Lifeboat Foundation

Altana AI, a startup building a database for global supply chain networks, today announced that it raised $15 million in a series A funding round led by GV with participation from Floating Point, Ridgeline Partners, Amadeus Capital Partners, and Schematic Ventures. The proceeds, which bring the company’s total raised to $22 million to date, will be used to further develop Altana’s data and AI systems and launch new machine learning and network analysis tools, according to CEO Evan Smith.

Trade wars, the rise of ecommerce, pandemic supply chain shocks, and sustainability concerns are driving fundamental changes to supply chain networks and global trade flows. Nearly 75% of companies report supply chain disruptions in some capacity due to pandemic-related transportation restrictions. And in a recent IBM survey, 40% of executives stressed the need for spare capacity to weather future crises.

Altana’s product aims to solve these challenges with a platform that connects and learns from billions of supply chain data points. It answers questions about products, shipments, companies, and networks, filtering out illicit trade and targeting bad actors and security threats across global commerce networks.

He explored the possibility of using gene therapy or gene editing—technologies that were dominating headlines for their ability to tackle other rare genetic disorders. But scientists told him those approaches would be difficult to implement for Dravet. Instead, a newfangled idea called transfer RNA (tRNA) therapy seemed like it might be the answer.

Drug Discovery tRNA therapies could help restore proteins lost in translation.

A new class of therapies based on transfer RNA could treat forms of cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, genetic epilepsies, and more by.

Continue reading “TRNA therapies could help restore proteins lost in translation” »

A very good illustration.

Experiments with dummy heads and masks. Credit: TU Wien

Continue reading “Droplets Loaded With Coronaviruses Last Far Longer Than Previously Thought” »

A number of recent studies have homed in on compelling associations between mental health and the microbiome. These insights into strange gut-brain connections have found links between depression and certain species of gut bacteria, and one study even found symptoms of schizophrenia could be transferred from mouse to mouse via fecal transplants.

But are these microbiome perturbations unique to specific psychiatric conditions, or is there a more common gut bacteria signature shared amongst several conditions?

Some types of restricted and repetitive behaviors become more prevalent among autistic children and teenagers over time, depending on their age and intellectual ability, whereas others decrease, two new studies show.

The results lend fresh support to the argument that restricted and repetitive behaviors — a core diagnostic trait that includes repetitive movements, insistence on sameness, sensory sensitivities and restricted interests — are too diverse to be lumped together.

“This is a complex behavioral domain that comprises several different subdomains that likely have different causes and might respond to different treatments,” says Mirko Uljarević, senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, who led one of the studies.

Bumps in detector could point to new physics.

Physicists turned on a new type of gravitational-wave sensor and saw two intriguing results, but they aren’t yet ready to claim a discovery.

Skycharge, developed by Green Motion and Pipistrel, has recently been approved by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) as the world’s first OEM-independent electric aircraft charging station.

Pipistrel’s Velis Electro aircraft had already become the first electric aircraft to receive a type certificate from EASA in June last year. The approval of Skycharge is another important milestone on the way to environmentally sustainable aviation.

Skycharge is based on Eaton’s proprietary DC charging technology. The charging infrastructure for electric aircraft and eVTOL (electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing) aircraft offers exceptional conversion efficiency (over 96%), compactness and power density.

Objective reality exists, but what can you know about it that isn’t subjective. According to some neuroscientists, not much.