Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 15

Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.

Log in for authorized contributors

Mimicking the benefits of exercise with a single molecule

Capital Medical University, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, reports that betaine, a molecule produced in the kidney and enhanced through sustained exercise, operates as a potent inhibitor of inflammatory and aging-related pathways.

Regular physical activity boosts health across cardiovascular, metabolic, and neurological systems. Scientists have traced improvements in , , clearing of senescent cells and to consistent physical activity. Earlier animal studies suggested that long-term exercise can delay aging processes and reduce vulnerability to chronic disease.

Precise molecular explanations for how sustained exercise reshapes human biology remain incomplete. Many investigations have focused on single biomarkers or isolated tissues, leaving a need for systematic maps that can connect exercise to measurable physiological benefits. Specific factors capable of mimicking exercise’s protective effects without requiring continuous physical exertion have remained unclear.

Blood stem cell mutations linked to lower risk of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease

A study published in Cell Stem Cell reveals that some mutations in blood stem cells might help protect against late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

A team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine discovered that both a mouse model and people carrying blood stem cells with mutations in the gene TET2, but not in the gene DNMT3A, had a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Their study proposes a mechanism that can protect against the disease and opens new avenues for potential strategies to control the emergence and progression of this devastating condition.

“Our lab has long been studying blood stem cells, also called ,” said lead author Dr. Katherine King, professor of pediatrics— and a member of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy and the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor. She is also part of Texas Children’s Hospital.

Wearable X-ray-detecting fabric offers a flexible alternative to current imaging tech

Since their discovery by Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895, X-rays have become a staple of modern medical care, from imaging teeth and broken bones to screening for the early signs of breast cancer.

The most common type of X-ray detector used in medical imaging today utilizes materials known as scintillators, which are made of inorganic and rigid compounds. This inherent lack of flexibility limits their applications and often requires patients to contort their bodies to accommodate unyielding medical equipment.

This rigidity has created a demand among researchers and the for scintillating materials that are robust, efficient, and flexible. Past attempts to meet this demand, however, have had to sacrifice durability and efficiency for flexibility. An innovative fabric made of flexible inorganic fibers shows remarkable promise and may meet all three requirements.

Surprising discovery shows a strong link between Earth’s magnetic field and atmospheric oxygen levels

Every breath we take in contains 21% oxygen, the gas that makes life on Earth possible. Oxygen, in its combined oxide state, has always been abundant in Earth’s crust, but elemental diatomic oxygen became part of our atmosphere around 2.4 to 2.5 billion years ago as a gift from cyanobacteria, which triggered the Great Oxidation Event and breathed life into Earth.

A joint venture between NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Leeds discovered that the Earth’s magnetic field strength and atmospheric oxygen levels over the past 540 years have seemed to spike and dip at the same time, showing a strong, statistically significant correlation between the two.

This correlation could arise from unexpected connections between geophysical processes in Earth’s deep interior, redox reactions on Earth’s surface, and biogeochemical cycling.

Google just bought 200 megawatts of fusion energy that doesn’t even exist yet

Tech giant Google is investing money into a futuristic nuclear fusion plant that hasn’t been built yet but someday will replicate the energy of the stars. It’s a sign of how hungry big tech companies are for a virtually unlimited source of clean power that is still years away.

Google and Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced a deal Monday in which the tech company bought 200 megawatts of power from Commonwealth’s first commercial fusion plant, the same amount of energy that could power roughly 200,000 average American homes.

Commonwealth aims to build the plant in Virginia by the early 2030s. When it starts generating usable fusion energy is still TBD, though the company believes they can do it in the same timeframe.

Will AI need a body to come close to human-like intelligence?

The first robot I remember is Rosie from The Jetsons, soon followed by the urbane C-3PO and his faithful sidekick R2-D2 in The Empire Strikes Back. But my first disembodied AI was Joshua, the computer in WarGames who tried to start a nuclear war – until it learned about mutually assured destruction and chose to play chess instead.

At age seven, this changed me. Could a machine understand ethics? Emotion? Humanity? Did artificial intelligence need a body? These fascinations deepened as the complexity of non-human intelligence did with characters like the android Bishop in Aliens, Data in Star Trek: TNG, and more recently with Samantha in Her, or Ava in Ex Machina.

But these aren’t just speculative questions anymore. Roboticists today are wrestling with the question of whether artificial intelligence needs a body? And if so, what kind?

Terahertz instead of gigahertz — quantum material speeds up transistor switching by 1000 times

Researchers from Northeastern University in the United States have found a way to speed up electronics by a thousand times by replacement of silicon chips on quantum materials.

It is noted, that the new technology, through controlled heating and cooling, allows the quantum material to switch between the state of a conductor and an insulating material almost instantly. According to the researchers, such materials can replace silicon and lead to the emergence of electronic devices that are much faster and smaller.

«Processors currently operate in gigahertz. The speed of change that this will provide will allow you to move to terahertz», — explains the lead author of the study, professor of physics Alberto de la Torre.