18 million Series A funding round. The young company plans to use machine learning in order to improve patient record keeping, prevent medical error and reduce waiting times for patients. The Series B round was led by Lightspeed Ventures, together with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Foundation Capital, and raises the total amount of money raised by the company to $61 million.

Several US healthcare providers have already begun working with the firm, both private doctors’ practices and major clinics and hospitals. These providers receive referrals from primary care providers in different formats to register patients and document their case history. Since providers often compete with each other for patients, there is no standard format used in the industry nationwide, with many companies relying on handwritten documents, messages from private email accounts, and some even using such outdated technology as fax machines. This causes significant delays in the provision of treatment, and increases the likelihood that patients will be misdiagnosed, referred to the wrong clinic or denied access to a specialist whose expertise they require.

Tennr has made it its mission to solve these problems by automating this process: it extracts the relevant information from referrals, no matter what form they’re received in or what technology was used to generate the documents, which not only enables more rapid response times but also creates an unprecedented level of standardization in the medical field, nationally and in the future perhaps globally as well. The company has already processed tens of millions of referrals for patients in the USA, ensuring an appointment with a specialist in a few hours, instead of having to wait several weeks and at times months.

Read more | >

In addition to lowering your cholesterol, keeping your brain healthy and improving mental health, new research from the University of Georgia suggests omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids may help ward off a variety of cancers.

The study relied on data from more than 250,000 people and found that higher…

But most Americans probably aren’t eating enough of these foods to reach the recommended amounts.

That’s why many individuals turn to fish oil supplements. They’re one of the most popular dietary pills on the market and for good reason.

Previous studies suggest omega-3 supplements can reduce the risk of developing high cholesterol and lower the risk of heart disease.

Read more | >

Researchers have developed a nanoscale sensor that detects lung cancer simply by analyzing the levels of a chemical called isoprene in your breath. The team believes its breakthrough could unlock a non-invasive, low-cost method to catch the disease early, and potentially save a lot of lives.

When the human body breaks down fat in a process called lipolytic cholesterol metabolism, isoprene is released in exhaled breath. As it turns out, a decline in isoprene can indicate the presence of lung cancer. The team, led by researchers at China’s Zhejiang University, leveraged this insight through its work and developed an innovative gas sensing material to create a screening process.

The challenge with spotting biomarkers in breath is that your system needs to be able to differentiate between volatile chemicals, withstand the natural humidity of exhaled breath, and detect tiny quantities of specific chemicals. In the case of isoprene, you’d need sensors capable of detecting levels of the chemical in the parts-per-billion (ppb) range.

Read more | >

A trio of research papers from Stanford Medicine researchers and their international collaborators transforms scientists’ understanding of how small DNA circles – until recently dismissed as inconsequential – are major drivers of many types of human cancers.

The papers, published simultaneously in…

Tiny circles called ecDNA are critical in cancer development and drug resistance. An international Stanford Medicine-led team publishes landmark studies detailing new findings and potential therapies.

Read more | >