Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical

A SpaceX Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft has safely returned to Earth after delivering several tons of NASA supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).

A little over six weeks after Falcon 9 launched SpaceX’s 26th Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS2) mission for NASA, Dragon departed the ISS on January 9th. Efficiently lowering its orbit with several small Draco thrusters took about 36 hours, and reusable Dragon 2 capsule C211 eventually slowed to the point that it began impacting Earth’s atmosphere. Using its ablative heat shield like a brake pad, Dragon slowed from a velocity of 7.5 kilometers per second (16,800 mph) to about 155 meters per second (~350 mph) before beginning parachute deployment.

At 5:19 am on January 11th, the Dragon capsule gently splashed down off the coast of Tampa, Florida, and was quickly secured by a SpaceX recovery ship. Once onboard, the capsule was opened up, and cargo fresh from orbit was loaded onto a helicopter as quickly as possible. That system – primarily created to rapidly transport astronauts back to NASA medical facilities – also means that scientists can get access to their recovered ISS experiments just a handful of hours after Cargo Dragon splashes down.

Read more | >

This might be important. It might not be over for metformin just yet though as a mice study showed that rapamycin combined with metformin removed each other’s side effects.

If you are a non-diabetic who takes metformin for longevity, I highly recommend you stop immediately. Hear me out, and at the end of the video I’ll share what to do instead.

My full supplement stack: https://drstanfield.com/my-supplements/

Continue reading “Metformin For Anti-Aging: Disproved & Dangerous!” | >

We flew to the UK to learn more about the designer 3D-printing third thumbs. Is this the dawn of human body augmentation?

Watch the Hard Reset series ► https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXthoedLVIdLvnNgiCshQvqKdS7T_qeGY

Motorized prosthetics are nothing new. But what about artificial body parts that don’t replace missing ones, but instead provide us with extended capabilities, while also revealing insights into the relationship between brain and body?

That’s the main research focus of augmentation designer Dani Clode, who developed the Third Thumb, a 3D-printed extension for your hand that is controlled by your toes.

Continue reading “Bionic 3rd thumb: The future of human augmentation | Hard Reset” | >

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have successfully trialed an artificial pancreas for use by patients living with type 2 diabetes. The device – powered by an algorithm developed at the University of Cambridge – doubled the amount of time patients were in the target range for glucose compared to standard treatment and halved the time spent experiencing high glucose levels.

Around 415 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with type 2 diabetes, which costs around $760 billion in annual global health expenditure. According to Diabetes UK, more than 4.9 million people have diabetes in the UK alone, of whom 90% have type 2 diabetes, and this is estimated to cost the NHS £10 billion per year.

“Many people with type 2 diabetes struggle to manage their blood sugar levels using the currently available treatments, such as insulin injections. The artificial pancreas can provide a safe and effective approach to help them, and the technology is simple to use and can be implemented safely at home.” —

Read more | >

San Diego-based biotech startup Rejuvenate Bio is making a major claim that’ll likely draw heated scrutiny from the scientific community: that its technology was able to significantly extend the lives of elderly mice.

According to a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, scientists at the company say an injection that reprograms genes in the bodies of senior mice effectively doubled their remaining life span, MIT Technology Review reports.

In tests, the company found that treated mice lived on for another 18 weeks on average. Those who were not treated in a control group only lived for another nine weeks. Overall, they say, the gene hacked mice lived roughly seven percent longer overall.

Read more | >

Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre have discovered that a protein, called Menin, contributes to abnormal deactivation of specific genes in cancer cells.

One of the hallmarks of is that the normal regulation of genes is disrupted, and this causes cancer cells to look and behave differently to . Cancer cells can switch off certain genes, keeping them in a dormant state. By deactivating specific immune genes, some cancers are able to evade detection by the immune system, essentially becoming invisible. This allows the cancer to grow and become more aggressive.

By targeting the Menin protein using , the researchers believe they can reactivate these genes, making the cancer cells once again visible and allowing the immune system to seek out and destroy them.

Read more | >

Biorealistic organic electrochemical neurons enabled by ion-tunable antiambipolarity in mixed ion-electron conducting polymers.

An artificial organic neuron that closely mimics the characteristics of biological nerve cells has been created by researchers at Linköping University (LiU), Sweden. This artificial neuron can stimulate natural nerves, making it a promising technology for various medical treatments in the future.

Work to develop increasingly functional artificial nerve cells continues at the Laboratory for Organic Electronics, LOE. In 2022, a team of scientists led by associate professor Simone Fabiano demonstrated how an artificial organic neuron could be integrated into a living carnivorous plant to control the opening and closing of its maw. This synthetic nerve cell met 2 of the 20 characteristics that differentiate it from a biological nerve cell.

Read more | >

Fungi such as Aspergillus are so common in our surroundings that we breathe in hundreds to thousands of spores every day. In healthy people, fungi typically pose no threat, but they can cause deadly infections in those with compromised immune systems. However, it is increasingly recognized that viral infections such as influenza or SARS-CoV-2 can increase the risk of invasive Aspergillus infections even in healthy people.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that invasive fungal infections are an increasing threat to human health and has reiterated that more research is needed. Until now little was known about how the Aspergillus fungus was able to take root, and what could be done to get rid of it. Researchers at the University of Calgary working with researchers at McGill University have provided new insight on why the immune system fails.

“We discovered that influenza and COVID-19 destroy a previously unknown natural immunity that we need to resist invasive fungal infections,” says Nicole Sarden, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Calgary and first author on the study.

Read more | >

This case highlights a rare but important side effect after vaccination that primary physicians and neurologists should be aware of in order to identify and efficiently manage these patients.

Case presentation: A 10 year old girl was evaluated for headache, fever and vomit. CSF analysis revealed pleocytosis and presence of S. pneumoniae antigen, and proper antibiotic therapy for bacterial meningitis was started, with rapid improvement.

https://europepmc.org/article/ppr/ppr181933

2Department of Pharmacokinetics and Biopharmaceutics, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Tokushima University, Tokushima, Japan.

Continue reading “Aseptic meningitis after vaccination of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine” | >

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology have discovered the biosynthesis of a rare compound called benzoxazolinate, which is found in Benzobactins – a class of bacterial natural products that have unique biological activity due to its two-ring structure.

By utilizing genomic research, scientists were able to uncover the previously unknown genes responsible for its formation. This breakthrough opens doors to the discovery of a multitude of new natural compounds with medical applications.

Microorganisms in their natural habitat often face varying environmental conditions and have evolved to produce a diverse range of natural products with various chemical compositions and functions to aid their survival.

Read more | >