Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 2717

Microglial cells are the maintenance workers of the central nervous system (CNS), protecting against pathogens and pruning damaged neurons to help the brain maintain homeostasis. Considered immune cells, microglia work to protect the brain from before it is fully formed through its lifetime, but they aren’t infallible. The cells can be primed early on to respond in certain ways, making the microglia’s clean-up efforts less efficient. As other cells age, they can complicate microglial function, making them less effective.

But the underlying mechanism of how age and how their aging directly affects the brain is poorly understood—meaning that attempts to prevent or treat brain dysfunction may not be as effective as they could be, according to a multi-institutional collaboration led by Bo Peng and Yanxia Rao, both professors at Fudan University.

The team investigated how microglial cells change as they age in both male and female mice across their lifespans, finding what the researchers called “unexpected sex differences.” They also established a model to study aged microglial cells in a non-aged brain, revealing that aged-like contribute to even in young mice. The researchers published their findings in Nature Aging.

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A “rule of trees” developed by Leonardo da Vinci to describe how to draw trees has been largely adopted by science when modeling trees and how they function.

Now, scientists at Bangor University in the U.K. and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) have discovered that this rule contradicts those that regulate the internal structures of .

Da Vinci’s interest in drawing led him to look at size ratios of different objects, including trees, so that he could create more accurate representations of them. To correctly represent trees, he perceived a so-called “rule of trees” which states that “all the branches of a tree at every stage of its height are equal in thickness to the trunk when put together.”

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A study in the journal Cell sheds new light on the evolution of neurons, focusing on the placozoans, a millimeter-sized marine animal. Researchers at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona find evidence that specialized secretory cells found in these unique and ancient creatures may have given rise to neurons in more complex animals.

Placozoans are tiny animals, around the size of a large grain of sand, which graze on algae and microbes living on the surface of rocks and other substrates found in shallow, warm seas. The blob-like and pancake-shaped creatures are so simple that they live without any body parts or organs.

These animals, thought to have first appeared on Earth around 800 million years ago, are one of the five main lineages of animals alongside Ctenophora (), Porifera (sponges), Cnidaria (corals, sea anemones and jellyfish) and Bilateria (all other animals).

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The intricate interplay of gene expression within living cells is akin to a well-orchestrated symphony, with each gene playing its part in perfect harmony to ensure cells function as they should. At the heart of this symphony are transcription factors (TFs), molecular maestros that regulate the expression of genes by binding to specific DNA sequences known as promoters.

Unlocking the secrets of these genome-scale requires a comprehensive collection of gene expression profiles, but measuring gene expression responses for every TF and pair has posed a formidable challenge due to the sheer number of potential combinations, even in relatively simple organisms such as bacteria.

To tackle this challenge, researchers led by Fuzhong Zhang, professor of energy, environmental & chemical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, developed a technique called pooled promoter responses to TF perturbation sequencing (PPTP-seq).

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Fluorescence exclusively occurs from the lowest excited state of a given multiplicity according to Kasha’s rule. However, this rule is not obeyed by a handful of anti-Kasha fluorophores whose underlying mechanism is still understood merely on a phenomenological basis. This lack of understanding prevents the rational design and property-tuning of anti-Kasha fluorophores. Here, we propose a model explaining the photophysical properties of an archetypal anti-Kasha fluorophore, azulene, based on its ground-and excited-state (anti)aromaticity. We derived our model from a detailed analysis of the electronic structure of the ground singlet, first excited triplet, and quintet states and of the first and second excited singlet states using the perturbational molecular orbital theory and quantum-chemical aromaticity indices.

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Automation Anywhere, the leader in intelligent automation, announced a historic expansion of its Automation Success Platform, enabling enterprises to accelerate their transformation journeys and put AI to work securely throughout their organizations. Automation Anywhere’s new tools and enhancements deliver AI-powered automation across every team, system and process. During Imagine 2023, the company unveiled a new Responsible AI Layer, and announced four key product updates including the brand-new Autopilot, which enables the rapid development of end-to-end automations from Process Discovery, using the power of generative AI. The company also announced new, expanded features in Automation Co-Pilot for Business Users, Automation Co-Pilot for Automators, and Document Automation.

“The combination of generative AI and intelligent automation represents the most transformational technology shift of our generation,” said Mihir Shukla, CEO and Co-Founder, Automation Anywhere. “Every company, every team, every individual will be able to re-imagine their system of work and automate the processes that hold them back. Great people, empowered with AI and intelligent automation will be absolutely transformative to their organizations as they increase their productivity, creativity and accelerate the business.”

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