Lifeboat Foundation

These cute drones are partially made from the trashed leaves of harvested pineapples which make them lighter, faster and most importantly greener! 🍍.

Imagine going to a surgeon to have a diseased or injured organ switched out for a fully functional, laboratory-grown replacement. This remains science fiction and not reality because researchers today struggle to organize cells into the complex 3D arrangements that our bodies can master on their own.

There are two major hurdles to overcome on the road to laboratory-grown organs and tissues. The first is to use a biologically compatible 3D scaffold in which cells can grow. The second is to decorate that scaffold with biochemical messages in the correct configuration to trigger the formation of the desired organ or tissue.

In a major step toward transforming this hope into reality, researchers at the University of Washington have developed a technique to modify naturally occurring biological polymers with protein-based biochemical messages that affect cell behavior. Their approach, published the week of Jan. 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses a near-infrared laser to trigger chemical adhesion of protein messages to a scaffold made from biological polymers such as collagen, a connective tissue found throughout our bodies.

Biologists balk at any talk of ‘goals’ or ‘intentions’ — but a bold new research agenda has put agency back on the table.

Animal immune systems depend on white blood cells called macrophages that devour and engulf invaders. The cells pursue with determination and gusto: under a microscope you can watch a blob-like macrophage chase a bacterium across the slide, switching course this way and that as its prey tries to escape through an obstacle course of red blood cells, before it finally catches the rogue microbe and gobbles it up.

But hang on: isn’t this an absurdly anthropomorphic way of describing a biological process? Single cells don’t have minds of their own – so surely they don’t have goals, determination, gusto? When we attribute aims and purposes to these primitive organisms, aren’t we just succumbing to an illusion?

Continue reading “The biological research putting purpose back into life” »

We are creating compelling homegrown solutions in education, health care, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services and new commerce,” Ambani said in his speech. “Each of these solutions, once proven in India, will be offered to the rest of the world to address global challenges.

Mukesh Ambani has spent years trying to turn his inherited oil business into a tech empire. In 2020, that pivot really kicked into overdrive.

Martinus J.G. Veltman, a Dutch theoretical physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for work that explained the structure of some of the fundamental forces in the universe, helping to lay the groundwork for the development of the Standard Model, the backbone of quantum physics, died on Jan. 4 in Bilthoven, the Netherlands. He was 89.

His death was announced by the National Institute for Subatomic Physics in the Netherlands. No cause was given.

There are four known fundamental forces in the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force that bonds subatomic particles together, and the weak force that is responsible for particle decay. Since the discovery of the last two forces in the first half of the 20th century, physicists have looked for a unified theory that could account for the existence of all four.

Cryonics Institute www.cryonics.org

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New research by a University of Arizona-led team suggests two near-Earth asteroids — but Bennu and Ryugu — were actually sheared off and shaped by a by a single crash.

In a new study, German scientists have restored the ability to walk in mice that had been paralyzed after a complete spinal cord injury. The team created a “designer” signaling protein and injected it into the animals’ brains, stimulating their nerve cells to regenerate and share the recipe to make the protein.

Spinal cord injuries are among the most debilitating. Damaged nerve fibers (axons) may no longer be able to transmit signals between the brain and muscles, often resulting in paralysis to the lower limbs. Worse still, these axons cannot regenerate.

Previous studies have shown promise in restoring some limb function through spinal stimulation therapy, or by bypassing the injury site altogether. Other promising research in similar areas has involved using compounds that restore balance to the inhibitory/excitatory signals in the neurons of partially paralyzed mice, and transplanting regenerating nose nerve cells into the spines of injured dogs.

Enhance!

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze into you. Nietzsche could have been talking about Mars.