Lifeboat Foundation

When something goes wrong in mitochondria, the tiny organelles that power cells, it can cause a bewildering variety of symptoms such as poor growth, fatigue and weakness, seizures, developmental and cognitive disabilities, and vision problems. The culprit could be a defect in any of the 1,300 or so proteins that make up mitochondria, but scientists have very little idea what many of those proteins do, making it difficult to identify the faulty protein and treat the condition.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Wisconsin–Madison systematically analyzed dozens of mitochondrial proteins of unknown function and suggested functions for many of them. Using these data as a starting point, they identified the genetic causes of three mitochondrial diseases and proposed another 20 possibilities for further investigation. The findings, published May 25 in Nature, indicate that understanding how mitochondria’s hundreds of proteins work together to generate power and perform the organelles’ other functions could be a promising path to finding better ways to diagnose and treat such conditions.

“We have a parts list for mitochondria, but we don’t know what many of the parts do,” said co-senior author David J. Pagliarini, Ph.D., the Hugo F. and Ina C. Urbauer Professor and a BJC Investigator at Washington University. “It’s similar to if you had a problem with your car, and you brought it to a mechanic, and upon opening the hood they said, ‘We’ve never seen half of these parts before.’ They wouldn’t know how to fix it. This study is an attempt to define the functions of as many of those mitochondrial parts as we can so we have a better understanding of what happens when they don’t work and, ultimately, a better chance at devising therapeutics to rectify those problems.”

The concept comprises a 197-foot superyacht and a 656-foot blimp that can be used together or separately.

For over a decade, scientists have attempted to synthesize a new form of carbon called graphyne with limited success. That endeavor is now at an end, though, thanks to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder.

28 June 10am EDT/ 4pm CET / 10pm China.

Who are the real legends in architecture? How did they become legends? And what advice might they have to offer the students of today?

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When people with metastatic breast cancer close their eyes at night, their cancer awakes and starts to spread.

That’s the striking finding from a paper published in Nature this week that overturns the assumption that breast cancer metastasis happens at the same rate around the clock.

The result may change the way that doctors collect blood samples from people with cancer in the future, the researchers say.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a lightweight, wearable textile exomuscle that uses sensors embedded in its fabric to detect a user’s movement intentions and chip in extra force as needed. Initial tests show a significant boost in endurance.

Where powered exoskeletons act as both muscle and bone, providing force as well as structural support, exomuscles make use of the body’s own structure and simply chip in with additional force. As a result, they’re much lighter and less bulky, but they’re also limited in how much force they can deliver, since human bones and joints can only take so much.

Continue reading “Wearable muscles offer an impressive upper-body endurance boost” »

NSO Group, the world’s most notorious hacking company, could soon cease to exist. But even if NSO Group is no more, there are plenty of rivals who will rush in to provide the hacking capability that more and more governments demand.

But even if NSO Group is no more, there are plenty of rivals who will rush in to take its place. And the same old problems haven’t gone away.

Summary: New software can perform computerized image editing using only input from electrical activity in the human brain.

Source: University of Copenhagen.

Soon, we won’t need to use the Help function. The computer will sense that we have a problem and come to the rescue by itself. This is one of the possible implications of new research at University of Copenhagen and University of Helsinki.

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We’ve been hearing about the potential of graphene for decades, and yet very few of the big promises have come to pass. But a new aluminum graphene battery design is coming out this year that could charge a phone in less than a minute, and it may be the future of energy storage.

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Continue reading “FINALLY! A Graphene Battery That Could Change Everything | Answers With Joe” »