Lifeboat Foundation

College Freshman, Bailey O’Brien beat Stage 4 Melanoma at CHIPSA Hospital in 2011! The cancer she thought she beat, had come back with a vengeance. She had 7 inoperable tumors and doctors at Sloan Kettering only gave her months to live. Refusing this death sentence, her parents ventured to CHIPSA for treatment: https://chipsahospital.org/how-bailey-obrien-beat-the-odds-a…-hospital/

The astronauts who will one day explore Mars may be able to use a smart glove integrated into their space suits to control drones, using a simple hand gesture or finger movement. NASA and the SETI Institute have improved on a connected object created by a Norwegian start-up by the name of Ntention in order to integrate it into the thick and rigid suits worn by space explorers.

As jobs are automated out of existence, the division between the very wealthy and the very poor will grow — and any notion of a comfortable middle class will vanish.

That’s according to Roey Tzezana, a future studies researcher at Israel’s Tel Aviv University, according to Haaretz. That stands in contrast to the common argument that new jobs will emerge as others vanish, painting a grim picture for the workforce and global economy.

Your gastrointestinal system contains about a hundred trillion bacteria. That may sound scary, but it’s actually beneficial because these bacteria help with digestion, immunity and other important functions.

Even though they are basically helpful, the bacteria can go astray in disagreeable ways.

Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is a condition where otherwise beneficial bacteria end up in the wrong part of the digestive system, then proliferate and cause unpleasant symptoms such as abdominal pain, gas, bloating, constipation and diarrhea.

As artificial intelligence systems take on more tasks and solve more problems, it’s hard to say which is rising faster: our interest in them or our fear of them. Futurist Ray Kurzweil famously predicted that “By 2029, computers will have emotional intelligence and be convincing as people.”

We don’t know how accurate this prediction will turn out to be. Even if it takes more than 10 years, though, is it really possible for machines to become conscious? If the machines Kurzweil describes say they’re conscious, does that mean they actually are?

Perhaps a more relevant question at this juncture is: what is consciousness, and how do we replicate it if we don’t understand it?

Mount Sinai researchers have designed an innovative experimental therapy that may be able to stop the growth of triple-negative breast cancer, the deadliest type of breast cancer, which has few effective treatment options, according to a study published in Nature Chemical Biology in December.

The therapy is known is MS1943. In a cancer cell line and mouse models, it degraded a protein called EZH2 that drives the growth of triple-negative breast cancer.

Research teams led by Jian Jin, Ph.D., Director of the Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, and Ramon Parsons, MD, Ph.D., Director of The Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai, developed MS1943 as a first-in-class small-molecule agent that selectively degrades EZH2. They also showed that agents that inhibit the enzymatic activity of EZH2 but do not degrade EZH2 did not work in triple-negative breast cancer.

Cancer immunology drugs, which harness the body’s immune system to better attack cancer cells, have significantly changed the face of cancer treatment. People with aggressive cancers are now living longer, healthier lives. Unfortunately, cancer immunology therapy only works in a subset of patients.

Now, a new study from scientists at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center helps explain why some people with advanced cancer may not respond to one of the leading immunotherapies, PD-1 blockade, and how a new combination approach may help overcome resistance to the immunotherapy drug.

The UCLA study, published today in the inaugural issue of the new scientific journal Nature Cancer, showed that genetic and pharmacological inhibition of the oncogene PAK4 overcomes resistance to anti-PD-1 therapy in preclinical models.

Human behavior is often explained in terms of unseen entities such as motivation, curiosity, anxiety and confidence. What has been unclear is whether these mental entities are coded by specific neurons in specific areas of the brain.

Professor Adam Kepecs at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has answered some of these questions in new research published in Nature. The findings could lead to the development of more effective treatments for obsessive compulsive disorder, compulsive gambling and other psychiatric disorders.

The team studied the orbitofrontal cortex, an area critical for decision-making in humans and animals alike. Damage to this brain region impairs decision-making. In a famous example, Phineas Gage, a railway worker, survived extreme damage to this area when an iron rod pierced his skull in an explosion. Gage survived but his personality and decision-making skills didn’t.

Researchers at EPFL have discovered that the viscosity of solutions of electrically charged polymers dissolved in water is influenced by a quantum effect. This tiny quantum effect influences the way water molecules interact with one another. Yet, it can lead to drastic changes in large-scale observations. This effect could change the way scientists understand the properties and behavior of solutions of biomolecules in water, and lead to a better understanding of biological systems.

Water is the basis of all life on earth. Its structure is simple—two hydrogen atoms bound to one oxygen atom—yet its behavior is unique among liquids, and scientists still do not fully understand the origins of its distinctive properties.

When charged polymers are dissolved in water the aqueous solution becomes more viscous than expected. This high viscosity is used by nature in the human body. The lubricating and shock-absorbing properties of the synovial fluid—a solution of water and charged biopolymers—is what allows us to bend, stretch and compress our joints over our entire lives without damage.