Lifeboat Foundation

‘I almost died on the way out,’ said the six-foot-two tall archeologist who lost 25 kgs to enter a 17.5-centimeter cave.

Researchers claim to have discovered new evidence of extinct human species who lived in the underground caves of modern-day South Africa.

“We have massive evidence. It’s everywhere,” said Berger, who reported the findings in a press release and a Carnegie Science lecture at the Martin Luther King Jr.

Continue reading “‘Massive evidence’ on evolution: Extinct human species with tiny brains ‘used fire’ to live underground” »

http://www.iBiology.org.

For millennia, humans have been harnessing #microbes to produce everything from breads, to cheeses, to alcohol. Now these tiny organisms have produced another powerful revolution — the gene editing tool CRISPR. Rodolphe Barrangou, Ph.D., was working at the food company Danisco, where he was trying to produce yogurt lines resistant to contamination. In a series of groundbreaking experiments, he helped uncover what CRISPR was, how it worked, and why it could be so transformative.

Continue reading “The CRISPR Apostle: Rodolphe Barrangou” »

The microphone sensor can classify bowel diseases using machine learning.

There are many diseases that could potentially be detected through human waste. One such infection includes cholera. Cholera is a bacterial disease.

Cholera is spread through contaminated food and water. Large epidemics that spread the bacterium are related to fecal contamination of water or food. It can sometimes be spread through undercooked shellfish and other seafood-related infections, as well. is spread through contaminated food and water. Large epidemics that spread the bacterium are related to fecal contamination of water or food. It can sometimes be spread through undercooked shellfish and other seafood-related infections, as well.

Researchers at McMaster University have created a powerful new weapon against bacterial contamination and infection.

They have developed a way to coax bacteriophages—harmless viruses that eat bacteria—into linking together and forming microscopic beads. Those beads can safely be applied to food and other materials to rid them of harmful pathogens such as E. coli 0157. Each bead is about 20 microns, (one 50th of a millimeter) in diameter and is loaded with millions of phages.

The McMaster engineering team behind the invention, led by professors Zeinab Hosseinidoust, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Bacteriophage Bioengineering, and Tohid Didar, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Nano-Biomaterials, and graduate student Lei Tian, have created a spray using nothing but the microbeads.

Antibiotics are not enough in the war against pathogens.

Every year more than 40 million people in the U.S. suffer from foodborne illnesses caused by bacteria, viruses, and various other types of pathogens. Food contamination is often underestimated, but it is responsible for 420,000 deaths annually. This number represents more people than the entire population of Iceland.

Urfinguss/iStock.

Continue reading “Spraying an army of bacteria-eating viruses can save us from food poisoning” »

Examinations using microscopes confirmed that these neurons were active in the mice with chronic pain. When the researchers used chemicals to stop the neuronal activity in this cortex, the mice’s appetites improved.

Similarly, when the researchers used chemicals to activate these neurons in mice that weren’t in pain, the animals ate less, even if they had been deprived of food before the experiment.

This is the first time that researchers have traced the brain mechanisms behind pain-related appetite loss, the researchers wrote.

The only time might be willing to take shit off someone.

— Cancer patients weren’t responding to therapy. Then they got a poop transplant.

— The same exact foods affect each person’s gut bacteria differently.

Continue reading “FDA approved a 1st-of-its-kind treatment made from human poop. What does it do?” »

Google is shutting down Duplex on the Web, its AI-powered set of services that navigated sites to simplify the process of ordering food, purchasing movie tickets and more. According to a note on a Google support page, Google on the Web and any automation features enabled by it will no longer be supported as of this month.

“As we continue to improve the Duplex experience, we’re responding to the feedback we’ve heard from users and developers about how to make it even better,” a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch via email, adding that Duplex on the Web partners have been notified to help them prepare for the shutdown. “By the end of this year, we’ll turn down Duplex on the Web and fully focus on making AI advancements to the Duplex voice technology that helps people most every day.”

Google introduced Duplex on the Web, an outgrowth of its call-automating Duplex technology, during its 2019 Google I/O developer conference. To start, it was focused on a couple of narrow use cases, including opening a movie theater chain’s website to fill out all of the necessary information on a user’s behalf — pausing to prompt for choices like seats. But Duplex on the Web later expanded to passwords, helping users automatically change passwords exposed in a data breach, as well as assist with checkout for e-commerce retailers, flight check-in for airline sites and automatic discount finding.

The presence of food-specific IgA antibodies in the gut does not prevent peanut or egg allergies from developing in children, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in Science Translational Medicine.

Scientists examined stool samples from more than 500 infants across the country and found that the presence of Immunoglobulin A, the most common antibody found in mucous membranes in the digestive tract, does not prevent peanut or egg allergies from developing later in life.

This discovery calls into question the role of Immunoglobulin A, or IgA, which was previously thought to be a protective factor against the development of food allergies.