Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists at the University of Alberta have shown that the drug remdesivir is highly effective in stopping the replication mechanism of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, according to new research published today in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

The paper follows closely on research published by the same lab in late February that demonstrated how the drug worked against the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus, a related coronavirus.

“We were optimistic that we would see the same results against the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” said Matthias Götte, chair of medical microbiology and immunology at U of A.

Hey all! I have recently made a video on how it may be possible for all of humanity to be united under one government in the far future. I have posted a link to the video here. If you find it worthy, please consider liking and subscribing!

A topic of controversy, “one human government” is a very real possibility in the far future. In this video, I talk about the politics of the future human civilization and why I personally believe that there will not only be one human government but that the one government will be good for humanity.

Continue reading “Why There May Be One Human Government” »

High vibrational states of the Magnesium dimer (Mg₂) are an important system in studies of fundamental physics, although they have eluded experimental characterization for half a century. Experimental physicists have so far resolved the first 14 vibrational states of Mg_2, despite reports that the ground-state may support five additional levels. In a new report, Stephen H. Yuwono and a research team in the departments of physics and chemistry at the Michigan State University, U.S., presented highly accurate initial potential energy curves for the ground and excited electron states of Mg₂. They centered the experimental investigations on calculations of state-of-the-art coupled-cluster (CC) and full configuration interaction computations of the Mg₂ dimer. The ground-state potential confirmed the existence of 19 vibrational states with minimal deviation between previously calculated rovibrational values and experimentally derived data. The computations are now published on Science Advances and provide guidance to experimentally detect previously unresolved vibrational levels.

Background

Weakly bound alkaline-earth (AE₂) dimers can function as probes of fundamental physics phenomena, such as ultracold collisions, doped helium nanodroplets, binary reactions and even optical lattice clocks and quantum gravity. The magnesium dimer is important for such applications since it has several desirable characteristics including nontoxicity and an absence of hyperfine structure in the most abundant ²⁴ Mg isotope that typically facilitates the analysis of binary collisions and other quantum phenomena. However, the status of Mg₂ as a prototype heavier AE₂ species is complicated since scientists have not been able to experimentally characterize its high vibrational levels and ground-state potential energy curve (PEC) for so long.

O.,o wut!

A key signal for a certain kind of dark matter failed to turn up in a search throughout the Milky Way. Now scientists are disagreeing about what that means.

Interventions that may slow ageing include drugs (e.g., rapamycin, metformin), supplements (e.g., nicotinamide riboside, nicotinamide mononucleotide), lifestyle interventions (e.g., exercise) and diets (e.g., fasting)

Thanks to advances in modern medicine over the past century, the world’s population has experienced a marked increase in longevity. However, disparities exist that lead to groups with both shorter lifespan and significantly diminished health, especially in the aged. Unequal access to proper nutrition, healthcare services, and information to make informed health and nutrition decisions all contribute to these concerns. This in turn has hastened the ageing process in some and adversely affected others’ ability to age healthfully. Many in developing as well as developed societies are plagued with the dichotomy of simultaneous calorie excess and nutrient inadequacy. This has resulted in mental and physical deterioration, increased non-communicable disease rates, lost productivity and quality of life, and increased medical costs. While adequate nutrition is fundamental to good health, it remains unclear what impact various dietary interventions may have on improving healthspan and quality of life with age. With a rapidly ageing global population, there is an urgent need for innovative approaches to health promotion as individual’s age. Successful research, education, and interventions should include the development of both qualitative and quantitative biomarkers and other tools which can measure improvements in physiological integrity throughout life. Data-driven health policy shifts should be aimed at reducing the socio-economic inequalities that lead to premature ageing. A framework for progress has been proposed and published by the World Health Organization in its Global Strategy and Action Plan on Ageing and Health. This symposium focused on the impact of nutrition on this framework, stressing the need to better understand an individual’s balance of intrinsic capacity and functional abilities at various life stages, and the impact this balance has on their mental and physical health in the environments they inhabit.

There’s an iconic scene in the original Star Wars movie where Luke Skywalker looks out over the desert landscape of Tatooine at the amazing spectacle of a double sunset.

Now, a new study out of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) suggests that such exotic exoplanet worlds orbiting multiple stars may exist in misaligned orbits, far out of the primary orbital plane.

The find has implications for planetary formation in complex multiple star systems. The study used ALMA (the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) in Chile to look at 19 protoplanetary disks around binary stars with longer period orbits, versus a dozen binary stars known to host exoplanets with periods less than 40 days found in the Kepler space telescope observations.

Space can be a horror show of cosmic violence, and now astronomers have captured the first photographic evidence of the carnage that can be unleashed when two heavyweight galaxies collide.

A collaboration between an international team of researchers has produced the first ever image of a relativistic jet of gas and plasma spewing forth from a pair of galaxies as they dive head-first into one another.

While galaxies have been caught mid-collision plenty of times before, this is the first time a jet of this kind has been seen spilling out of such a merger, and it could tell us a thing or two about how they arise.

Whooping cough has made an astonishing comeback, with 2012 seeing nearly 50,000 infections in the U.S. (the most since 1955), and a death rate in infants three times that of the rest of the population. The dramatic resurgence has puzzled public health officials, who have pointed to the waning effectiveness of the current vaccine and growing anti-vaccine sentiment as the most likely culprits.

But that might not be the whole story, suggests a new study published in BMC Medicine by Santa Fe Institute Omidyar Fellows Ben Althouse and Sam Scarpino. Their research points to a different, but related, source of the outbreak — vaccinated people who are infectious but who do not display the symptoms of whooping cough, suggesting that the number of people transmitting without symptoms may be many times greater than those transmitting with symptoms.

In the 1950s, highly successful vaccines based on inactivated pertussis cells (the bacteria that causes whooping cough) drove infection rates in the U.S. below one case per 100,000 people. But adverse side effects of those vaccines led to the development and introduction in the 1990s of acellular pertussis vaccines, which use just a handful of the bacteria’s proteins and bypass most of the side effects. (Currently given to children as part of the Tdap vaccine.)

Circa 2013

These patents form part of Regeneron’s global patent portfolio, which together protect fundamental inventions behind Regeneron’s VelocImmune humanized mice. The two patents listed above specifically contain claims covering genetically modified mice that have unrearranged human immunoglobulin variable region gene segments at endogenous mouse immunoglobulin loci. The VelocImmune mice contain the full repertoire of human heavy chain immunoglobulin genes and kappa light chain genes, each linked to endogenous mouse constant regions. As a result, VelocImmune mice generate a normal and robust immune response which many believe is becoming the gold standard for making human antibody therapeutics. VelocImmune is also proving to be one of the most valuable technologies in biotechnology history, in terms of the licensing and collaboration revenues it has helped generate.

TARRYTOWN, N.Y., Aug. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted U.S. Patent No. 8,502,018 relating to methods of genetically modifying a mouse to make human antibodies. A similar European.