Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 3,485

Parkinson’s linked to gut bacteria

For the first time, researchers have found a functional link between the bacteria in the gut and the onset of Parkinson’s disease, one of the world’s most common debilitating brain disorders.

A team of scientists from several institutions in the United States and Europe showed how changing the bacteria in the guts of mice affected the manifestation of Parkinson’s symptoms — even including bacteria taken from the guts of humans with the disease.

The findings suggest a new way of treating the disease: The best target for treatment may be the gut, rather than the brain. The researchers hope the new information can be used to develop “next generation” probiotics, more sophisticated than the sort of probiotics found on the shelves of health food stores today.

Scientists Discover Extinct Human DNA in Cave Dirt

A group of German scientists have found the DNA of extinct humans — without finding any skeletal remains.

The researchers, who are currently excavating even dig sites in Belgium, Croatia, France, Russia and Spain, have found genetic remains of ancient humans like the Neanderthals and their cousins, the Denisovans, in sediment samples, the New York Times reports.

Ancient human DNA has been found in cave dirt in Croatia, but without any skeletal remains, scientists say.

This doctor plans to perform a human head transplant this year

Sergio Canavero, a controversial professor and neurosurgeon, wants to perform the first human head transplant in December.

He told German magazine OOOM that the procedure will take place in China. According to the Observer, it will take 80 surgeons, 36 hours and $10 million to execute.

Like a sci-fi tale come to life, Canavero, who’s also the former director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, claims that people whose brains have been cryogenically frozen could be revived within three years.

Next List 2017: 20 Tech Visionaries You Should Have Heard of

MICROSOFT WILL BUILD computers even more sleek and beautiful than Apple’s. Robots will 3D-print cool shoes that are personalized just for you. (And you’ll get them in just a few short days.) Neural networks will take over medical diagnostics, and Snapchat will try to take over the entire world. The women and men in these pages are the technical, creative, idealistic visionaries who are bringing the future to your doorstep. You might not recognize their names—they’re too busy working to court the spotlight—but you’ll soon hear about them a lot. They represent the best of what’s next.

You might not recognize their names—they’re too busy working to court the spotlight—but you’ll soon hear about them a lot. They represent what’s next.

15 books to browse ahead of TED2017

2017 begins on Monday in Vancouver, Canada, and will explore the theme “The Future You.” If the future you is anything like the future us, you are likely curled up in a big cushy chair right now, devouring the contents of a book that flips your thinking. Below, some reading suggestions from the speaker program. Read, enjoy and stay tuned to the TED Blog for beat-by-beat coverage of the conference.

TED2017 begins on Monday in Vancouver, Canada, and will explore the theme “The Future You.” If the future you is anything like the future us, you are likely curled up in a big cushy chair right now, devouring the contents of a book that flips your thinking. Below, some reading suggestions from the speaker program. Read, enjoy and stay tuned to the TED Blog for beat-by-beat coverage of the conference.

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O’Neil. The decisions that affect our lives are no longer made by humans — they’re made by algorithms. This might sound like a great way around bias and discrimination, but these things are often built right into our mathematical models. When it comes to college admissions, decisions on parole, applications to jobs and the affects of a bad credit score, O’Neil explores the unintended consequences of algorithms. (Read an excerpt.)

The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer by Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel. Molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that — like shoelace tips — keep our genetic information from fraying. Both telomeres and telomerase, an enzyme that restores worn-down telomeres, appear central to the aging process. This book looks at the research — then turns its attention to how our thoughts, bodies and social worlds affect us on the cellular level.

Rejuvenation would be forced on people

Some people fear rejuvenation therapies would be only for the privileged, and yet some others think they would be imposed on everyone. This article discusses the latter case.

Somebody once told me they fear that, if we created rejuvenation therapies, they might be forced on people who don’t want them, and in a way, we’d end up forcing people to live ‘forever’. Is this a good reason not to develop rejuvenation? No, of course not. I mean, imagine if we never came up with blood transfusions for fear that Jehovah’s witnesses might be forced to undergo them!

Besides, if rejuvenation therapies shouldn’t be invented because someone is afraid they’d be forced on people who want to grow old and die, let me ask: How about the people who do not want to grow old and die and yet would be forced to, because somebody else didn’t want rejuvenation therapies to be created? Dying despite the existence of rejuvenation therapies is certainly more easily attained than not dying despite the lack of rejuvenation therapies.

Rejuvenation is a set of medical interventions, and as such, a patient has the right to refuse all of them, if they want to. Indeed, the right to refuse or halt medical intervention already exists (see this WHO paper of 1994, page 11, article 3.2, which states this right for European Citizens, for example), so, if one really doesn’t want to undergo rejuvenation treatments, that is in their right already.

An artificial womb successfully grew baby sheep — and humans could be next

Inside what look like oversized ziplock bags strewn with tubes of blood and fluid, eight fetal lambs continued to develop — much like they would have inside their mothers. Over four weeks, their lungs and brains grew, they sprouted wool, opened their eyes, wriggled around, and learned to swallow, according to a new study that takes the first step toward an artificial womb. One day, this device could help to bring premature human babies to term outside the uterus — but right now, it has only been tested on sheep.

It’s appealing to imagine a world where artificial wombs grow babies, eliminating the health risk of pregnancy. But it’s important not to get ahead of the data, says Alan Flake, fetal surgeon at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and lead author of today’s study. “It’s complete science fiction to think that you can take an embryo and get it through the early developmental process and put it on our machine without the mother being the critical element there,” he says.

Instead, the point of developing an external womb — which his team calls the Biobag — is to give infants born months too early a more natural, uterus-like environment to continue developing in, Flake says.

Possible approach for treating Alzheimer’s

Quercetin may be able to influence apoE and could be a potential therapeutic for Alzheimer’s disease.

The Apolipoprotein E connection

The most common type of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease and as the average life expectancy has risen in recent decades so has the occurrence of this and other neurodegenerative diseases. Aging is the primary risk factor for Alzheimer’s and researchers are searching for new ways to combat this devastating disease.

The pathology of Alzheimer’s is characterized by the formation of tau-tangles and the accumulation of amyloid-β (Aβ) which damage neurons and gradually destroy sections of the brain leading to death. The debate over which is primary, tau or amyloid is ongoing and it remains unclear which is the most important of the two, or if both are a consequence of another underlying process.

/* */