Lifeboat Foundation

Gold, silver and copper are heavy metals, but LLNL scientists can now make them nearly as light as air—in a form so tiny it can ride on a mosquito’s back.

The groundbreaking science, part of a joint NIF/Physical and Life Sciences (PLS) project supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program, created these ultra-low density metal foams to give physicists better X-ray sources to employ in experiments that support NIF’s Stockpile Stewardship mission.

The foam is the product of a nearly decade-long research effort by members of the Lab’s NIF and PLS directorates for use on inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments at NIF, the world’s most energetic laser system.

Soon after the invention of the laser in the late 1950s many dubbed the discovery as a solutYou’ve reached the limit of what you can view on Physics World without registering If you already have an account on Physics World, then please sign in to continue reading If you do not yet have an account, …

French scientists find common mental health drugs combat rapid and sometimes deadly brain infection. Andrew Masterson reports.

The number of Americans who believe in aliens is now about the same as the number who believe in God.

Our relationship with aliens is mirroring the start of a new religion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jplaE-CO0hQ

28 November 2017

Rejuvenation is a medical discipline focused on the practical reversal of the aging process.
Rejuvenation is distinct from life extension. Life extension strategies often study the causes of aging and try to oppose those causes in order to slow aging. Rejuvenation is the reversal of aging and thus requires a different strategy, namely repair of the damage that is associated with aging or replacement of damaged tissue with new tissue. Rejuvenation can be a means of life extension, but most life extension strategies do not involve rejuvenation.

Continue reading “How We Will Cure The Diseases of Ageing — with Aubrey de Grey” »

A group of Spanish researchers, including Dr. Maria Blasco and others at the CNIO, have published a new study that examines the consequences of short telomeres and telomerase deficiency on the brain [1].

This study addresses an aspect of telomere attrition, one of the primary hallmarks of aging. Telomeres are repeating sequences of DNA (TTAGGG) that can can reach a length of 15,000 base pairs and appear at the ends of chromosomes, acting as protective caps. They prevent damage, stop chromosomes from fusing with each other, and prevent chromosomes from losing base pair sequences at their end during cell replication.

The past year or so has seen an energetic debate over whether or not new neurons are generated in the adult human brain, a process known as neurogenesis. This process is well known and well studied in mice, and thought to be very important in the resilience and maintenance of brain tissue. The human data has always been limited, however, due to the challenges inherent in working with brain tissue in living people, and it was assumed was that the mouse data was representative of the state of neurogenesis in other mammals. In this environment, the publication of a careful study that seemed to rule out the existence of neurogenesis in adult humans produced some upheaval, and spurred many other teams to assess the human brain with greater rigor than was previously the case.

So far, all of the following studies published so far do in fact show evidence of adult neurogenesis in humans. This is the better of the two outcomes, as the regenerative medicine community has based a great deal of work on the prospect of being able to upregulate neurogenesis in order to better repair injuries to the central nervous system, or partially reverse the decline of cognitive function in the aging brain. The study here is particularly reassuring, as it shows that even in very late life there are signs that new neurons are being generated in the brain.