Lifeboat Foundation

It’s time to stop doubting quantum information technology.

Are we there yet? No. Not by a long shot. But the progress on a number of key challenges, the sheer number of organizations fighting to succeed (and make a buck), the no-turning-back public investment, and nasty international rivalry are all good guarantors.

It feels like quantum computing is turning an important corner, maybe not the corner leading to the home stretch, but likely the corner beyond the turning back point. We now have quantum computers able to perform tasks beyond the reach of classical systems. Google’s latest break-through benchmark demonstrated that. These aren’t error corrected machines yet, but progress in error correction is one of 2024’s highlights.

From deciphering burnt Roman scrolls to reading crumbling cuneiform tablets, neural networks could give researchers more data than they’ve had in centuries.

Last video: The 2025 Boring Company Update Is Here!

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Continue reading “How Neuralink Will Break Reality” »

Sensitive cells: Scientists discovered dozens of specific cell types, mostly glial cells, known as brain support cells, that underwent significant gene expression changes with age. Those strongly affected included microglia and border-associated macrophages, oligodendrocytes, tanycytes, and ependymal cells.

Inflammation and neuron protection: In aging brains, genes associated with inflammation increased in activity while those related to neuronal structure and function decreased.

Aging hot spot: Scientists discovered a specific hot spot combining both the decrease in neuronal function and the increase in inflammation in the hypothalamus. The most significant gene expression changes were found in cell types near the third ventricle of the hypothalamus, including tanycytes, ependymal cells, and neurons known for their role in food intake, energy homeostasis, metabolism, and how our bodies use nutrients. This points to a possible connection between diet, lifestyle factors, brain aging, and changes that can influence our susceptibility to age-related brain disorders.

Continue reading “Brain-wide cell-type-specific transcriptomic signatures of healthy ageing in mice” »

Scientists at the Allen Institute have identified specific cell types in the brain of mice that undergo major changes as they age, along with a specific hot spot where many of those changes occur. The discoveries, published in the journal Nature, could pave the way for future therapies to slow or manage the aging process in the brain.

The scientists discovered dozens of specific cell types, mostly glial cells, known as brain support cells, that underwent significant gene expression changes with age. Those strongly affected included microglia and border-associated macrophages, oligodendrocytes, tanycytes, and ependymal cells.

They found that in aging brains, genes associated with inflammation increased in activity while those related to neuronal structure and function decreased.

We termed enhancers that gained (and maintained) H3K4me1 in obesity and WL ‘new enhancers’. Most of these ‘new enhancers’ were also active (that is, marked by H3K27ac) during obesity and/or WL (Fig. 4D). We then annotated the enhancers to their closest gene and performed a GSEA. In agreement with the promoter GSEA above, we found that the ‘new active enhancers’ were related to inflammatory signalling, lysosome activity and extracellular matrix remodelling (Fig. 4e and Extended Data Fig. 9i), indicating a persistent shift of adipocytes towards a more inflammatory and less adipogenic identity. Corroborating these results, Roh et al. had analysed H3K27ac in adipocytes of obese mice and reported impaired identity maintenance during obesity²⁵.

To combine our findings regarding retained translational changes and epigenetic memory, we investigated whether epigenetic mechanisms, such as differentially marked promoters or enhancers, could explain the persistent translational obesity-associated changes after WL. Notably, 57–62% of downregulated and 68–75% of upregulated persistent translational DEGs after WL could be accounted for by one or more of the analysed epigenetic modalities (Fig. 4f). Overall, these results strongly suggest the presence of stable cellular, epigenetic and transcriptional memory in mouse adipocytes that persists after WL.

Ebola is a deadly hemorrhagic disease caused by a virus that is endemic in parts of East-Central and West Africa. Most people are aware that a primary route for person-to-person transmission is through contact with bodily fluids from an infected person. But more recent outbreaks, including the 2013–2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, demonstrated that infectious Ebola virus (EBOV) is also found on the skin’s surface of those who have succumbed to infection or at late times during infection.

Although evidence suggests that EBOV can be passed on from skin contact with a person in the later stages of the disease, very little is known about how the virus makes its way out of the body and onto the skin’s surface.

Researchers at University of Iowa Health Care and colleagues at Texas Biomedical Research Institute and Boston University have traced a cellular route the virus uses to traverse the inner and outer layers of skin and emerge onto the skin’s surface.

Engineers and doctors at Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University have achieved significant advances in training robotic surgeons to have similar skill levels to human doctors.

Researchers have developed a method to direct stem cells to form specific structures. By triggering the expression of specific genes in mouse embryonic stem cells, synthetic organizer cells were created, which can assemble in specific ways and carry out various phsyiological functions. This work is an important step on the road to eventually using synthetic cells to repair damaged tissues or regenerate organs. The research has been reported in Cell.

The researchers created synthetic organizer cells that could generate a structure like a mouse body, from head to tail, that underwent processes that were similar to those in mouse embryonic development. Another type of synthetic organizer cell was used to produce a structure that was similar to a heart, and featured a central chamber. This synthetic, heart-like structure also had a network of blood vessels and beat regularly.