Lifeboat Foundation

The number of kids being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has risen sharply in recent decades, and a new study points to the common plastic additive bisphenol A (BPA) as a potential reason why.

BPA is used in a lot of plastics and plastic production processes, and can also be found inside food and drink cans. However, previous research has also linked it to health issues involving hormone disruption, including breast cancer and infertility.

In this new study, researchers from Rowan University and Rutgers University in the US looked at three groups of children: 66 with autism, 46 with ADHD, and 37 neurotypical kids. In particular, they analyzed the process of glucuronidation, a chemical process the body uses to clear out toxins within the blood through urine.

While the bacteria in the intestine are helpful for digesting food and fighting infections, they have long been suspected to play an essential role in triggering rheumatoid arthritis. This chronic inflammatory disorder affects the joints.

Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered a link between an abundance of specific gut bacteria and the triggering of an immune response against a person’s tissue. They also found that this happens even before the clinical symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis appear. They published their findings from the study in Science Advances.

“As we age, our gut bacteria and their byproducts change, which impacts our immune system,” says senior author Veena Taneja, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic immunologist. There is a known link between imbalances in gut bacteria, aging, and rheumatoid arthritis, but it is challenging to prove this connection in humans. “This research sheds light on the complex relationship between gut microbiota and rheumatoid arthritis.”

Spiders are incredibly hard to cultivate — let alone farm.

Spider silk, a natural polymeric fiber, breaks this rule. It is somehow both strong and tough. No surprise, then, that spider silk is a source of much study.

The problem, though, is that spiders are incredibly hard to cultivate — let alone farm. If you put them together, they will attack and kill each other until only one or a few survive. If you put 100 spiders in an enclosed space, they will go about an aggressive, arachnocidal Hunger Games. You need to give each its own space and boundaries, and a spider hotel is hard and costly. Silkworms, on the other hand, are peaceful and productive. They’ll hang around all day to make the silk that has been used in textiles for centuries. But silkworm silk is fragile. It has very limited use.

Mo Gawdat openly discusses the current rate of advancement of AI and the expected technological innovation that will follow at the Nordic Business Forum 2023 in Helsinki on September 27, 2023.

Learning points:

Continue reading “Mo Gawdat: AI Today, Tomorrow and How You Can Save Our World (Nordic Business Forum 2023)” »

#evolution.

Promptbreeder is a self-improving self-referential system for automated prompt engineering. Give it a task description and a dataset, and it will automatically come up with appropriate prompts for the task. This is achieved by an evolutionary algorithm where not only the prompts, but also the mutation-prompts are improved over time in a population-based, diversity-focused approach.

Continue reading “Promptbreeder: Self-Referential Self-Improvement Via Prompt Evolution (Paper Explained)” »

Date September 27, 2023

Researchers say they have linked shorter telomeres on white blood cells to higher dementia risk, although outside experts say there are limitations to this study.

Driving Forces Behind the Growth in UAE’s Life Sciences Industry: the latest from the Life Sciences Division of Deep Knowledge Group created by Deep Knowledge Group, Aging Analytics Agency, Deep Pharma Intelligence, NeuroTech.com, FemTech Analytics, and Deep Knowledge Analytics:

Population Aging: With the world’s population getting older, the demand for medical services is soaring. The UAE is no exception, and this demographic shift is a key driver of growth in the life sciences sector.

New Machines and Drugs: Constant innovation is driving the development of new treatments and drugs to address previously unmet health needs. This not only enhances patient care but also sparks technological… More.

Continue reading “NeuroTech Analytics” »

NASA recently succeeded at bringing to Earth a sample collected from a distant asteroid, and this week it will show off the material for the first time.