Lifeboat Foundation

Please stop saying “There is no treatment for coronavirus”, coronavirus can be treated many ways. Anything can be treated many ways. When one says, “This can not be done”, one has already given up. When one says, “I can”, one at least makes an effort, and even failure is a lesson that leads to success. The WHO is already promoting the Moderna vaccine, yet it takes years to develop a vaccine properly. Any scientist will tell you it is faster to repurpose drugs than to develop a vaccine. Even in Kenya, they will not tell you how people are being treated, but already they are talking about the Moderna Vaccine.

Sometimes, old drugs find a new purpose. A widely available steroid called dexamethasone might hold the potential to save a lot of lives that otherwise would be lost to coronavirus. Preliminary results released from a randomized and controlled clinical trial involving more than 6,000 patients found that administering dexamethasone significantly reduced deaths among those with severe COVID-19 illnesses.

The study, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, found that the drug reduced deaths by one-third among patients on mechanical ventilators, and by one-fifth among patients receiving other forms of supplemental oxygen. Although dexamethasone is a far cry from a coronavirus cure, it feels like the first good news to transpire since earlier this spring, when the antiviral drug remdesivir showed it could modestly improve survival among COVID-19 patients.

For the first time, scientists have introduced minuscule tracking devices directly into the interior of mammalian cells, giving an unprecedented peek into the processes that govern the beginning of development. This work on one-cell embryos is set to shift our understanding of the mechanisms that underpin cellular behaviour in general, and may ultimately provide insights into what goes wrong in ageing and disease.

The research, led by Professor Tony Perry from the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath, involved injecting a silicon-based nanodevice together with sperm into the egg cell of a mouse. The result was a healthy, fertilised egg containing a tracking device.

The tiny devices are a little like spiders, complete with eight highly flexible ‘legs’. The legs measure the ‘pulling and pushing’ forces exerted in the cell interior to a very high level of precision, thereby revealing the cellular forces at play and showing how intracellular matter rearranged itself over time.

Want to learn how we age and whether we can slow or even reverse aging? David Sinclair, PhD, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, says in his book “Lifespan” that aging is a disease, and that disease is treatable. Tune in to Homeroom with Sal on Tuesday at noon PT to get your questions answered by a leading expert on aging and age-associated diseases.

For more information visit: keeplearning.khanacademy.org

Continue reading “Homeroom with Sal & David Sinclair, PhD — Tuesday, July 14” »

Western Digital has launched its WD Gold 16TB and 18TB drives using EAMR (Energy Assisted Magnetic Recording) and has a 20TB SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) version of the drive on the way. After being a bit slow for several years, drive capacities are growing more quickly again.

The fish skin absorbs more than 99.5% of light thanks to pigment-packed granules.

Here’s what you need to know about the United Arab Emirates’ first interplanetary spacecraft, the Hope mission to Mars.

One small step for cells, one giant leap for science.

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A brilliant new light shines in Grenoble, France, where officials at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility(ESRF) last week announced the reopening of their completely rebuilt x-ray source. The ring-shaped machine, 844 meters around, generates x-ray beams 100 times brighter than its predecessor and 10 trillion times brighter than medical x-rays. The intense radiation could open up new vistas in x-ray science, such as imaging whole organs in three dimensions while resolving individual cells.

Shining 100 times brighter than its predecessor, the new European Synchrotron Radiation Facility is the first of more than a dozen of its kind in the works.