Summary: Researchers have developed a new ophthalmological device that can detect degenerative visual problems such as age-related macular degeneration long before the onset of the first symptoms.
Source: EPFL
Researchers at an EPFL lab have developed an ophthalmological device that can be used to diagnose some degenerative eye disorders long before the onset of the first symptoms. In early clinical trials, the prototype was shown to produce images with a sufficient degree of precision in just five seconds.
When in 2015, Eileen Brown looked at the ETER9 Project (crazy for many, visionary for few) and wrote an interesting article for ZDNET with the title “New social network ETER9 brings AI to your interactions”, it ensured a worldwide projection of something the world was not expecting.
Someone, in a lost world (outside the United States), was risking, with everything he had in his possession (very little or less than nothing), a vision worthy of the American dream. At that time, Facebook was already beginning to annoy the cleaner minds that were looking for a difference and a more innovative world.
Today, after that test bench, we see that Facebook (Meta or whatever) is nothing but an illusion, or, I dare say, a big disappointment. No, no, no! I am not now bad-mouthing Facebook just because I have a project in hand that is seen as a potential competitor.
In the style of Sleeping Beauty, Tardigrades, the adorable, tiny animals that can withstand extreme environments and are also known as “water bears,” can withstand freezing without losing their vitality. Despite harsh environmental conditions, tardigrades are very adaptable. According to Ralph Schill, a professor at the University of Stuttgart, anhydrobiotic (dry) tardigrades can survive for many years without absorbing water. In a frozen state, there was no clear indication of whether aging increased or decreased. It turns out that frozen tardigrades don’t age.
Water bears, also known as tardigrades, are nematodes. They have the same gait as bears, but that’s about the only thing that connects them to bears. As a result of their adaptability to rapidly changing environmental conditions, tardigrades, which are barely one millimeter in size, can freeze in extreme cold and dry out in extreme heat. Rather than dying, Schill explains that they fall into a deep sleep. A cell organism experiences different types of stress when it freezes or dries out. Despite this, tardigrades are equally capable of surviving both extremes of heat and cold. No obvious signs of life can be seen on them. In this state of rest, the animal’s internal clock might be slowed down, which raises the question of whether it ages.
Schill and his team investigated the aging process of dried tardigrades several years ago, which waited in their habitat for rain for many years. Grimm brothers’ fairytales depict a princess who is deeply asleep. A young prince kisses her 100 years later, and she awakes looking as beautiful and young as ever. In a dried state, tardigrades are the same, and therefore this hypothesis is called the “Sleeping Beauty” hypothesis. Schill explains that the internal clock stops during inactivity and resumes once the organism has been reactivated. Accordingly, the researcher explained that tardigrades, whose lifespan usually lasts only a few months without rest, can survive for decades.
Turning back the clock on aging may be attainable via a controversial method known as “reprogramming.” But other experts in the field are skeptical.
Cryo-electron microscopy structures of skeletal F-actin show solvent-driven rearrangements governing actin filament assembly and aging with potential application in design of drugs and small molecules for imaging and therapy.
Werner Syndrome and Hutchinson Gilford Progeria Syndrome are two examples of the rare genetic disorders known as progeroid syndromes that cause signs of premature aging in children and young adults. Patients with progeroid syndromes have pathologies and symptoms that are often linked to aging, including osteoporosis, cataracts, heart disease, and type II diabetes.
This aging is characterized by the gradual loss of nuclear architecture and an underlying tissue-specific genetic program, but the causes are unclear. Scientists have discovered a potential new target for treating these syndromes by preventing nuclear architecture loss.
