Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists have developed the most accurate computing method to date to reconstruct the patchwork of genetic faults within tumors and their history during disease development, in new research funded by Cancer Research UK and published in Nature Genetics.

Their powerful approach combines artificial intelligence with the mathematical models of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to analyze genetic data more accurately than ever before, paving the way for a fundamental shift in how cancer’s genetic diversity is used to deliver tailored treatments to patients.

Applying these new algorithms to DNA data taken from patient samples revealed that tumors had a simpler genetic structure than previously thought. The algorithms showed that tumors had fewer distinct subpopulations of cells, called “subclones,” than previously suggested. The scientists, based at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and Queen Mary University of London, could also tell how old each subclone was and how fast it was growing.

SpaceX gave an update on early tests of its Starlink satellite internet network, which showed speeds capable of playing online video games and streaming movies.

Starlink is the ambitious plan by Elon Musk’s company to build an interconnected network of about 12,000 small satellites in low Earth orbit. To date, SpaceX has launched about 650 of its version 1.0 satellites and is currently building a system of ground stations and user terminals to connect consumers directly to its network.

The company confirmed during the webcast of its latest launch on Monday that employees have been testing Starlink’s latency and download speeds, key measures for an internet service provider. SpaceX senior certification engineer Kate Tice said that the initial results of those tests “have been good.”

Millions of students are learning through Zoom this fall. So why does it still feel like a corporate meeting app that has been MacGyvered into an education platform?

[Photos: Ridofranz/iStock, syntika/iStock].

Thanks to Amazon’s success, CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world, worth $207 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

But when he started Amazon as an online bookseller in 1994, Bezos thought it was likely that his business would fail.

Continue reading “Jeff Bezos thought there was a ‘30% chance’ Amazon would succeed: I told my parents ‘it’s very likely they’ll lose their entire investment’” »

Over the last 12,000 years or so, human civilization has noticeably reshaped the Earth’s surface. But changes on our own planet will likely pale in comparison when humans settle on other celestial bodies. While many of the changes on Earth over the centuries have been related to food production, by way of agriculture, changes on other worlds will result, not only from the need for on-site production of food, but also for all other consumables, including air.

As vital as synthetic biology will be to the early piloted missions to Mars and voyages of exploration, it will become indispensable to establish a long-term human presence off-Earth, namely colonization. That’s because we’ve evolved over billions of years to thrive specifically in the environments provided by our home planet.

Our physiology is well-suited to Earth’s gravity and its oxygen-rich atmosphere. We also depend on Earth’s global magnetic field to shield us from intense space radiation in the form of charged particles. In comparison, Mars has only patches of localized magnetism, thought to be remnants of a global magnetic field in the distant past. Currently, the Red Planet has no global magnetic field that could trap particle radiation from interplanetary space. Also, the Martian atmosphere is so thin that any shielding against space radiation of any kind is minor compared with the protection that Earth’s atmosphere affords. At the Martian surface, atmospheric pressure never gets above 7 millibars. That’s like Earth at an altitude of about 27,000 m (89,000 ft), which is almost the edge of space. And while the moon’s proximity to Earth could make it a better location than Mars for the first off-world colony, the lunar radiation environment is similar to that of Mars.

Early stage clinical trial results show the Covid-19 vaccine candidate made by Novavax is safe and elicits an immune response, according to a study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. The results had previously been announced by the company in early August.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nbC7BxXtOlo

In October 1961, the Soviet Union dropped the most powerful nuclear bomb in history over a remote island north of the Arctic Circle.

Though the bomb detonated nearly 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) above ground, the resulting shockwave stripped the island as bare and flat as a skating rink.

Continue reading “Russia Just Declassified Footage of The Most Powerful Nuclear Bomb Blast in History” »

Spiros Michalakis is the Caltech quantum physicist who served as the science advisor on Bill & Ted: Face The Music and he was kind enough to sit down and chat about quantum physics, the nature of time, and the brilliant minds behind Bill & Ted.

Check out IQIM at http://www.iqim.caltech.edu

Continue reading “The Science Advisor on Bill & Ted: Face The Music on Time Travel, Entanglement, And Keanu Reeves” »

“The participants treated with AMX0035 demonstrated a significant slowing of ALS disease progression as measured by the ALSFRS-R. This is a milestone in our fight against ALS,” said Sabrina Paganoni, MD, Ph.D., principal investigator of the CENTAUR study.

An experimental medication slows the progression of the neurodegenerative disease called Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, according to recently released results from a clinical trial run by investigators at the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the company that manufactures the medication. The findings, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, offer hope that a treatment may one day be available for patients with ALS, a fatal condition with no cure that attacks the nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord to progressively hinder individuals’ ability to move, speak, eat, and even breathe.

Called AMX0035, the oral medication is a combination of two drugs, sodium phenylbutyrate and taurursodiol, that each target a different cell component important for protecting against nerve cell death.

Continue reading “Investigational ALS drug generates promising clinical trial results” »