Tokyo’s Metropolitan Government plans to build a high-tech, sustainable city on reclaimed land in its bay area — Tokyo Bay eSG. Announced in April 2021, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is clearing the decks for action to make the city carbon-neutral and better able to withstand future climate and health crises.
As its name implies, Tokyo eSG will be designed on the fundamentals of social and environmental governance and combine cutting-edge green technologies.
Tokyo Bay eSG
Announced in April 2021, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is clearing the decks for action to make the city carbon-neutral and better able to withstand future climate and health crises.
Imperial researchers have embedded new low-cost sensors that monitor breathing, heart rate, and ammonia into t-shirts and face masks.
Potential applications range from monitoring exercise, sleep, and stress to diagnosing and monitoring disease through breath and vital signs.
Spun from a new Imperial-developed cotton-based conductive thread called PECOTEX, the sensors cost little to manufacture. Just $0.15 produces a meter of thread to seamlessly integrate more than ten sensors into clothing, and PECOTEX is compatible with industry-standard computerized embroidery machines.
What do clouds, televisions, pharmaceuticals, and even the dirt under our feet have in common? They all have or use crystals in some way. Crystals are more than just fancy gemstones. Clouds form when water vapor condenses into ice crystals in the atmosphere. Liquid crystal displays are used in a variety of electronics, from televisions to instrument panels. Crystallization is an important step for drug discovery and purification. Crystals also make up rocks and other minerals. Their crucial role in the environment is a focus of materials science and health sciences research.
Scientists have yet to fully understand how crystallization occurs, but the importance of surfaces in promoting the process has long been recognized. Research from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the University of Washington (UW), and Durham University sheds new light on how crystals form at surfaces. Their results were published in Science Advances.
Previous studies on crystallization led scientists to form the classical nucleation theory—the predominant explanation for why crystals begin to form, or nucleate. When crystals nucleate, they begin as very small ephemeral clusters of just a few atoms. Their small size makes the clusters extremely difficult to detect. Scientists have managed to collect only a few images of such processes.
Summary: The pioneering “soleus pushup” effectively elevates muscle metabolism for hours, even when sitting.
Source: University of Houston.
From the same mind whose research propelled the notion that “sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little,” comes a groundbreaking discovery set to turn a sedentary lifestyle on its ear: The soleus muscle in the calf, though only 1% of your body weight, can do big things to improve the metabolic health in the rest of your body if activated correctly.
Engineered living materials promise to aid efforts in human health, energy and environmental remediation. Now they can be built big and customized with less effort.
Bioscientists at Rice University have introduced centimeter-scale, slime-like colonies of engineered bacteria that self-assemble from the bottom up. They can be programmed to soak up contaminants from the environment or to catalyze biological reactions, among many possible applications.
The creation of autonomous engineered living materials —or ELMs—has been a goal of bioscientist Caroline Ajo-Franklin since long before she joined Rice in 2019.
From the same mind whose research propelled the notion that “sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little,” comes a groundbreaking discovery set to turn a sedentary lifestyle on its ear: The soleus muscle in the calf, though only 1% of your body weight, can do big things to improve the metabolic health in the rest of your body if activated correctly.
And Marc Hamilton, professor of Health and Human Performance at the University of Houston, has discovered such an approach for optimal activation—he’s pioneering the “soleus pushup” (SPU) which effectively elevates muscle metabolism for hours, even while one is sitting. The soleus, one of 600 muscles in the human body, is a posterior leg muscle that runs from just below the knee to the heel.
Published in the journal iScience, Hamilton’s research suggests the soleus pushup’s ability to sustain an elevated oxidative metabolism to improve the regulation of blood glucose is more effective than any popular methods currently touted as a solution including exercise, weight loss and intermittent fasting. Oxidative metabolism is the process by which oxygen is used to burn metabolites like blood glucose or fats, but it depends, in part, on the immediate energy needs of the muscle when it’s working.
Maximizing Benefits Of The Life Sciences & Health Tech For All Americans — Dr. Andrew Hebbeler, Ph.D., Principal Assistant Director for Health and Life Sciences, Office of Science and Technology Policy, The White House.
Dr. Andrew Hebbeler, Ph.D., is Principal Assistant Director for Health and Life Sciences, Office of Science and Technology Policy at The White House (https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ostps-teams/health-and-life-sciences/), and has extensive foreign affairs, national security, global health, and science and technology (S&T) policy experience.
Most recently, Dr. Hebbeler was Senior Director and Lead Scientist for Global Biological Policy and Programs at the non-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative and previous to that served in leadership positions at the State Department’s offices of Science and Technology Cooperation (OES/STC), the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State (E/STAS), and Cooperative Threat Reduction (ISN/CTR).
From 2013–2015, Dr. Hebbeler was Assistant Director for Biological and Chemical Threats at the Obama White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where he oversaw American S&T efforts to combat infectious disease and chemical weapon threats.
Prior to his White House position, Dr. Hebbeler led the State Department’s Biosecurity Engagement Program, a $40M program that prevents terrorist access to potentially dangerous biological materials and dual-use infrastructure and expertise, while supporting efforts to combat infectious disease and enhance public and animal health worldwide.
Merck Global Health Innovation Fund (Merck GHI) is a corporate venture capital group utilizing a healthcare ecosystem strategy, investing globally in platform companies with proven technologies or business models where Merck’s expertise can accelerate revenue growth and enhance value creation to ultimately develop integrated healthcare solutions.
Merck GHI has $500M under management per an evergreen model and invests broadly in the domain of digital health, and other segments, and has made over 60 investments in portfolio companies, and has over 20 exits. They invest across the segments of Therapy Planning, Care Management, Health Analytics & AI, eClinical Trials and enabling technologies.
Bill has more than 30 years of health care experience including over 20 years of healthcare investing.
A new study recently published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, suggests that physical and mental activities, such as doing chores around the home, exercising, and visiting family and friends, may help reduce the risk of dementia. The research examined how these activities, together with mental activities and the use of electronic devices, affected individuals with and without increased hereditary risk for dementia.
“Many studies have identified potential risk factors for dementia, but we wanted to know more about a wide variety of lifestyle habits and their potential role in the prevention of dementia,” said study author Huan Song, MD, Ph.D., of Sichuan University in Chengdu, China. “Our study found that exercise, household chores, and social visits were linked to a reduced risk of various types of dementia.”
The study involved 501,376 people from a UK database without dementia. The participants had an average age of 36.
The loss of life would be equivalent to six planes, each carrying 200 passengers, killing everyone on board, every year.
Reducing air pollution from road transport will save thousands of lives and improve the health.
In our published research we evaluated the costs and benefits of a rapid transition. In one scenario, Australia matches the pace of transition of world leaders such as Norway. The modeling estimates this would save around 24,000 lives by 2042. Over time, the resulting greenhouse emission reductions would almost equal Australia’s current total annual emissions from all sources.
We also calculated the total costs and benefits through to 2042. Australia would be about 148 billion Australian dollars better off overall with a rapid transition.
