Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Mentions telomeres.

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People with rare disorders that cause shortened telomeres—protective caps that sit at the end of chromosomes—may be more likely to have blood cancers such as leukemia or myelodyplastic syndrome. Now, Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists have discovered several “self-correcting” genetic mutations in bone marrow that may protect such patients from these cancers.

In a study published online August 3 2021, in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the researchers also suggest these mutations can serve as biomarkers that may indicate if patients with short telomere syndromes are likely to develop blood cancers.

Continue reading “Gene self-correction in ‘chromosome caps’ can beat mutations, help prevent blood cancers” | >

Summary: Researchers have identified 2,000 genes in humans linked to longevity. The genes are associated with biological mechanisms that drive the prolongation of life in mammals, including DNA repair, coagulation, and immune response.

Source: UPF Barcelona.

What determines the life expectancy of each species? This is a fundamental and highly complex question that has intrigued the field of research throughout history. From the evolutionary point of view, the major cause of these differences between species lies in their ecological adaptations. For example, life expectancy is longer in species adapted to living in trees, underground, or with large body mass, since all these adaptations reduce mortality by predation.

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I recently set sail on Sunwater Marine’s Ramblin’ Rose, a 40-foot sailing yacht powered by solar panels and electric propulsion.

While we at Electrek often tend to focus on electric vehicles taking over roads, it’s important to remember that our inevitable abandonment of fossil fuels stems to all modes of transportation, whether it’s by land, air, or even the sea. I recently had the opportunity to set sail on Sunwater Marine’s Ramblin’ Rose, a 40-foot sailing yacht powered by solar panels and electric propulsion. It’s one of the only vessels of its kind on the West Coast.

It was founded by president James Richmond in 2,020 amid the global pandemic. Richmond had a little more free time to search for a boat for blue water cruising to which he could add solar.

Continue reading “I drove a rare solar-electric yacht to test clean-sea propulsion, here’s how it went” | >

A new interpretation of quantum mechanics sees agents as playing an active role in the creation of reality. Blake Stacey outlines the case for QBism and its radical potential.

The pandemic shut down our university when I was in the middle of giving a lecture. We had been anticipating the possibility for a few days, but it was still impeccable timing. I finished my spiel, out came the phones, and suddenly we weren’t going to see each other post-spring break after all. For the rest of the term, I did what so many teachers found themselves doing: gamely trying to soldier on. I scrounged and borrowed a whiteboard, easel and webcam, set myself up in the nicest light the house had to offer, and did my best to convey graduate-level physics to an audience of tiny rectangles. And like so many other teachers, I learned there’s nothing like a radical change of circumstances for driving one to re-evaluate what the essential ideas of a subject must be.

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Common medications can accumulate in gut bacteria, a new study has found, altering bacterial function and potentially reducing the effectiveness of the drug. These interactions—seen for a variety of medications, such as depression, diabetes, and asthma drugs—could help researchers to better understand individual differences in drug effectiveness and side-effects, according to the study published in Nature.

It is known that bacteria can chemically modify some drugs, a process known as biotransformation. This study, led by researchers from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Toxicology Unit at the University of Cambridge and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Germany, is the first to show that certain species of accumulate human drugs, altering the types of bacteria and their activity.

This could change the effectiveness of the both directly, as the accumulation could reduce the availability of the drug to the body, and indirectly, as altered bacterial function and composition could be linked to .

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