Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists have successfully grown liver tissue capable of functioning for 30 days in the lab as part of NASA’s Vascular Tissue Challenge.

In 2016, NASA put forth this competition to find teams that could “create thick, vascularized human organ tissue in an in-vitro environment to advance research and benefit medicine on long-duration missions and on Earth,” according to an agency challenge description. Today (June 9), the agency announced not one, but two winners of the challenge.

The results of the study have been extremely encouraging, with 12 of the 13 patients showing signs of improved neurological functionality shortly after the treatment was administered. More than half of the patients showed significant improvement, including regaining the ability to walk, as well as regaining fine motor control (such as the ability to use their hands).

Unlike many stem cell treatments which have been successful in the past, this approach does not require the patient to have a reserve of stem cells available (such as cord blood cells), and instead relies on stem cells which are obtained directly from the patient. A bone marrow sample was extracted in order to first acquire a sample of stem cells (known as mesenchymal stem cells), which were then grown (expanded) in a laboratory for the number of weeks before being injected into the patient’s bloodstream via intravenous injection. These cells would then migrate to the spinal cord and repair the damaged tissue.



How might Earth’s atmosphere, land, and ocean systems respond to changes in carbon dioxide over time? — Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet.

Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Current news and data streams about global warming and climate change from NASA.

Amazon Web Services (AMZN.O) said it will open data centers in Israel, with the announcement coming weeks after Israel signed a deal with AWS and Google for a more than $1 billion project to provide cloud services for its public sector and military.

In April, AWS and Google (GOOGL.O) won a tender for the four phase project known as “Nimbus”. read more

“Today, Amazon Web Services Inc, an Amazon.com company, announced it will open an infrastructure region in Israel in the first half of 2023”, AWS said in a statement on Friday.

Dubbed “the Giant Arc,” the purported structure is much larger than expected in a cosmos where matter is thought to be evenly distributed.

For tens of thousands of years, a microscopic creature lay frozen and immobile underground in the Siberian permafrost.

Yet, when scientists thawed it out, the tiny multicellular animal didn’t just revive — it reproduced, suggesting that there is a mechanism whereby multicellular animals can avoid cell damage during the freezing process and wake up ready to rumble.

“Our report is the hardest proof as of today that multicellular animals could withstand tens of thousands of years in cryptobiosis, the state of almost completely arrested metabolism,” said biologist Stas Malavin of the Soil Cryology Laboratory at the Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science in Russia.

US-based Archer Aviation says it wants to make mass market mobility solutions and could launch Maker flying taxi in Los Angeles and Miami by 2024…Maker is a flying taxi that can seat four while not contributing to rising emission levels when on the move.

Ingenuity is the science world’s baby.

Having completed its seventh successful flight, here’s a highlight reel of the best of Ingenuity, from its deployment to its first color photos and recordings.

ANOTHER OPTICAL BREAKTHROUGH COMPLEMENTING METALENSES. In addition to the ongoing revolution in optical science brought about by flat metalenses and single-photon image sensors, there is another parallel and complementing new dimension now added to the mix, which, according to this article, will allow telescopes as thin as a piece of paper.

Can you imagine one day using a telescope as thin as a sheet of paper, or a much smaller and lighter high-performance camera? Or no longer having that camera bump behind your smartphone?

In a paper published in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Ottawa have proposed a new optical element that could turn these ideas into reality by dramatically miniaturizing optical devices, potentially impacting many of the applications in our lives.

Continue reading “Say goodbye to your camera bump: Miniaturized optics through new counterpart to lens” »