Lifeboat Foundation

Cell culture is an essential in vitro experimental tool. An attempt to recapitulate the body in a dish, in two and three dimensions, it has provided the basis for decades of research and probably thousands of PhDs. When it goes wrong, however, whether through accident, infection, misidentification, cross-contamination or uncontrolled differentiation (for stem cells), it can be very stressful, especially in the case of longer-term experiments or when using hard-to-replace cell lines. Another important consideration is reproducibility, which is an acknowledged life sciences industry issue. A 2015 PLOS Biol ogy study, for example, reported in an analysis of previous studies that the prevalence of irreproducible research was over 50% – equivalent to USD $28 billion per year on irreproducible preclinical research.¹ Inconsistencies in cell culture approaches are a potential issue in this regard, as if cells are not maintained or used in a consistent way, or are contaminated with an infection (like mycoplasma), this can negatively impact results and make it more difficult to reproduce and/or accurately interpret data.

“Quality control (QC) is a key part of assuring the quality of outputs from any cell culture process, and is an essential part of assuring reproducibility of scientific quality in research as well as assurance of the quality and safety of cell culture-derived products,” comments Glyn N Stacey, International Stem Cell Banking Initiative, Cambridge, UK, and the Institute for Stem Cells and Regeneration and National Stem Cell Resource Centre, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. “These topics are currently very much in the minds of journal editors, research funders and regulators and are thus of crucial significance to researchers.”

This article will look at these different aspects of cell culture quality control and the types of protocols that can be implemented to help ensure reliable and reproducible results.

The comprehensive maps of the entire observable Universe is now in development.

A Co-founder of Apple has reported that his new organization is moving towards the objective of building the ‘Google maps of space’.

Continue reading “Google Maps of the Cosmos is now in the development stage” »

After heated debates and disappointments over past candidates of Martian life, NASA scientists have a new rubric for scoring signs of extraterrestrial life.

AI & computational technology for improving drug discovery & development — mati gill, CEO, AION labs.

Mati Gill is the Chief Executive Officer, of AION Labs (https://aionlabs.com/), a company recently launched and backed by a coalition of pharma and tech leaders, including AstraZeneca, Merck, Pfizer, Teva, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and the Israel Biotech Fund (IBF) and Israel Innovation Authority, to improve the whole drug discovery & drug development process with AI and computational biology.

Continue reading “Mati Gill, CEO, AION Labs — AI & Computational Technology For Improving Drug Discovery & Development” »

Covid-19 patients who were given the low-cost antidepressant fluvoxamine were significantly less likely to require hospitalization compared with those who weren’t, according to a new study.

No. Eventually billionaires will run out of OUR money, NOT the other way around. I love the things and companies he’s created. I love the industries he’s revolutionized and the massive Kickstart he has given to our entire species and it’s extrasolar future. He is INARGUABLY a brilliant man. But he’s also a shitty human being. He’s like so many other brilliant people that enjoy public life and the sound of his own voice who can all too often forget that they are NOT experts in EVERYTHING ELSE just because experts on something else. Musk is just another example of that kind of ego overspill. It’s not the first time he’s done it, and it will NOT be the last or worst occurrence of… Let’s call it the “Big brain on Brad golden suitcase of indeterminate origin syndrome.”

💦🤯💦

☝🙄💼

Continue reading “Elon Musk slams billionaire tax: ‘Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you’” »

Topology in optics and photonics has been a hot topic since 1,890 where singularities in electromagnetic fields have been considered. The recent award of the Nobel prize for topology developments in condensed matter physics has led to renewed surge in topology in optics with most recent developments in implementing condensed matter particle-like topological structures in photonics. Recently, topological photonics, especially the topological electromagnetic pulses, hold promise for nontrivial wave-matter interactions and provide additional degrees of freedom for information and energy transfer. However, to date the topology of ultrafast transient electromagnetic pulses had been largely unexplored.

In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, physicists in the UK and Singapore report a new family of electromagnetic pulses, the exact solutions of Maxwell’s equation with toroidal topology, in which topological complexity can be continuously controlled, namely supertoroidal topology. The electromagnetic fields in such supertoroidal pulses have skyrmionic structures as they propagate in free space with the speed of light.

Skyrmions, sophisticated topological particles originally proposed as a unified model of the nucleon by Tony Skyrme in 1,962 behave like nanoscale magnetic vortices with spectacular textures. They have been widely studied in many condensed matter systems, including chiral magnets and liquid crystals, as nontrivial excitations showing great importance for information storing and transferring. If skyrmions can fly, open up infinite possibilities for the next generation of informatics revolution.

The energetic phenomena known as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are one of the greatest cosmic mysteries today. These mysterious flashes of light are visible in the radio wave part of the spectrum and usually last only a few milliseconds before fading away forever. Since the first FRB was observed in 2,007 astronomers have looked forward to the day when instruments of sufficient sensitivity would be able to detect them regularly.

That day has arrived with the completion of the 500-Meter FAST Radio Telescope (aka. Tianyan, “Eye of Heaven”). Since it commenced operations, this observatory has vastly expanded the number of detected FRBs. In fact, according to research led by the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAO/CAS), the observatory detected a total of 1,652 independent bursts from a single source in 47 days.

Continue reading “Something Really Wants Our Attention: One Cosmic Object Emitted 1,652 Fast Radio Bursts in 47 Days” »

Taiwan has made a battery-powered exoskeleton suit that will allow its soldiers to run faster and carry heavy objects.

This is the first-generation suit made by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, according to The South China Morning Post. The suit is a part of a four-year project called the “Taiwan Ironman program.” It has a budget of $5.74 million and the goal of providing Taiwan’s soldiers with a lower-body exoskeleton to increase their strength and endurance.

“To reduce fatigue of soldiers in carrying heavy facilities… we started developing the powered suit for the military in 2020,” Jen Kuo-Kuang, head developer of the project, said in comments at a news conference obtained by the SCMP.