Lifeboat Foundation

“Ronapreve has been shown to improve survival in high-risk, non-hospitalised COVID-19 patients by reducing the risk of hospitalisation and death. In addition, its ability to retain activity against emerging variants, including the Delta variant, has been demonstrated in preclinical studies,” said Levi Garraway, M.D., Ph.D., Roche’s Chief Medical Officer and Head of Global Product Development. “Today’s approval brings hope to patients in Japan who can now access this important treatment option.”

Japan becomes first country to approve Ronapreve (casirivimab and imdevimab) for the treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 in adults and paediatric patients (12 years of age and older weighing at least 40 kg) with positive results of direct SARS-CoV-2 viral testing, and who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19 and/or hospitalisation. The US EUA is temporary and does not take the place of the formal biologics license application (BLA) submission, review and approval process.

The future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in the arm. UC Riverside scientists are studying whether they can turn edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories.

One of the challenges with this new technology is that it must be kept cold to maintain stability during transport and storage. If this new project is successful, plant-based mRNA vaccines — which can be eaten — could overcome this challenge with the ability to be stored at room temperature.

The project’s goals, made possible by a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, are threefold: showing that DNA containing the mRNA vaccines can be successfully delivered into the part of plant cells where it will replicate, demonstrating the plants can produce enough mRNA to rival a traditional shot, and finally, determining the right dosage.

Watch the full documentary on Vimeo on demand: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/339083

The study of consciousness needs to be lifted out of the mysticism that has dominated it. Consciousness is not just a matter of philosophy or spirituality. It’s a matter of hard science. It’s a matter of understanding the brain and the mind — a pattern structure made out of information. It’s also a matter of engineering. If we can understand the functionality of the brain, its neural code, then we can build the same functionality into our computer systems. There’s no consensus on what produces consciousness, but everyone regardless of metaphysical views can agree what it is like to be conscious. Given that consciousness is subjectivity, what consciousness is like is what consciousness is.

Continue reading “Consciousness: Evolution of the Mind, Documentary (2021), Official Teaser Trailer” »

GM Defense, a subsidiary of General Motors, was recently awarded a contract to develop next-generation SUVs for the government’s fleet.

This specific contract was awarded by the US Department of State, and the vehicles will be built to support the Diplomatic Security Service. Diplomatic Security is a federal law enforcement agency charged with securing diplomatic assets and personnel. In 2,020 GM Defense also got the contract to build the army’s new infantry squad vehicle based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. That particular contract was more extensive and, at the time of writing, valued at $213.4 million. The eventual goal was 2,065 vehicles.

Molnupiravir, a wide-spectrum antiviral that is currently in phase 2/3 clinical trials for the treatment of COVID-19, is proposed to inhibit viral replication by a mechanism known as ‘lethal mutagenesis’. Two recently published studies reveal the biochemical and structural bases of how molnupiravir disrupts the fidelity of SARS-CoV-2 genome replication and prevents viral propagation by fostering error accumulation in a process referred to as ‘error catastrophe’.

[Matt] from [DIY Perks] has made a name for himself building nice custom computing machines, and his latest triple-monitor luggable PC (video after the break) is sure to give most high-performance desktop machines a run for their money.

The large central monitor folding laptop monitors mounted vertically on either size look impressive, but only just scratches the surface of this build. Hidden behind aluminum panels are Ryzen 5950X CPU and RTX 3,080 GPU with water cooling, 64 GB of RAM, and two 8 TB SSDs. A set of high-quality speaker drivers, subwoofer, and audio amps is also included. All this hardware pulls about 600 W of power from a large DC-DC converter block, which in turn receives power from either a pair of onboard AC-DC converters or a 16 V – 63 V DC source, like a battery system.

Continue reading “Triple Monitor Luggable PC Is An All In One Powerhouse” »

MASK Architects has designed the world’s first steel 3D printed structure of modular houses for Nivola Museum’s visitors, Tourists and Artists in Orani, city of Sardinia. Öznur Pınar Cer and Danilo Petta have Inspired from the work of “Costantino Nivola”, they have designed “Exosteel Mother Nature” modular houses which they have taken inspiration from him sculpture called the “La Madre”.

The studio is the first architecture and design studio in the world to use a steel 3D-printed “exoskeleton” construction system that supports and distributes all the functional elements of the building, using their new solution of construction technique which they called “EXOSTEEL”.

The house is composed firstly by a hollow central column inserted for one / third of its length into the ground and by various organic branches that support the three floors of the building. On each floor a perimeter frame divides and supports the facades made up of panels modeled to follow the organic shape of the house.

Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) said on Thursday it was recalling all lots of its anti-smoking treatment, Chantix, due to high levels of cancer-causing agents called nitrosamines in the pills.

The drugmaker paused distribution of the drug in June, and has already recalled a number of lots of the medicine so far. [USN: L4N2PK3WK]

Pfizer asked wholesalers and distributors on Thursday to stop the use and distribution of the tablets immediately.

Continue reading “Pfizer recalls all lots of anti-smoking drug over carcinogen presence” »

Only two new coronaviruses have spread globally the past 2 decades: SARS-CoV, which caused an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2,003 and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. But that may just be the tip of the iceberg of undetected infections with related viruses emerging from bats, a new paper claims. In a preprint published yesterday researchers estimate that an average of 400,000 people are likely infected with SARS-related coronaviruses every year, in spillovers that never grow into detectable outbreaks.

The researchers, including Peter Daszak from the EcoHealth Alliance and Linfa Wang from Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, created a detailed map of the habitats of 23 bat species known to harbor SARS-related coronaviruses, the group to which SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 belong, and then overlaid it with data on where humans live to create a map of potential infection hot spots. They found that close to 500 million people live in areas where spillovers can occur, including northern India, Nepal, Myanmar, and most of Southeast Asia. The risk is highest in southern China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and on Java and other islands in Indonesia (see map, below).

Study pinpoints Asian regions that could spark the next coronavirus pandemic.

Continue reading “SARS-like viruses may jump from animals to people hundreds of thousands of times a year” »