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Category: biotech/medical – Page 822

Here’s my new Opinion essay at Newsweek. It’s about the need to use our nation’s massive natural resources to pay for a bipartisan tax free universal basic income, called the Federal Land Dividend. I hope you will read and share it!

In 2018, I began lecturing about the Federal Land Dividend, a bipartisan tax-free Universal Basic Income (UBI) based on monetizing the 640 million acres of mostly unused federally owned land. Due to the lasting effects of the coronavirus pandemic, which include a struggling U.S. economy, there is increasing interest in implementing basic income plans. The Federal Land Dividend is the only method that is both bipartisan and tax free.

An estimated 50 percent of the 11 most western states are mostly empty land that belong to the government. Estimates say this land and its resources are worth approximately $100 to $200 trillion. If we divide the middle— $150 trillion —by America’s population of 333 million, every person would have approximately $450,000 in equity. That’s much higher than the median net worth in America of $122,000.

The Federal Land Dividend aims to lease out land and natural resources to big business that agree, in exchange, to pay a monthly income to all Americans. It’s estimated that if just 60 percent of America’s unused federal land was leased out at fair rates, a $1,000 monthly check could be sent to all Americans—regardless of age—for decades if not centuries. Because land and raw materials often move in tandem with inflation, payouts could increase with inflation. Furthermore, this plan does not touch any national parks whatsoever. Much of this land is in places that few humans ever visit or see.

Some conservatives support the Federal Land Dividend idea because it will boost big business while providing an economic stimulus to all Americans. Some liberals also support the idea because it will dramatically help end poverty. Even some libertarians like the idea because it returns the value of federal land to the people, instead of the government hoarding and controlling it.

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Scientists at Harvard University claim to have come excitingly close to finding the proverbial Fountain of Youth. According to a recent publication in the scientific journal Aging, the team has identified six chemical concoctions that have the ability to reverse the aging process in both human and mice skin cells.

Dr. David Sinclair, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the study, has hailed this as a “breakthrough” and sees it as a step towards “affordable whole-body rejuvenation.”

Dr. Sinclair has even suggested that human trials could commence within the next year. This prediction has caught the attention of prominent figures, such as tech mogul Elon Musk. He responded to the news with curiosity asking, “Ok, so what exactly is it?”

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(NewsNation) — A new study claims to have found chemical compounds that can actually reverse the effects of aging, though so far results have been limited to animal studies.

Harvard Medical School, University of Maine and Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists collaborated on the study, published in the journal Aging. Researchers found it was possible to reverse cellular engineering rather than simply delay it.

They used six chemical compounds to reverse aging in cells, returning them to a youthful state without having them revert too far and become cancerous.

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Bioluminescent bacteria and the Hawaiian bobtail squid have formed a longstanding mutually beneficial relationship. How the bacteria coordinate their behavior to colonize the squid—through cellular signaling and cues from the environment—is detailed in a new study led by Penn State researchers.

A paper describing the study is published in the journal eLife. The researchers also show that the mechanism that they describe is likely to be widespread in a broad array of and that understanding this coordination of will be important for understanding how bacteria colonize their hosts more generally.

“The bacteria we study, known as Vibrio fischeri, is associated with many different marine hosts, but its association with the Hawaiian bobtail is the best characterized,” said Tim Miyashiro, associate professor of biochemistry and in the Penn State Eberly College of Science and the leader of the research team.

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Queen Mary University researchers have engineered a self-sensing, variable-stiffness artificial muscle that mimics natural muscle characteristics. The breakthrough has significant implications for soft robotics and medical applications, moving a step closer to human-machine integration.

In a study published on July 8 in Advanced Intelligent Systems, researchers from Queen Mary University of London have made significant advancements in the field of bionics with the development of a new type of electric variable-stiffness artificial muscle that possesses self-sensing capabilities. This innovative technology has the potential to revolutionize soft robotics and medical applications.

Technology Inspired by Nature.

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Brushing twice a day keeps the dentist away—but can we improve on the toothpaste we use to maintain clean teeth, preventing medical issues that spiral from poor dental health? Most toothpastes use fluoride, a powerful tool for oral hygiene. However, fluoride can pose health problems in some cases, especially for children who consume too much fluoride by swallowing most of their toothpaste: children normally use only a tiny dose of toothpaste to avoid these problems, but that reduces toothbrushing efficacy.

In the search for alternatives, a team of international scientists and Polish clinicians have identified a hydroxyapatite toothpaste that works just as well as fluoride toothpaste to protect against cavities.

“Hydroxyapatite is a safe and effective alternative to fluoride in caries prevention for daily use,” said Professor Elzbieta Paszynska of the Poznan University of Medical Sciences, co-principal investigator and corresponding author of the study published in Frontiers in Public Health.

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Gum disease and tooth loss are linked to shrinkage of the hippocampus, an area of the brain crucial for memory. The corresponding study was published in Neurology.

Previous studies suggest that tooth loss and periodontitis may be linked to Alzheimer’s disease. However, recent studies have not found a significant link between tooth loss and periodontitis, and hippocampal atrophy. In the current study, researchers sought to understand more about how oral health affects hippocampal volume-and, thus, memory. To do so, they examined the relationship between number of teeth present and hippocampal atrophy in light of periodontitis severity among middle-aged and older adults.

For the study, the researchers included 172 people with an average age of 67 years old who did not have cognitive decline. At the start of the study, each underwent dental exams and memory tests. They also underwent MRI brain scans at the beginning of the study and four years later to assess their hippocampal volume.

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Nick had four surgeries and multiple radiation treatments to treat his ependymoma tumors. He shares what to expect during and after radiation and how cancer changed his outlook on life.

In 2004, when I was 12 years old, I had severe back pain and spasms. When I laid down at night, I experienced episodes where I couldn’t move for 10 to 15 minutes. Since my father was in the medical field, he knew something wasn’t normal.

An MRI showed a 12-centimeter grade I myxopapillary ependymoma inside my spinal column in my lower lumbar. After emergency surgery, the doctors reported they removed all the tumor except for a couple of very microscopic spots.

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Large language models like GPT-4 have taken the world by storm thanks to their astonishing command of natural language. Yet the most significant long-term opportunity for LLMs will entail an entirely different type of language: the language of biology.

One striking theme has emerged from the long march of research progress across biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics over the past century: it turns out that biology is a decipherable, programmable, in some ways even digital system.

DNA encodes the complete genetic instructions for every living organism on earth using just four variables—A (adenine), C (cytosine), G (guanine) and T (thymine). Compare this to modern computing systems, which use two variables—0 and 1—to encode all the world’s digital electronic information. One system is binary and the other is quaternary, but the two have a surprising amount of conceptual overlap; both systems can properly be thought of as digital.

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