Lifeboat Foundation

One hundred fifty years ago, Dmitri Mendeleev created the periodic table, a system for classifying atoms based on the properties of their nuclei. This week, a team of biologists studying the tree of life has unveiled a new classification system for cell nuclei and discovered a method for transmuting one type of cell nucleus into another.

The study, which appears this week in the journal Science, emerged from several once-separate efforts. One of these centered on the DNA Zoo, an international consortium spanning dozens of institutions including Baylor College of Medicine, the National Science Foundation-supported Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) at Rice University, the University of Western Australia and SeaWorld.

Scientists on the DNA Zoo team had been working together to classify how chromosomes, which can be several meters long, fold up to fit inside the nuclei of different species from across the tree of life.

It’s only the country’s second new fighter design since the end of the Cold War.

Russia’s famed Sukhoi Design Bureau is reportedly working on a brand-new, fifth-generation fighter jet: a lightweight fighter capable of flying faster than Mach 2.

Continue reading “Russia Is Building a Single-Engine, ‘Hypersonic’ Fighter Jet” »

Dinosaur bones down under!

In a paper for Nature this month, researchers claim the development of mega-constellations like Starlink “risks multiple tragedies of the commons, including tragedies to ground-based astronomy, Earth orbit, and Earth’s upper atmosphere.”

Perhaps the biggest effects could come as the satellites start to deorbit, sparking what could be a major experiment in geoengineering.

This week’s SpaceX launch is the 29th batch of Starlink satellites since the first in May 2019, building out the firm’s internet connectivity constellation. Starlink aims to offer high-speed and low latency internet access almost anywhere with a view of a ground terminal.

Continue reading “SpaceX Starlink: how it could kickstart an ‘uncontrolled experiment’” »

More on thymus regeneration. Unless I understood wrong one patient’s epigenetic clock went from his mid 50’s to early 40’s.

Foresight Biotech & Health Extension Meeting sponsored by 100 Plus Capital.

Continue reading “Greg Fahy, Intervene Immune | Thymus Rejuvenation Progress Update” »

Plastic pollution and other ocean debris are a complex global environmental problem. Every year, ten million tons of plastic are estimated to be mismanaged, resulting in entry into the ocean, of which half will float initially. Yet, only 0.3 million tons of plastic can be found floating on the surface of the ocean. Where has the rest of the plastic gone?

The key mechanisms for plastic transport are currents, wind, and waves. Currents and wind transport ocean debris in a straightforward manner like the forces on a sailing boat. However, ocean waves predominantly move objects in circular-like orbits. The orbits do not quite close, resulting in a so-called Stokes drift in the direction in which the waves travel.

A joint team from the Universities of Oxford, Plymouth, Edinburgh, Auckland and TU Delft have investigated how waves transport floating ocean debris while including, for the first time, the effects of an object’s size, buoyancy, and inertia on its transport. Their results are published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

Circa 2016

Accumulated evidence from genetic animal models suggests that the brain, particularly the hypothalamus, has a key role in the homeostatic regulation of energy and glucose metabolism. The brain integrates multiple metabolic inputs from the periphery through nutrients, gut-derived satiety signals and adiposity-related hormones. The brain modulates various aspects of metabolism, such as food intake, energy expenditure, insulin secretion, hepatic glucose production and glucose/fatty acid metabolism in adipose tissue and skeletal muscle. Highly coordinated interactions between the brain and peripheral metabolic organs are critical for the maintenance of energy and glucose homeostasis. Defective crosstalk between the brain and peripheral organs contributes to the development of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Here we comprehensively review the above topics, discussing the main findings related to the role of the brain in the homeostatic regulation of energy and glucose metabolism.

In normal individuals, food intake and energy expenditure are tightly regulated by homeostatic mechanisms to maintain energy balance. Substantial evidence indicates that the brain, particularly the hypothalamus, is primarily responsible for the regulation of energy homeostasis.¹ The brain monitors changes in the body energy state by sensing alterations in the plasma levels of key metabolic hormones and nutrients. Specialized neuronal networks in the brain coordinate adaptive changes in food intake and energy expenditure in response to altered metabolic conditions ( Figure 1 ).^{2, 3}.

Adopting edge technologies will be key to businesses’ success, according to chip giant Intel.

Five years on from the first discovery of gravitational waves, an international team of scientists, including from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), are continuing the hunt for new discoveries and insights into the Universe. Using the super-sensitive, kilometer-sized LIGO detectors in the United States, and the Virgo detector in Europe, the team have witnessed the explosive collisions of black holes and neutron stars. Recent studies, however, have been looking for something quite different: the elusive signal from a solitary, rapidly-spinning neutron star.

Take a star similar in size to the Sun, squash it down to a ball about twenty kilometers across — roughly the distance from Melbourne airport to the city center — and you’d get a neutron star: the densest object in the known Universe. Now set your neutron star spinning at hundreds of revolutions per second and listen carefully. If your neutron star isn’t perfectly spherical, it will wobble about a bit, and you’ll hear a faint “humming” sound. Scientists call this a continuous gravitational wave.

So far, these humming neutron stars have proved elusive. As OzGrav postdoctoral researcher Karl Wette from the Australian National University explains: Imagine you’re out in the Australian bush listening to the wildlife. The gravitational waves from black hole and neutron star collisions we’ve observed so far are like squawking cockatoos — loud and boisterous, they’re pretty easy to spot!