Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 6

Neuroblastoma, a pediatric cancer of the nervous system, remains the leading cause of cancer-related death in young children, particularly when the disease has spread. Despite aggressive treatment regimens that include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy, metastatic neuroblastoma often proves incurable, largely because the cancer can evade or resist standard therapies.

One approach, known as differentiation therapy, attempts to coax immature neuroblastoma cells into developing into mature, noncancerous nerve cells. But current differentiation treatments, such as retinoic acid (RA), are only partially effective: many patients fail to respond, and nearly half of those who do eventually relapse due to resistance.

Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Lund University in Sweden have identified an alternative approach—targeting the antioxidant enzymes PRDX6 and GSTP1—that may sidestep the limitations of RA. The study, “Combined targeting of PRDX6 and GSTP1 as a potential differentiation strategy for neuroblastoma treatment,” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that dual inhibition of these enzymes not only kills some neuroblastoma cells but also transforms others into healthy, active neurons.

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Physicists at the University of Liège have succeeded in sculpting the surface of water by exploiting surface tension. Using 3D printing of closely spaced spines, they have combined menisci to create programmed liquid reliefs, capable of guiding particles under the action of gravity alone. This is a promising advance for microscopic transport and sorting, as well as marine pollution control. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Have you ever tried tilting a liquid in a glass? It’s completely impossible. If you tilt the glass, the surface of the liquid will automatically return to the horizontal … except for a small—barely visible—curvature that forms near the edge of the glass. This curvature is called a meniscus. And this meniscus is due to capillarity, a force acting on a millimeter scale and resulting from the of the liquid.

What would happen if we could create lots of little menisci over a large surface? What if these small reliefs could add up to form slopes, valleys, or even entire landscapes … liquid? This is exactly what scientists from the GRASP laboratory at the University of Liège, in collaboration with Brown University (U.S.), have succeeded in doing.

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During her uncle’s treatment in 2003, Green experienced what she refers to as a “divine download”—an electrifying idea inspired by her college internships at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the Institute of Optics. “If a satellite in outer space can tell if a dime on the ground is face up or face down, and if a cell phone can target just one cell phone on the other side of the planet,” she recalls thinking, “surely we should be able to harness the technology of lasers to treat cancer just at the site of the tumor, so we won’t have all of these side effects.”

In the nearly two decades that followed, Dr. Green rerouted her career, earned a physics PhD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham—the second Black woman to do so—and dove into cancer treatment research, with physics as her guide. In 2009, she developed a treatment that uses nanoparticles and lasers in tandem: Specially designed nanoparticles are injected into a solid tumor, and, when the tumor is hit with near infrared light, the nanoparticles heat up, killing the cancer cells. In a preliminary animal study published in 2014, Green tested the treatment on mice, whose tumors were eliminated with no observable side effects.

When Hadiyah-Nicole Green crossed the stage at her college graduation, she felt sure about what would come next. She’d start a career in optics—a good option for someone with a bachelor’s degree in physics—and that would be that.

Life, though, had other plans. The day after she graduated from Alabama A&M University, she learned that her aunt, Ora Lee Smith, had cancer. Smith and her husband had raised Green since she was four years old, after the death of Green’s mother and then grandparents.

Her aunt “said she’d rather die than experience the side effects of chemo or radiation,” says Green, now a medical physicist and founder and CEO of the Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation.

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🏗️ Q: What are the potential benefits of off-worlding heavy industry to space?

A: Space-based manufacturing can produce sustainable energy, food, and water for a trillion-dollar space economy, allowing Earth to recover as a garden planet for future generations.

Space-Based Manufacturing.

🧬 Q: How can microgravity in low-Earth orbit advance biotech manufacturing?

A: Enable unique manufacturing of protein crystals, tissues, and novel drugs impossible on Earth, with high-throughput production of exceptional quality organoids for Alzheimer’s and cancer drug testing.

☀️ Q: How can space-based solar power solve Earth’s energy challenges?

Continue reading “How to Build in Space — for Life on Earth” | >

One study showed that only 59% of organ transplant patients lived for one year after getting invasive aspergillosis. Only 25% of stem cell transplant patients survived that long.

From 2000 to 2013, US hospital stays for invasive aspergillosis went up about 3% each year. By 2014, there were almost 15,000 hospital stays, costing around $1.2 billion. Autopsies in ICUs show aspergillosis is one of the top four infections that can cause death.

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Working long hours may actually change the structure of your brain, according to new research published in Occupational & Environmental Medicine. The study points to alterations in key brain areas responsible for emotional regulation and executive functions like working memory and problem solving.

Researchers believe that chronic overwork could trigger neuroadaptive changes, which might have lasting effects on both cognitive performance and emotional well-being.

The dangers of working too much extend beyond burnout. Long hours have already been linked to higher risks of heart disease, metabolic disorders, and mental health problems. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) reports that overwork contributes to more than 800,000 deaths worldwide each year.

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Neuroscientists have uncovered a fascinating piece of the puzzle behind what makes us truly intelligent. While machines excel at repetitive tasks, humans and animals amaze with their ability to adapt, imagine, and generalize. What in the brain allows for this flexible thinking? A recent study in mice gives us clues by identifying specific brain cells responsible for tracking progress in complex behaviors—not just physical locations.

For decades, it has been known that certain brain cells, like place cells and grid cells, help animals navigate physical space. These cells create mental maps of the environment, guiding an animal or person through streets, rooms, or mazes. But what about navigating through a sequence of actions, such as cooking a new recipe or solving a fresh problem?

Researchers trained mice to perform a task in which they moved through a series of four goal locations to receive water rewards. The order of goals repeated in a loop, but to challenge them, the locations were moved. The mice instantly adjusted, understanding the sequence even in completely new situations. This wasn’t memory playing tricks; the mice were generalizing the structure of the task.

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