Lifeboat Foundation

The last decade has brought a lot of attention to the use of microscopic robots (microrobots or nanorobots) for biomedical applications. Now, nanoengineers have developed microrobots that can swim around in the lungs and deliver medication to be used to treat bacterial pneumonia. A new study shows that the microrobots safely eliminated pneumonia-causing bacteria in the lungs of mice and resulted in 100% survival. By contrast, untreated mice all died within three days after infection.

The results are published Nature Materials in the paper, “Nanoparticle-modified microrobots for in vivo antibiotic delivery to treat acute bacterial pneumonia.”

The microrobots are made using click chemistry to attach antibiotic-loaded neutrophil membrane-coated polymeric nanoparticles to natural microalgae. The hybrid microrobots could be used for the active delivery of antibiotics in the lungs in vivo.

Germany’s most strategically important building site is at the end of a windswept pier on the North Sea coast, where workers are assembling the country’s first terminal for the import of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Starting this winter, the rig, close to the port of Wilhelmshaven, will be able to supply the equivalent of 20 percent of the gas that was until recently imported from Russia.

Since its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has throttled gas supplies to Germany, while the Nord Stream pipelines which carried huge volumes under the Baltic Sea to Europe were damaged last week in what a Danish-Swedish report called “a deliberate act.”

The beloved Hubble observatory could get the SpaceX treatment.

New scientific research suggests Mars astronauts would get a horrifying does of radiation.

How serious is it?

Continue reading “Can humans survive radiation on Mars?” »

Drink the forbidden seltzer.

Asteroid Ryugu has some dangerous seltzer for you, according to recent analysis by Japanese scientists on samples returned from JAXA’s Hayabusa2.

The underground ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus may contain significant amounts of phosphorus, which is vital for life as we know it.

Scientists have been able to direct a swarm of microscopic swimming robots to clear out pneumonia microbes in the lungs of mice, raising hopes that a similar treatment could be developed to treat deadly bacterial pneumonia in humans.

The microbots are made from algae cells and covered with a layer of antibiotic nanoparticles. The algae provide movement through the lungs, which is key to the treatment being targeted and effective.

In experiments, the infections in the mice treated with the algae bots all cleared up, whereas the mice that weren’t treated all died within three days.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft skimmed close above the surface of icy Europa Thursday (Sept. 29), capturing a view of the crust that is just the start of our new study of this ocean world.

Were you unable to attend Transform 2022? Check out all of the summit sessions in our on-demand library now! Watch here.

For decades, enterprises have jury-rigged software designed for structured data when trying to solve unstructured, text-based data problems. Although these solutions performed poorly, there was nothing else. Recently, though, machine learning (ML) has improved significantly at understanding natural language.

Continue reading “How to choose the right NLP solution” »