Menu

Blog

Page 1009

Jan 5, 2024

Levels of Specific Blood Proteins Indicate Pace of Aging in Humans and in Their Organs

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience

Several techniques currently are used to determine the pace of aging in animals and, to a lesser degree, in humans. However, the techniques used in humans lack accuracy, don’t assess aging in specific organs, are not widely available, and are expensive.

A multi-institutional research team measured the levels of nearly 5,000 human proteins in 5,676 people of all ages who were followed for as long as 15 years in five prospective longitudinal cohorts. Each measured protein was associated with specific organs, based on previous studies: adipose tissue, artery, brain, heart, immune tissue, intestine, kidney, liver, lung, muscle, or pancreas. Combinations of proteins indicated the pace of aging in each organ. Accelerated aging of one organ was found in nearly 20% of people, and accelerated aging of multiple organs was noted in ≈2%. Accelerated aging in a specific organ correlated with risk for developing disease in that organ. For example, people with accelerated heart aging (vs. those without it) had 250% higher risk for developing heart failure, and people with accelerated brain and vascular aging had nearly 60% higher risk for developing Alzheimer disease.

Various tools — from sequencing a person’s genome to measuring gene expression (e.g., the “methylome”) — are becoming available to predict a person’s risk for developing particular diseases. Will these predictions lead to interventions that lower risk? The jury is still out on that question.

Jan 5, 2024

World’s first partial heart transplant grows valves and arteries

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

A study done by Duke Health saw the procedure resulting in functioning valves and arteries that grow along with the young patient.

Jan 5, 2024

Kidney Stones

Posted by in category: materials

A kidney stone is a solid piece of material that can form in one or both of your kidneys when high levels of certain minerals are in your urine. There are several different types of kidney stones with different causes and symptoms.

Jan 5, 2024

A method to straighten curved space-time

Posted by in categories: cosmology, mathematics, particle physics, quantum physics

One of the greatest challenges of modern physics is to find a coherent method for describing phenomena, on the cosmic and microscale. For over a hundred years, to describe reality on a cosmic scale we have been using general relativity theory, which has successfully undergone repeated attempts at falsification.

Albert Einstein curved space-time to describe gravity, and despite still-open questions about or , it seems, today, to be the best method of analyzing the past and future of the universe.

To describe phenomena on the scale of atoms, we use the second great theory: , which differs from general relativity in basically everything. It uses flat space-time and a completely different mathematical apparatus, and most importantly, perceives reality radically differently.

Jan 5, 2024

Building A Sustainable Future for Concrete with Concretene

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability, transportation

Unless it is augmented with graphene, watching concrete dry might not be the most thrilling activity. Graphene was initially isolated in 2004 by scientists at The University of Manchester and has become iconic in materials research, with applications ranging from energy storage and water filtering to transportation and construction, including concrete.

A new future for cement is being facilitated by graphene. Soon, everyone will have the option to select the color, texture, and features that they want very soon. More significantly, though, and even more so than its practicality and beauty, the increasing global sustainability movement is rekindling interest in the possibilities of concrete enriched with graphene.

The building sector is confronted with a plethora of obstacles in light of Net Zero aims, and a viable path toward progress could be through the extensive integration of cutting-edge materials. Cement production accounts for 8–10% of worldwide CO2 emissions, making it one of the industries with the largest carbon footprints.

Jan 5, 2024

Psychedelic drug ibogaine shows preliminary promise for traumatic brain injury: Study

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

In a small group of veterans diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury, treatment with a psychedelic drug, ibogaine was associated with improvements in daily function and mental health symptoms, a new study out of Stanford found.

“This could be one of the first treatments for traumatic brain injury,” said Dr. Nolan Williams, associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford, and principal study investigator. “I think it’s a moment of hope for veterans and folks with permanent neurological injury.”

The Federal Drug Administration classifies ibogaine as a Schedule I drug, citing “high abuse potential” and “no accepted medical use.” To receive the one-time dose, 30 Special Ops veterans traveled to a treatment site in Mexico where ibogaine use is unregulated.

Jan 5, 2024

The AI–quantum computing mash-up: will it revolutionize science?

Posted by in categories: quantum physics, robotics/AI, science

Scientists are exploring the potential of quantum machine learning. But whether there are useful applications for the fusion of artificial intelligence and quantum computing is unclear.

Jan 5, 2024

Inhalable nanosensors could enable early lung cancer detection

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, nanotechnology

Using a new technology developed at MIT, diagnosing lung cancer could become as easy as inhaling nanoparticle sensors and then taking a urine test that reveals whether a tumor is present.

  • This non-invasive approach may serve as an alternative or supplement to traditional CT scans, particularly beneficial in areas with limited access to advanced medical equipment.
  • The technology focuses on detecting cancer-linked proteins in the lungs, with results obtainable through a simple paper test strip.
  • Jan 5, 2024

    V-Space Unveils V Speeder-X: An Efficient and Affordable Urban Air Mobility

    Posted by in categories: drones, space travel, sustainability

    V-Space (official site) is a startup that built Korea’s first UAM (Urban Air Transportation) destined to transport people or payloads of up to 120 Kg with their eVTOL all-electric vehicle. As its name indicates, it is a Vertical Take Off and Landing vehicle using a quad-copter design. It has a seat for one person and looks like a drone-like small helicopter.

    EVTOL can fly over a 40-mile distance at a maximum speed of 60 Mph, a little bit below most U.S highway’s speed limits. Of course, the main advantage here is the lack of traffic jams, especially in an emergency.

    However, the company has a hot new design called V Speeder-X, which looks a lot more modern and aerodynamic. The payload capacity is 230 Kg, but the speed has increased to 50 Mph as one of the use cases is to use the drone as an ambulance. Note that the flight time is relatively short, with about ~20 minutes.

    Jan 5, 2024

    NVIDIA RTX 5090 Specs: Over 24000 Cores, 32Gbps GDDR7 Memory, and 1536 GB/s Bandwidth

    Posted by in category: futurism

    The GeForce RTX 5,090 will be NVIDIA’s next gaming flagship, doubling down on memory, cache, and cores. Multiple sources have shared their findings on the Blackwell top gun, which we’ll discuss in this post. RedGamingTech claims that the RTX 5,090 will feature 204 SMs for a total of 26,112 cores. On the memory side, we’re …