Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 2

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

Log in for authorized contributors

MIT’s “stealth” immune cells could change cancer treatment forever

Engineered “stealth” immune cells from MIT and Harvard show promise for fast, safe, and powerful cancer treatment. Scientists have created a new and more advanced form of immune-based cancer therapy using engineered cells known as CAR-NK (natural killer) cells. Like CAR-T cells, these modified immune cells can be programmed to recognize and attack cancer, but they rely on a different type of immune cell that naturally targets abnormal or infected cells.

A team from MIT and Harvard Medical School has now developed a more effective way to engineer CAR-NK cells that dramatically reduces the chance of the body’s immune system rejecting them. Immune rejection has been one of the biggest limitations of cell-based therapies, often weakening their effectiveness.

This innovation could also make it possible to produce “off-the-shelf” CAR-NK treatments that are available immediately after diagnosis, rather than waiting weeks for custom-engineered cells. Traditional CAR-NK and CAR-T manufacturing methods typically require several weeks to complete before patients can begin treatment.

Quantum simulations that once needed supercomputers now run on laptops

UB physicists have upgraded an old quantum shortcut, allowing ordinary laptops to solve problems that once needed supercomputers. A team at the University at Buffalo has made it possible to simulate complex quantum systems without needing a supercomputer. By expanding the truncated Wigner approximation, they’ve created an accessible, efficient way to model real-world quantum behavior. Their method translates dense equations into a ready-to-use format that runs on ordinary computers. It could transform how physicists explore quantum phenomena.

Picture diving deep into the quantum realm, where unimaginably small particles can exist and interact in more than a trillion possible ways at the same time.

It’s as complex as it sounds. To understand these mind-bending systems and their countless configurations, physicists usually turn to powerful supercomputers or artificial intelligence for help.

Strong evidence supports skin-to-skin contact after birth as standard care

Immediate skin-to-skin contact between newborns and their mothers offers a better start in life, improving a number of key health metrics, according to a newly-updated Cochrane review.

The , published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, found that babies who have skin-to-skin contact with their mother within the first hour of birth are more likely to see a variety of benefits, including exclusive breastfeeding, optimal body temperatures and blood sugar levels.

While possible benefits for the mother were also studied, such as effects on and timing of placental delivery, the evidence was less certain.

Examining Chronic Inflammation, Immune Metabolism, and T Cell Dysfunction in HIV Infection

Chronic Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection remains a significant challenge to global public health. Despite advances in antiretroviral therapy (ART), which has transformed HIV infection from a fatal disease into a manageable chronic condition, a definitive cure remains elusive. One of the key features of HIV infection is chronic immune activation and inflammation, which are strongly associated with, and predictive of, HIV disease progression, even in patients successfully treated with suppressive ART. Chronic inflammation is characterized by persistent inflammation, immune cell metabolic dysregulation, and cellular exhaustion and dysfunction.

Dual torque from electron spins drives magnetic domain wall displacement

A research team has taken a major step forward in the field of spintronics, a technology that uses not only the charge but also the spin of electrons to create faster, smarter, and more energy-efficient electronic devices. Their discovery could pave the way for the next generation of memory chips that combine high speed with low power consumption.

In spintronic memory, information is stored using tiny magnetic regions called . A magnetic domain with its magnetic moments pointing upward represents a “1,” while one pointing downward represents a “0.” Data can be read or written by shifting these domains with an .

The boundaries between them, known as domain walls, play a crucial role, as moving domains means moving these walls. Achieving fast and efficient domain wall motion is essential for developing advanced memories such as magnetic shift registers and three-terminal magnetic random access memories (MRAM).

Graphene partially screens van der Waals interactions depending on layer thickness, study reveals

Two-dimensional (2D) materials, which are only a few atoms thick, are known to exhibit unique electrical, mechanical and optical properties, which differ considerably from the properties of bulk materials. Some recent studies have also been probing these materials’ “transparency” to intermolecular interactions, such as van der Waals (vdW) forces—weak forces arising from fluctuating electrical charges, which prompt the attraction between molecules or surfaces.

Determining the extent to which these forces are screened by atomically thin materials could have important implications for the development of various technologies based on 2D materials.

Researchers at Peking University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Tsinghua University recently set out to shed light on whether 2D graphene systems fully transmit, partially screen or block vdW interactions.

Women better protected against early neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease, study reveals

A large international study involving nearly 700 participants reveals that women with a precursor condition to Parkinson’s disease show significantly less brain atrophy—decreased cortical thickness in the brain—than men, despite similar clinical severity. This discovery, published in the journal Nature Communications, could lead scientists to explore the role that hormones might play in treating the disease.

Isolated REM sleep behavior disorder is characterized by violent movements during sleep, where people literally “act out” their dreams. Far from being harmless, this disorder is the most reliable early warning sign of neurodegenerative diseases caused by the accumulation of a toxic protein in the brain: more than 70% of affected individuals will eventually develop Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body dementia, or, more rarely, multiple system atrophy (a disease affecting multiple body systems).

“This sleep disorder offers a unique window of opportunity to study the mechanisms of neurodegeneration before major motor or cognitive symptoms appear,” explains Shady Rahayel, professor at UdeM’s Faculty of Medicine and leader of this study.

Magnetized plasmas offer a new handle on nanomaterial design

Imagine a cloud that shines like a neon sign, but instead of raindrops, it contains countless microscopic dust grains floating in midair. This is a dusty plasma, a bizarre state of matter found both in deep space and in the laboratory.

In a new study, published this week in Physical Review E, Auburn University physicists report that even can reshape how these dusty plasmas behave—slowing down or speeding up the growth of nanoparticles suspended inside. Their experiments show that when a magnetic field nudges into spiraling paths, the entire plasma reorganizes, changing how particles charge and grow.

“Dusty plasmas are like in a vacuum box,” said Bhavesh Ramkorun, lead author of the study. “We found that by introducing magnetic fields, we could make these particles grow faster or slower, and the ended up with very different sizes and lifetimes.”

/* */