Lifeboat Foundation

Relief could be on the way for people with painful hand osteoarthritis after a Monash University and Alfred Health-led study found an affordable existing drug can help. Until now there has been no effective treatment.

Published in The Lancet, the paper investigated methotrexate, a low-cost, effective treatment for inflammatory joint conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis. It has been widely used in Australia and globally since the early 1980s.

Researchers found that methotrexate reduced symptoms in those with hand osteoarthritis (OA). A 20mg weekly oral dose over six months had a moderate effect in reducing pain and stiffness in patients with symptomatic hand OA.

🥼 Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain and Disease Research have shown that microRNA-132 can significantly affect different brain cells, with potential implications for Alzheimer’s disease ✔️

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Research shows that microRNA-132 can significantly affect different brain cells, with potential implications for Alzheimer’s disease. Find out more.

Continue reading “Honey, I Shrunk the Molecules” »

Beware of the new Xenomorph Android banking trojan variant.

Its Automatic Transfer System can initiate transactions, access balances, and even transfer funds – all without your knowledge.

Read:

Continue reading “Xenomorph Banking Trojan: A New Variant Targeting 35+ U.S. Financial Institutions” »

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have adapted their novel metasurface process to create an all-glass metasurface with birefringence, or dual refraction, properties. Learn how this achievement could transform waveplate technology for high-power laser systems such as the National Ignition Facility:

We support diverse research activities with talented staff, state-of-the-art facilities and core competencies. From internal collaboration to external partnerships, we work together to advance scientific discovery.

The carbonized scrolls are too delicate for human hands, but AI analysis found ‘purple’ amid the charred papyrus.

This week saw the release of a treasure trove of data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia mission, a space-based observatory that is mapping out the Milky Way in three dimensions. The newly released data includes half a million new stars and details about more than 150,000 asteroids within our solar system.

The overall aim of the Gaia mission is to create a full 3D map of our galaxy that includes not only stars, but also other objects like planets, comets, asteroids, and more. The mission was launched in 2013 and the data it collected is released in batches every few years, with previous releases including data on topics like the positions of over 1.8 billion stars.

The new data release fills in some gaps from previous releases, particularly in areas of the sky that are densely packed with stars — such as the Omega Centauri globular cluster, shown above. The new view of this cluster shows 10 times as many stars as the previous data, with a total of 526,587 new stars identified.

The research paper explores the multifaceted role of the IL-17 family in immune response, covering everything from infection control to pathological conditions like autoimmune diseases and cancer. Future therapies may exploit IL-17’s unique signaling pathways to offer more targeted and cost-effective treatments.

Tesla’s Cybertruck shows off its off-road capabilities on a notoriously tough Baja track.

Eclipses can be more than just emotionally stirring. Solar eclipses, when they happen, create waves of disturbances across electrically charged particles in the Earth’s ionosphere—a layer of the upper atmosphere that plays an important role in radio frequency communications. Here, the heated and charged ions and electrons swirl around in a soup of plasma that envelops the planet.

To understand the effect that eclipses have on this plasma, scientists from NASA are planning to shoot a series of 60-feet-tall rockets up to collect information at the source.

The ionosphere sits between 60–300 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, which is roughly 37–190 miles up. “The only way to study between 50 kilometers and 300 kilometers in situ is through rockets,” says Aroh Barjatya, director of the Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab and principal investigator on the upcoming NASA sounding rocket mission, which is called Atmospheric Perturbations around the Eclipse Path. By in situ, he means quite literally in the thick of it.