Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Excellent! Technology is available to make real change. Support efforts to clean the seas and use renewable energy sources.

Tired of hitting these floating objects during his races and seeing heavenly places turn into landfills, a French ocean adventurer Yvan Bourgnon decided to fight against this global scourge. He and his team have designed Manta, a giant, plastic-eating catamaran powered by renewable energy. The sea vessel literally scoops up plastic garbage and converts it into fuel to help power the boat.

Yvan Bourgnon – who has years of experience career racing sailing boats around the world’s oceans – is the mastermind behind the venture. A steady increase in encounters with floating fields of garbage in the ocean inspired him to start the SeaCleaners project and build Manta, a 56-meter (184 foot) catamaran powered by a combination of advanced sail technology and electric motors.

Continue reading “Meet Manta, a sea-cleaning sailboat that feeds on plastic waste” | >

LX1001, a gene therapy for Alzheimer’s disease being developed by Lexeo Therapeutics, has been granted fast track designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The therapy is designed to deliver a version of the APOE gene, called APOE2, to cells in the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord) using an engineered viral vector.

Every person inherits two copies of the APOE gene, one from each biological parent. There are three versions of the APOE gene, called alleles — APOE2, APOE3, and APOE4 (often abbreviated to E2, E3, and E4). The specific combination of alleles a person has affects their Alzheimer’s risk. Broadly, the E2 allele is associated with lower Alzheimer’s risk, whereas the E4 allele is linked to increased disease risk. As such, LX1001 is designed to deliver the protective allele (APOE2).

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Unlocking The Potential Of Salt and Drought Tolerant Crops And Seawater Agriculture — Professor Dr. Mark Tester — Center for Desert Agriculture, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology; Co-founder & CSO, Red Sea Farms.

Professor Dr. Mark Tester is Professor, Plant Science, and Associate Director, Center for Desert Agriculture, Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division, of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.

Prior to joining King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in February 2013, Professor Tester was a professor of plant physiology at the University of Adelaide and the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics from 2009 to 2013. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge in plant sciences.

Continue reading “Professor Dr. Mark Tester — Center for Desert Agriculture — KAUST — Red Sea Farms — Saudi Arabia” | >

As founder of Longevity Vision Fund, I am often asked about the most promising life extension breakthroughs, from early cancer diagnostics to human avatars and everything in between. The simple answer is that there are many — but that’s probably not the kind of answer you were looking for!

Instead, let’s look at the latest longevity breakthroughs working on each of the five major levels of biological organization (cell, tissue, organ, organ system and organism) and what they each aim to accomplish.

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In a study at The University of Alabama, aging fruit flies died faster than younger flies from a viral infection because of different genetic responses, lowering the older flies’ tolerance to the infection.

The findings published recently in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics add to the understanding of innate immunity, the first line of defense against infections, which is not fully understood in humans, and prove the fruit fly, Drosophila, is a good candidate for aging immunity studies that could lead to advancements in treating in older humans.

“We are living in times where there is a substantial increase in aging populations, and we know there is a decline of immune function in humans as we age,” said Dr. Stanislava Chtarbanova, UA assistant professor of biological sciences whose lab led the study. “This is the first study to use the fly for investigating age-dependent, anti-viral responses. Our lab can leverage this genetic model to study the underlying aging immunity.”

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The Biden administration on Monday said it has approved a major solar energy project in the California desert that will be capable of powering nearly 90000 homes.

The $550 million Crimson Solar Project will be sited on 2000 acres of federal land west of Blythe, California, the Interior Department said in a statement. It is being developed by Canadian Solar (CSIQ.O) unit Recurrent Energy and will deliver power to California utility Southern California Edison.

The announcement comes as President Joe Biden has vowed to expand development of renewable energy projects on public lands as part of a broader agenda to fight climate change, create jobs and reverse former President Donald Trump’s emphasis on maximizing fossil fuel extraction.

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Now, researchers have revealed that colistin punches holes in bacteria, causing them to pop like balloons. The work, funded by the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust, and published in the journal eLife, also identified a way of making the antibiotic more effective at killing bacteria.

Scientists have revealed how an antibiotic of ‘last resort’ kills bacteria.

The findings, from Imperial College London and the University of Texas, may also reveal a potential way to make the antibiotic more powerful.

The antibiotic colistin has become a last resort treatment for infections caused by some of the world’s nastiest superbugs. However, despite being discovered over 70 years ago, the process by which this antibiotic kills bacteria has, until now, been something of a mystery.

Continue reading “‘Last resort’ antibiotic pops bacteria like balloons” | >