Lifeboat Foundation

Working with mouse and human tissue, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report new evidence that a protein pumped out of some—but not all—populations of “helper” cells in the brain, called astrocytes, plays a specific role in directing the formation of connections among neurons needed for learning and forming new memories.

Using mice genetically engineered and bred with fewer such connections, the researchers conducted proof-of-concept experiments that show they could deliver corrective proteins via nanoparticles to replace the missing protein needed for “road repairs” on the defective neural highway.

Since such connective networks are lost or damaged by neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or certain types of intellectual disability, such as Norrie disease, the researchers say their findings advance efforts to regrow and repair the networks and potentially restore normal brain function.

In 2017, Facebook announced that it wanted to create a headband that would let people type at a speed of 100 words per minute, just by thinking.

Now, a little over two years later, the social media giant is revealing that it has been financing extensive university research on human volunteers.

Today, some of that research was described in a scientific paper from the University of California, San Francisco, where researchers have been developing “speech decoders” able to determine what people are trying to say from their brain signals.

In about 100 years, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku believes we’ll explore the universe as pure consciousness — traveling at the speed of light, looking at asteroids, comets, meteors, and eventually the stars. “All of this within the laws of physics,” he says.

Researchers from the Beijing Institute of Brain Disorders have discovered a new method of using exosomes to deliver aptamers that prevent the accumulation of α-synuclein aggregates, which are the cause of Parkinson’s disease [1].

α-Synuclein Aggregates

Like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease is characterized by protein aggregation caused by a loss of proteostasis, one of the hallmarks of aging. In order for the brain to function properly, non-aggregated α-synuclein proteins are needed in order to facilitate the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, in nerve cell synapses. α-synuclein only becomes a problem when proteostasis fails and the proteins misfold, aggregate, and accumulate.

Scientists at work in laboratory. Photo: Public domain via Wikicommons.

CTech – When chemistry Nobel laureate Michael Levitt met his wife two years ago, he didn’t know it would lead to a wonderful friendship with a young Israeli scientist. When Israeli scientist Shahar Barbash decided to found a startup with the aim of cutting down the time needed to develop new medicine, he didn’t know that a friend’s wedding would help him score a meeting with a man many want to meet but few do. But Levitt’s wife is an old friend of Barbash’s parents, and the rest, as they say, is history.

One of the joys of being an old scientist is to encourage extraordinary young ones, Levitt, an American-British-Israeli biophysicist and a professor at Stanford University since 1987, said in a recent interview with Calcalist. He might have met Barbash because his wife knew his family, but that is not enough to make him go into business with someone, Levitt said. “I got on board because his vision excited me, even though I thought it would be very hard to realize.”

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Want to live a healthier, longer life? Try taking more prebiotics — also, don’t eat sometimes.

In this video, bestselling author Dave Asprey explains.

Is this new law anti-kemetic and anti-pagan as it implies only one “God”? And why should atheists put up with this public brainwashing? A new state law that took effect this month requires all public schools in the state’s 149 districts to paint, stencil or otherwise prominently display the national motto.

RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP)- When students return to public schools across South Dakota this fall, they should expect to see a new message on display: “In God We Trust.”

A new state law that took effect this month requires all public schools in the state’s 149 districts to paint, stencil or otherwise prominently display the national motto.

Continue reading “‘In God We Trust’ signs going up in South Dakota public schools” »

Patients are about to be enrolled in the first study to test a gene-editing technique known as CRISPR inside the body to try to cure an inherited form of blindness.

People with the disease have normal eyes but lack a gene that converts light into signals to the brain that enable sight.

The experimental treatment aims to supply kids and adults with a healthy version of the gene they lack, using a tool that cuts or “edits” DNA in a specific spot. It’s intended as a onetime treatment that permanently alters the person’s native DNA.