Menu

Blog

Page 7390

Aug 11, 2019

Taming the Polar Bears

Posted by in category: futurism

Seeking Answers


It’s been almost a year and a half since I got the diagnosis.

Aug 11, 2019

Artificial Intelligence Based Approaches to Identify Molecular Determinants of Exceptional Health and Life Span-An Interdisciplinary Workshop at the National Institute on Aging

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension, robotics/AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a powerful approach for integrated analysis of the rapidly growing volume of multi-omics data, including many research and clinical tasks such as prediction of disease risk and identification of potential therapeutic targets. However, the potential for AI to facilitate the identification of factors contributing to human exceptional health and life span and their translation into novel interventions for enhancing health and life span has not yet been realized. As researchers on aging acquire large scale data both in human cohorts and model organisms, emerging opportunities exist for the application of AI approaches to untangle the complex physiologic process(es) that modulate health and life span. It is expected that efficient and novel data mining tools that could unravel molecular mechanisms and causal pathways associated with exceptional health and life span could accelerate the discovery of novel therapeutics for healthy aging. Keeping this in mind, the National Institute on Aging (NIA) convened an interdisciplinary workshop titled “Contributions of Artificial Intelligence to Research on Determinants and Modulation of Health Span and Life Span” in August 2018. The workshop involved experts in the fields of aging, comparative biology, cardiology, cancer, and computational science/AI who brainstormed ideas on how AI can be leveraged for the analyses of large-scale data sets from human epidemiological studies and animal/model organisms to close the current knowledge gaps in processes that drive exceptional life and health span. This report summarizes the discussions and recommendations from the workshop on future application of AI approaches to advance our understanding of human health and life span.

Aging is often described as the outcome of interactions among genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors with wide variation in life and health span between and within species (Newman and Murabito, 2013; Partridge et al., 2018; Singh et al., 2019). Exceptional life and health span represents an extreme phenotype characterized by exceptional survival (well-beyond average life expectancy), delayed onset of age-related diseases (before 80 years of age) (Pignolo, 2019) and/or preservation of good health/function relative to their peers (Perls et al., 2000, 2002; Kaeberlein, 2018). The identification of SNP associations with exceptional life and health span is a starting point for identifying targets for interventions that could potentially promote healthy human aging.

Aug 11, 2019

Forget qubits: Quantum physicists successfully teleported ‘qutrits’ in breakthrough experiments

Posted by in categories: computing, particle physics, quantum physics

Two independent research teams recently published studies indicating they’ve successfully teleported a qutrit — possibly within days of each other. Now, both await the scientific process of peer review to see which will ultimately get credit for being the first humans to do so.

But what’s a qutrit? It’s a lot like a qubit, an entangled pair of particles used to carry information in a quantum computing system. Qubits are analogous to bits, the binary units of information used by classical computers like the one you’re reading this on. Where bits can be represented by the numbers zero and one, qubits can be zero, one, or both at the same time. Trits, used in classical ternary systems, add a two into the mix. And qutrits are the quantum version of trits, capable of carrying more information than their qubit counterparts.

Aug 11, 2019

The Palm Beach Post

Posted by in categories: health, law enforcement, neuroscience

This article appears in Weekly Health Page July 31.

Researchers found that more than four out of five Ohio women who had been physically abused by their partners had suffered a head injury. A study that found domestic violence survivors had sustained staggering rates of head trauma and violent choking incidents suggests that many are left with ongoing health problems from “invisible injuries” to the brain.

But the effects of such injuries often go unrecognized by advocates, health care providers, law enforcement — even the victims themselves, researchers said.

Aug 11, 2019

This incredible

Posted by in category: space

Take an asteroid, give it swinging arms and turn it into a rocky jellyfish swimming through space. Project RAMA from @MadeInSpace can solve most of the problems associated with asteroid mining all in one go. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_20…tagged.pdf

Aug 11, 2019

Human microbiome churns out thousands of tiny novel proteins

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

Living healthier and longer can depend on probiotics more than we ever thought.


The bacteria in our gut make thousands of tiny, previously unidentified proteins that could shed light on human health and advance drug development, Stanford researchers have found.

Aug 11, 2019

What If We Settled on the Moon?

Posted by in category: space travel

NASA wants to send astronauts back to the moon by 2024. What if we stayed and settled on the Moon this time?

Aug 11, 2019

Bitcoin’s Computing Power Sets New Record as Over 100K Miners Go Online

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, computing

The total computing power now dedicated to securing the bitcoin blockchain has set yet another record.

According to data from mining services operator BTC.com, the average bitcoin mining hash rate over the last two weeks has reached71.43 quintillion hashes per second (EH/s), up from 64.49EH/s on July 23. The threshold was breached as bitcoin adjusted its mining difficultyat block height 586,672 on Monday 2:52 UTC – that is a 6.94EH/s, or10.78 percent jump since mid July.

Bitcoin mining difficulty is a measure of how hard it is to compete for mining rewards on bitcoin. Just how difficult the bitcoin software makes it to generate new blocks adjusts every 2,016 blocks – approximately every 14 days – to ensure the block production time remains about 10 minutes at the next cycle.

Aug 11, 2019

Bioinformatic prediction of critical genes and pathways involved in longevity in Drosophila melanogaster

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension

The pursuit of longevity has been the goal of humanity since ancient times. Genetic alterations have been demonstrated to affect lifespan. As increasing numbers of pro-longevity genes and anti-longevity genes have been discovered in Drosophila, screening for functionally important genes among the large number of genes has become difficult. The aim of the present study was to explore critical genes and pathways affecting longevity in Drosophila melanogaster. In this study, 168 genes associated with longevity in D. melanogaster were collected from the Human Ageing Genomic Resources (HAGR) database. Network clustering analysis, network topological analysis, and pathway analysis were integrated to identify key genes and pathways. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) was applied to verify the expression of genes in representative pathways and of predicted genes derived from the gene–gene sub-network. Our results revealed that six key pathways might be associated with longevity, including the longevity-regulating pathway, the peroxisome pathway, the mTOR-signalling pathway, the FOXO-signalling pathway, the AGE-RAGE-signalling pathway in diabetic complications, and the TGF-beta-signalling pathway. Moreover, the results revealed that six key genes in representative pathways, including Cat, Ry, S6k, Sod, Tor, and Tsc1, and the predicted genes Jra, Kay, and Rheb exhibited significant expression changes in ageing D. melanogaster strain w1118 compared to young ones. Overall, our results revealed that six pathways and six key genes might play pivotal roles in regulating longevity, and three interacting genes might be implicated in longevity. The results will not only provide new insight into the mechanisms of longevity, but also provide novel ideas for network-based approaches for longevity-related research.

Aug 11, 2019

Scientists Successfully Turn Breast Cancer Cells Into Fat to Stop Them From Spreading

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Researchers have been able to coax human breast cancer cells to turn into fat cells in a new proof-of-concept study in mice.

To achieve this feat, the team exploited a weird pathway that metastasising cancer cells have; their results are just a first step, but it’s a truly promising approach.

When you cut your finger, or when a foetus grows organs, the epithelium cells begin to look less like themselves, and more ‘fluid’ – changing into a type of stem cell called a mesenchyme and then reforming into whatever cells the body needs.