Lifeboat Foundation

In a new medical breakthrough, scientists have successfully grown a synthetic embryo of a mouse without male sperm and a female womb. They used stem cells from mice to recreate the first stage of life and successfully developed an embryo with a brain, beating heart, and vitals for other organs.

The natural process of life was mimicked in the lab without eggs or sperm but with the body’s master cells, which can develop into almost any cell type in the body. The embryo was developed 8 ½ days after fertilization, containing the same structures as a natural one.

The study published in the journal Nature states that their result demonstrates the self-organization ability of embryonic and two types of extra-embryonic stem cells to reconstitute mammalian development. The researchers induced expression of a particular set of genes and established a unique environment for their interactions and got the stem cells to ‘talk’ to each other.

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In the Existential Hope-podcast (https://www.existentialhope.com), we invite scientists to speak about long-termism. Each month, we drop a podcast episode where we interview a visionary scientist to discuss the science and technology that can accelerate humanity towards desirable outcomes.

Continue reading “Existential Hope Special with Morgan Levine | On the Future of Aging” »

Small devices letting patients collect diagnostics quality blood samples at home were getting lots of publicity in the past few months, as they are finding their way into clinical trials and are available as direct-to-consumer products. We asked Dr Erwin Berthier, CTO and Co-Founder of Tasso about the technology.

You can read the exclusive interview on our Patreon page. Thank you for your support!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/70639361

Credit: Savetool

face_with_colon_three circa 2008.

Opportunistic fungal pneumonias are associated with high morbidity and mortality rates [ 1–3]. Although invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) is the most common type of fungal pneumonia, other angioinvasive molds, such as Fusarium and Zygomycetes species, are increasingly encountered in severely immunocompromised hosts. Because early institution of high-dose antifungal therapy is associated with improved outcomes [ 4, 5], early recognition of invasive fungal disease is important. However, cultures of respiratory secretions are neither sensitive nor specific, and lavage and invasive procedures often cannot be done for these patients because of coagulation abnormalities and thrombocytopenia [ 6, 7]. Thus, diagnosis of invasive pulmonary fungal disease relies heavily on imaging [ 8]. CT is often used in an attempt to identify fungal pneumonia in a timely fashion.

The reversed halo sign (RHS) is a CT finding, a focal round area of ground-glass attenuation surrounded by a ring of consolidation, which has been described in cryptogenic organizing pneumonia [ 9, 10].

Continue reading “Reversed Halo Sign in Invasive Pulmonary Fungal Infections” »

Vivjoa (oteseconazole) is the first and only FDA approved medication for chronic yeast infections. Here’s what you need to know about the medication.

Circa 2002 face_with_colon_three

New approach could help men with injuries or deformities.

Just yesterday (2022−08−24) Prof. Smolin had a deep brain stimulator inserted into his left Globus Pallidus to help him better manage his symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease. Here he talks about that day, his theory of PD and the journey he had been on to getting DBS.

Eavesdropping on the earliest conversations between tissues in an emerging life could tell us a lot about organ growth, fertility, and disease in general. It could help prevent early miscarriages, or even tell us how to grow whole replacement organs from scratch.

In a monumental leap in stem cell research, an experiment led by researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK has developed a living model of a mouse embryo complete with fluttering heart tissues and the beginnings of a brain.

The research advances the recent success of a team comprised of some of the same scientists who pushed the limits on mimicking the embryonic development of mice using stem cells that had never seen the inside of a mouse womb.