Lifeboat Foundation

Prior studies in mice have shown that whole body vibration (WBV) can mimic some of the positive effects on health of exercise, and even reverse some of the symptoms of type 2 diabetes. New research by a team at the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) and Dental College of Georgia (DCG) at Augusta University has provided new clues as to the mechanisms involved. Their studies in a mouse model of obesity showed that WBV results in increased levels of inflammation-suppressing immune system macrophages, and high numbers of gut bacteria that makes short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which can help the body better utilize glucose.

The findings “… support the notion that WBV has the potential to alter the microbiota in a way that triggers innate and mucosal immunity to produce anti-inflammatory responses, down-regulating the hyper-inflammatory state and reversing the adverse consequences,” the investigators wrote in their published paper in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. “More studies are required to solidify this novel approach, which can be a very affordable and effective therapeutic modality in the prevention and treatment of many diseases, including diabetes and obesity.” The researchers, headed by Jack Yu, MD, chief of pediatric plastic surgery at MCG, and Babak Baban, PhD, immunologist and intern associate dean for research at DCG, reported their findings in a paper titled, “Whole Body Vibration-Induced Omental Macrophage Polarization and Fecal Microbiome Modification in a Murine Model.”

The combination of high-fat, sugar-heavy diets and “massively reduced physical activities” is largely responsible for what the researchers called “an epidemic of obesity and chronic metabolic diseases,” including type 2 diabetes. Chronic inflammation is a major contributory factor to the development of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, and the immune system’s macrophages play a key role in regulating inflammatory responses.

The premier hospitals tend to have the most superbugs — they also have the best experts.

Imagine if you had a smart A.I. assistant in your head, capable of silently feeding you external information whenever you required it, without you needing to say a single word? That’s exactly what MIT postdoctoral researcher Arnav Kapur has developed. Here’s how it works.

For five years, several AT&T employees were conspiring with a Pakistani man to install malware on company computers so that man could unlock millions of smartphones subsidized by the carrier, according to federal investigators.

On Tuesday, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment against Muhammad Fahd for bribing AT&T employees at a call center in Washington state to pull off the scheme. According to the feds, Fahd allegedly paid more than $1 million in bribes to the AT&T employees during the conspiracy, which allowed him to fraudulently unlock more than 2 million AT&T phones from 2012 to 2017.

Fahd allegedly partnered with businesses that offered cell phone unlocking services in exchange for a fee. These unnamed business would then supply him with the IMEI numbers of the phones bound to AT&T’s network.

For DeepMind, the emergence of the new headquarters is symbolic of a new chapter for the company as it turns its research heft and compute power to try to understand, among other things, the building blocks of organic life. In so doing, the company hopes to make breakthroughs in medicine and other disciplines that will significantly impact progress in a number of fields. “Our mission should be one of the most fascinating journeys in science,” Hassabis says. “We’re trying to build a cathedral to scientific endeavour.”

DeepMind’s AI has beaten chess grandmasters and Go champions. But founder and CEO Demis Hassabis now has his sights set on bigger, real-world problems that could change lives. First up: protein folding.

My regular readers appreciate the fact that NASA is partnering with a number of commercial space businesses to permanently expand the human frontier into cis-Lunar space. While $20 billion in federal funding drives NASA’s amazing programs, the agency doesn’t get that money without strong public support. NASA has also long been supported by the National Space Society, a group founded by Werner von Braun. I’m proud to represent NSS as their Vice President of Space Development and to have chaired their International Space Development Conference this year. I’m also a huge fan of the Moon Village Association, which is helping to pave an international path for lunar settlement. The Southern California Commercial Spaceflight Initiative, which I direct at USC, hosted both those groups in a fantastic event last year. I’m excited to note that we will bring in the Mars Society this fall. That organization, founded by Robert Zubrin, leads the push for our next step, colonizing the Red Planet. You may however, be less familiar with the small group of aspirational space visionaries already working on conquering the stars, or with Tau Zero, the foundation dedicated to achieving that most audacious goal.

The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 spacecraft is continuing to sail on sunlight in Earth orbit. The high point, or apogee of the spacecraft’s orbit around the Earth was 729 kilometers on Monday, 5 August—an increase of 3.2 kilometers since sail deployment on 23 July. The spacecraft has also captured a few new images, which are available on our raw image downlink page.

Don’t worry, this was a planned end for a tiny satellite that has been a huge success.

At 14:08 UTC on 31 July, Longjiang-2, also known as DSLWP-B, passed behind the Moon for the last time. Half an hour later, with an absence of new signals to indicate a reappearance, it was clear that the Moon had lost an orbiter and gained a new crater on its far side. According to a prediction by Daniel Estévez, the 50-centimeter-tall, 47-kilogram DSLWP-B satellite impacted at 14:20 UTC.

Not to worry—this was a planned measure to prevent potential collisions or debris for future missions. A maneuver performed 24 January lowered the periapsis of the satellite’s lunar orbit by about 500 kilometers, with orbital perturbations over time seeing the satellite impacting the Moon Wednesday after 432 days in lunar orbit.

Seven years. 13 miles. 22 samples. ⁣ ⁣ NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover has come a long way since touching down on the Red Planet seven years ago. See for yourself: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/new-finds-for-mars-rover-se…er-landing

NASA’s Curiosity rover has come a long way since touching down on Mars seven years ago. It has traveled a total of 13 miles (21 kilometers) and ascended 1,207 feet (368 meters) to its current location. Along the way, Curiosity discovered Mars had the conditions to support microbial life in the ancient past, among other things.

Continue reading “New Finds for Mars Rover, Seven Years After Landing” »