Lifeboat Foundation

Year 2023 😗

Data from patients with AMD, retinal dystrophies, and diabetic retinopathy indicate an important role of immune cells, including microglia, in the pathogenesis of these retinal diseases¹. The accumulation of drusen components provides an environment rich in chemoattractants for microglia and leads to their translocation to the subretinal space in AMD^2,4. The involvement of microglia in the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome and the promotion of proinflammatory cytokine secretion has been confirmed in in vitro and animal studies^11,12,14. In patients with retinal dystrophies like retinitis pigmentosa, it has been shown that microglia become activated in response to signals from degenerating rod photoreceptors and migrate to the outer retinal layers⁴. There, they participate in the phagocytosis of debris and dying cells and secrete proinflammatory factors. Mouse models of retinal degeneration (e.g. rd1, rd7, rd8, and rd10 models) confirm many of these conclusions^9,10,13,15, but make it clear that the role of microglia may also be homeostatic, depending on both stimuli and anatomical location within the retina^7,20. Activated microglia are observed at all the stages of human diabetic retinopathy^3,8 and also feature prominently in many animal models of the disease^44,45. Finally, accumulations of activated microglia are also seen in a variety of animal models of retinal degeneration, including light-induced retinal degeneration and models based on complement dysregulation^34,46,47.

The pathways regulating immune surveillance, cell trafficking, and neuroinflammation in the retina are not well understood. A large number of molecules and processes have been implicated, ranging from chemokines involved in chemotaxis, cytokines involved in activation, factors that regulate oxidative stress and complement activation, and immunoregulatory proteins. In such a complex biological system, the unbiased nature of a forward genetics approach is particularly valuable in identifying genes affecting these immune cell processes. Furthermore, the accumulation of subretinal microglia, visible as or correlated with the accumulation of fundus spots, can serve as a marker for retinal pathology and thus as a screen for genes essential to retinal homeostasis. Our approach here has two important advantages relative to all prior forward genetics studies of the retina: 1. We are systematically applying a semiquantitative fundus spot scale to fundus photographs, and 2. Our pipeline is the only one in which all mice screened are G3 mice that have been pre-genotyped at all mutant loci. Our unbiased identification of 6 gene-phenotype associations to retinal pathology with strong literature support using our fundus spot scale screen is proof of concept supporting the efficacy of our approach. We identified other associations that had not been reported in the literature at the time of the screening. From those, we first concentrated our efforts on the gene Lipe, partly because the fundus spot scale was the only parameter leading to its identification.

Continue reading “Forward genetic screening using fundus spot scale identifies an essential role for Lipe in murine retinal homeostasis” »

Crispr used in mice to reverse vision loss 😀.

Qin and colleagues develop a genome-editing tool characterized by the versatility of prime editors and unconstrained PAM requirement of SpRY. In vivo gene corre.

Year 2020 Immortality in eyes achieved with Nad plus 😗😁😘.

Glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration are leading causes of irreversible blindness worldwide with significant health and societal burdens. To date, no clinical cures are available and treatments target only the manageable symptoms and risk factors (but do not remediate the underlying pathology of the disease). Both diseases are neurodegenerative in their pathology of the retina and as such many of the events that trigger cell dysfunction, degeneration, and eventual loss are due to mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Here, we critically review how a decreased bioavailability of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD; a crucial metabolite in healthy and disease states) may underpin many of these aberrant mechanisms. We propose how exogenous sources of NAD may become a therapeutic standard for the treatment of these conditions.

Recovery teams participate in field rehearsals in preparation for the retrieval of the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and will return to Earth on September 24th, landing under parachute at the Utah Test and Training Range. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber.

The OSIRIS-REx team also thought a lot about conditions on the ground itself. Late summer is monsoon season in the desert, so heavy rains could saturate the silty ground. Wet-cement-like mud would make driving difficult if off-road vehicles are required to help helicopters find and transport the capsule.

“We should know by the end of monsoon season how much precipitation we’ve received and the condition of the salt flats,” said Eric Nelson, a U.S. Army meteorologist supporting the mission. “A good indicator is Bonneville Speed Week, an annual racing event in August.” Since it went off without a hitch, “we’re probably okay.”

Looking to the past has made a more sustainable future possible in the shipping industry, with the latest wind-powered vessel taking to the seas for its first voyage.

The Pyxis Ocean from the Mitsubishi Corporation has been retrofitted with two “WindWings” sails — developed by BAR Technologies and produced by Yara Marine — on the cargo ship’s deck.

Continue reading “This incredible cargo ship can traverse the oceans with its massive, 123-foot sails — and it just took its maiden voyage” »

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to complex software that performs tasks in a way similar to human brains, often by sensing and responding to a feature of their environment. This could mean learning to solve problems in unexpected ways, recognising the nuances of speech, or exhibiting some form of human-like creativity.

Just as no single quality defines human thinking, no clear line differentiates more basic computer programs from AI. It can be thought of more as an ideal than a category — using our own penchant for learning and problem solving to inspire new technology and answers to some of our biggest and most complex questions.

There are many different fields of AI, including ’robotics’, but one of the most commonly known forms is referred to as ‘machine learning’. This involves a program applying known information to new experiences and ‘learning’ how to take this historical information and its experiences into account in future actions.

At a somewhat small and unassuming airport in Maribor, Slovenia, German hydrogen propulsion startup H2FLY has quietly been building up to a major milestone in zero-emission aviation over the summer. And all the hard work has come to fruition, with the successful completion of the world’s first crewed liquid hydrogen-powered flights.

Before any aviation history enthusiast out there goes “but what about the Tupolev Tu-155?” — yes, the Soviets did try out liquid hydrogen as fuel 35 years ago, but only for one of the three engines. In contrast, H2FLY’s HY4 has now operated using only liquid hydrogen (as opposed to the gaseous kind) as fuel, relying solely on the hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain for the entire flight.

At a glance, Gemini’s ability to generate text and images gives it a serious advantage over GPT4 with respect to the range of content that it can produce.

However, perhaps the most threatening differentiator between the two is Google’s vast array of proprietary training data. Google Gemini can process data taken across services, including Google Search, YouTube, Google Books, and Google Scholar.

The use of this proprietary data in training the Gemini models could result in a distinct edge in the sophistication of the insights and inferences that it can take from a data set. This is particularly true if early reports that Gemini is trained on twice as many tokens as GPT4 are correct.

Continue reading “Google’s Gemini AI is a Serious Threat to ChatGPT — Here’s Why” »

If you would like to harness the power of artificial intelligence to aid you in the creation of your next song or music video. You might be interested in a new video created by AI enthusiast Matt Wolfe. Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a game-changer a wide variety of different sectors including AI art generation, writing and more. As well as offering innovative tools that can assist in creating songs and music videos.

This AI music writing overview guide provides an in-depth look into how some of these AI tools can be utilized to create a new songs and accompanying music videos, a process that is not only fascinating but also accessible to anyone with an interest in music and technology.