Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 2012

A team of researchers from the URV and the RMIT University (Australia) has designed and manufactured a surface that uses mechanical means to mitigate the infectious potential of viruses. Made of silicon, the artificial surface consists of a series of tiny spikes that damage the structure of viruses when they come into contact with it. The work is published in the journal ACS Nano.

The research has revealed how these processes work and that they are 96% effective. Using this technology in environments in which there is potentially dangerous biological material would make laboratories easier to control and safer for the professionals who work there.

Spike the viruses to kill them. This seemingly unsophisticated concept requires considerable technical expertise and has one great advantage: a high virucidal potential that does not require the use of chemicals. The process of making the virucidal surfaces starts with a smooth metal plate, which is bombarded with ions to strategically remove material.

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Researchers at ETH Zurich have recently developed artificial muscles for robot motion. Their solution offers several advantages over previous technologies: It can be used wherever robots need to be soft rather than rigid or where they need more sensitivity when interacting with their environment.

Many roboticists dream of building robots that are not just a combination of metal or other hard materials and motors but also softer and more adaptable.

Soft robots could interact with their environment in a completely different way; for example, they could cushion impacts the way human limbs do, or grasp an object delicately. This would also offer benefits regarding ; robot motion today usually requires a lot of energy to maintain a position, whereas soft systems could store energy well, too. So, what could be more obvious than to take the human muscle as a model and attempt to recreate it?

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As artificial intelligence technologies such as Chat-GPT are utilized in various industries, the role of high-performance semiconductor devices for processing large amounts of information is becoming increasingly important. Among them, spin memory is attracting attention as a next-generation electronics technology because it is suitable for processing large amounts of information with lower power than silicon semiconductors that are currently mass-produced.

Utilizing recently discovered in spin memory is expected to dramatically improve performance by improving signal ratio and reducing power, but to achieve this, it is necessary to develop technologies to control the properties of quantum materials through electrical methods such as current and voltage.

Dr. Jun Woo Choi of the Center for Spintroncs Research at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and Professor Se-Young Park of the Department of Physics at Soongsil University have announced the results of a collaborative study showing that ultra-low-power memory can be fabricated from quantum materials. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

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Researchers at the University of Toronto have used an artificial intelligence framework to redesign a crucial protein involved in the delivery of gene therapy.

The study, published in Nature Machine Intelligence, describes new work optimizing proteins to mitigate immune responses, thereby improving the efficacy of gene therapy and reducing side effects.

“Gene therapy holds immense promise, but the body’s pre-existing to viral vectors greatly hampers its success. Our research zeroes in on hexons, a fundamental protein in adenovirus vectors, which—but for the immune problem—hold huge potential for gene therapy,” says Michael Garton, an assistant professor at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

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This is interesting. Who knew brain drain would be helpful? Haha it’s a different context but it’s medicinal in this sense. Amazing discovery!

Estimated read time: 2–3 minutes.

SALT LAKE CITY — Add this to the list of potential targets to treat Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative disorders: Researchers in South Korea have discovered a network of lymphatic vessels at the back of the nose that help drain cerebral spinal fluid from the brain.

According to Neuroscience News, the “groundbreaking” study, published in the journal Nature, reveals a previously unknown outflow path for the fluid, which could have implications for targeting neurodegenerative ills like Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

Continue reading “Brain drain: How nasal and lymphatic drainage discovery could help end Alzheimer’s” | >

We are witnessing a professional revolution where the boundaries between man and machine slowly fade away, giving rise to innovative collaboration.

Photo by Mateusz Kitka (Pexels)

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to advance by leaps and bounds, it’s impossible to overlook the profound transformations that this technological revolution is imprinting on the professions of the future. A paradigm shift is underway, redefining not only the nature of work but also how we conceptualize collaboration between humans and machines.

Continue reading “The Professions of the Future (1)” | >

While NASA is well-known for advancing various technologies for the purposes of space exploration, whether it’s sending spacecraft to another world or for use onboard the International Space Station (ISS), the little-known fact is that these same technologies can be licensed for commercial use to benefit humankind right here on the Earth through NASA’s Spinoff program, which is part of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and its Technology Transfer program. This includes fields like communication, medical, weather forecasting, and even the very mattresses we sleep on, and are all featured in NASA’s annual Spinoff book, with NASA’s 2024 Spinoff book being the latest in sharing these technologies with the private sector.

“As NASA’s longest continuously running program, we continue to increase the number of technologies we license year-over-year while streamlining the development path from the government to the commercial sector,” Daniel Lockney, Technology Transfer Program Executive at NASA Headquarters, said in a statement. “These commercialization success stories continually prove the benefits of transitioning agency technologies into private hands, where the real impacts are made.”

One example is a medical-grade smartwatch called EmbracePlus developed by Empatica Inc., which uses machine learning algorithms to monitor a person’s vitals, including sleep patterns, heart rate, and oxygen flow. EmbracePlus reached mass production status in 2021 and has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the goal of using the smartwatch for astronauts on future spaceflights, including the upcoming Artemis missions, along with medical patients back on Earth.

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Steve P. Miller, PhD, has spent much of his career figuring out how to shut off autoimmune responses when he observed dying cells acting as carriers of autoantigens that could modulate the immune system. More than 20 years ago, while a professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, Miller discovered that dendritic cells (DCs), a subtype of antigen-presenting cells (APCs), could be changed or turned off to send the right signals to make immunologically tolerant T cells, also known as “tolerogenic.”

Miller’s attention turned toward investigating how best to mimic the apoptotic cells, overriding the expression of dendritic cells. So, Miller partnered with polymer chemist Lonnie D. Shea, PhD, who was at the McCormick School of Engineering, to develop a nanoparticle that interacts effectively with dendritic cells.

In 2013, Miller and Shea helped launch a company spun out of Northwestern University, when Shea was still in Chicago, called Cour Pharmaceutical Development Company, to develop innovative nanobiological therapeutics for acute inflammation, autoimmune, and allergic conditions. After years of experimentation, they developed a formula for nanoparticles of the right size and charge that interact well with the immune system, which is the foundation for their proprietary antigen-specific immune tolerance platform.

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Google’s Bard chatbot is powered by a new Gemini model. Early users rate it as similar to GPT-4.

Google’s head of AI, Jeff Dean, announced the new Gemini model on X. It is a model from the Gemini Pro family with the suffix “scale”

Thanks to the Gemini updates, Bard is “much better” and has “many more capabilities” compared to the launch in March, according to Dean.

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Whether or not you can work during a stem cell transplant may depend on the type of job you have. The process of a stem cell transplant, with the high-dose treatments, the transplant, and recovery, can take many months. You will be in and out of the hospital during this time. Even when you are not in the hospital, sometimes you will need to stay near it, rather than staying in your own home.

You will be more tired and your ability to concentrate on work may be affected. You will be visiting the hospital two or three times a week after discharge. You may need to spend a few hours in the hospital for blood or platelet transfusions or replacing minerals in your body.

So, if your job allows, you may want to arrange to work remotely part-time. Many employers are required by law to change your work schedule to meet your needs during cancer treatment. Talk with your employer about ways to adjust your work during treatment. You can learn more about these laws by talking with a social worker.

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