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Soaring global need for cooling by 2050 could see world energy consumption for cooling increase five times as the number of cooling appliances quadruples to 14 billion—according to a new report by the University of Birmingham, UK.

This new sets out to provide, for the first time, an indication of the scale of the implications of ‘Cooling for All’.

Effective is essential to preserve food and medicine. It underpins industry and economic growth, is key to sustainable urbanisation as well as providing a ladder out of rural poverty. With significant areas of the world projected to experience temperature rises that place them beyond those which humans can survive, cooling will increasingly make much of the world bearable—or even safe—to live in. With populations increasing, expanding urbanisation and impacts leading to more frequent heatwaves and temperature rises, the demand for more cooling will increase in the decades ahead.

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Researchers isolated several mutations leading to melanoma and reproduced them in the lab using CRISPR.


Two papers authored by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco described the genetic changes that turn harmless moles into malignant melanomas and the experiment they devised to recreate the step-by-step evolution of normal skin cells into cancer cells [1], [2].

Summary ([1])

We elucidated genomic and transcriptomic changes that accompany the evolution of melanoma from pre-malignant lesions by sequencing DNA and RNA from primary melanomas and their adjacent precursors, as well as matched primary tumors and regional metastases. In total, we analyzed 230 histopathologically distinct areas of melanocytic neoplasia from 82 patients. Somatic alterations sequentially induced mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway activation, upregulation of telomerase, modulation of the chromatin landscape, G1/S checkpoint override, ramp-up of MAPK signaling, disruption of the p53 pathway, and activation of the PI3K pathway; no mutations were specifically associated with metastatic progression, as these pathways were perturbed during the evolution of primary melanomas. UV radiation-induced point mutations steadily increased until melanoma invasion, at which point copy-number alterations also became prevalent.

We wanted to draw your attention to a new publication by James Kirkland and his team. Kirkland is one of the pioneers of senolytics, as he demonstrated that a combination of compounds could remove senescent cells and improve healthspan in mice back in 2015 [1].

The contribution of senescent cells to aging has been the subject of intense research in the last year or two, as researchers have focused on ways to remove these problem cells using therapies known as senolytics.

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Do you want to join in the fight to end age-related disease?


Request for Proposals (RFP)

In cooperation with the Forever Healthy Foundation, SENS Research Foundation (SRF) is inviting candidates to submit research proposals for a Fellowship in Rejuvenation Biotechnology that would be undertaken at our Research Center (RC) in Mountain View, California.

SRF pursues the development of therapies to prevent and reverse age-related disease and disability through a “damage-repair” paradigm: developing interventions that maintain and restore the structural and functional integrity of tissues by directly removing, repairing, replacing, or rendering harmless the cellular and molecular damage of aging. Applications are requested that promise progress in regenerative medicine for the prevention and reversal of age-related disease.

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Researchers used magnetically driven microrobots to carry cells to predetermined spots within living zebrafish and mice, they report in Science Robotics today (June 27). The authors propose using these hair-width gadgets as delivery vehicles in regenerative medicine and cell therapy.

The scientists used a computer model to work out the ideal dimensions for a microrobot; spiky, porous, spherical ones were deemed best for transporting living cells. They printed the devices using a 3D laser printer and coated the bots with nickel and titanium to make them magnetic and biocompatible, respectively. An external magnetic field applied to the animal then leads the microrobots.

To begin with, the research team tested the ability for the robots to transport cells through cell cultures, blood vessel–like microfluidic chips, and in vivo in zebrafish. Further, they used these microrobots to induce cancer at a specific location within mice by ferrying tumor cells to the spot. The team observed fluorescence at the target site as the labeled cancer cells proliferated.

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With millions of cameras and billions of lines of code, China is building a high-tech authoritarian future. Beijing is embracing technologies like facial recognition and artificial intelligence to identify and track 1.4 billion people. It wants to assemble a vast and unprecedented national surveillance system, with crucial help from its thriving technology industry.


Beijing is putting billions of dollars behind facial recognition and other technologies to track and control its citizens.

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Today marks not one but two milestones in planetary exploration. It is the 25th anniversary of Voyager 2’s flight past Neptune, the most distant planet ever seen up close. It is also the exact day that the New Horizons spacecraft is crossing Neptune’s orbit on its way to Pluto, the mysterious world that marks the boundary between the solar system we know and the one we don’t.

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