Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 8603

Obesity is an important issue.

The brain mechanism that enables us to maintain a constant body temperature may also be the key to rapid weight loss, a new study finds. In experiments involving mice that were given a calorie-restricted diet, scientists at Scripps Research discovered that blocking a brain receptor that normally regulates body heat resulted in significant weight reductions.

The findings will be further explored as a potential treatment approach for obesity, which the World Health Organization has called a global epidemic. Obesity affects virtually all age and —increasing risk for , stroke, diabetes, cancer and many other serious health conditions.

The new study, led by Scripps Research Professor Bruno Conti, Ph.D., appears in Current Biology.

Continue reading “Brain receptor that regulates body heat may also help accelerate weight loss” | >

Researcher Dr. Michael Lustgarten has recently published a compact and very readable review that focuses on the role of the gut microbiome and its influence on skeletal muscle mass.

The gut microbiome

The microbiome describes a varied community of bacteria, archaea, eukarya, and viruses that inhabit our gut. The four bacterial phyla of Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteria comprise 98% of the intestinal microbiome.

Read more | >

Hollie Fraser, founder of Books On The Move, worldwide book sharing movement, creative director and ideaXme literature, reading and writing ambassador interviews Matthew Newman, 2019 best Kindle book author.

Matthew S. Newman, is a 39 year old cancer survivor and best-selling author of Starting At The Finish Line. He is a fitness aficionado, and a financial services industry speaker. His mission is help the wider public and to encourage financial preparedness. He does this by telling his story of brain cancer survival and the financial lessons and wisdom he learnt as a result.

Matthew’s book was named a Best Kindle Unlimited Books for 2019. To this day, fitness is still a big part of his life. You can see him here working out shortly after brain surgery! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2G-Sq7iOuM

Continue reading “How to Start at The Finish Line: Cancer Survivor” | >

The search for youthfulness typically turns to lotions, supplements, serums and diets, but there may soon be a new option joining the fray. Rapamycin, a FDA-approved drug normally used to prevent organ rejection after transplant surgery, may also slow aging in human skin, according to a study from Drexel University College of Medicine researchers published in Geroscience.

Basic science studies have previously used the drug to slow aging in mice, flies, and worms, but the current study is the first to show an effect on aging in human tissue, specifically skin – in which signs of aging were reduced. Changes include decreases in wrinkles, reduced sagging and more even skin tone — when delivered topically to humans.

“As researchers continue to seek out the elusive ‘fountain of youth’ and ways to live longer, we’re seeing growing potential for use of this drug,” said senior author Christian Sell, PhD, an associate professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the College of Medicine. “So, we said, let’s try skin. It’s a complex organism with immune, nerve cells, stem cells – you can learn a lot about the biology of a drug and the aging process by looking at skin.”

Read more | >

What – one vast, ancient and mysterious universe isn’t enough for you? Well, as it happens, there are others. Among physicists, it’s not controversial. Our universe is but one in an unimaginably massive ocean of universes called the multiverse.

If that concept isn’t enough to get your head around, physics describes different kinds of multiverse. The easiest one to comprehend is called the cosmological multiverse. The idea here is that the universe expanded at a mind-boggling speed in the fraction of a second after the big bang. During this period of inflation, there were quantum fluctuations which caused separate bubble universes to pop into existence and themselves start inflating and blowing bubbles. Russian physicist Andrei Linde came up with this concept, which suggests an infinity of universes no longer in any causal connection with one another – so free to develop in different ways.

Cosmic space is big – perhaps infinitely so. Travel far enough and some theories suggest you’d meet your cosmic twin – a copy of you living in a copy of our world, but in a different part of the multiverse. String theory, which is a notoriously theoretical explanation of reality, predicts a frankly meaninglessly large number of universes, maybe 10 to the 500 or more, all with slightly different physical parameters.

Read more | >

New research from the University of Rochester will enhance the accuracy of computer models used in simulations of laser-driven implosions. The research, published in the journal Nature Physics, addresses one of the challenges in scientists’ longstanding quest to achieve fusion.

In -driven (ICF) experiments, such as the experiments conducted at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), short beams consisting of intense pulses of light—pulses lasting mere billionths of a second—deliver energy to heat and compress a target of hydrogen fuel cells. Ideally, this process would release more energy than was used to heat the system.

Laser-driven ICF experiments require that many laser beams propagate through a —a hot soup of free moving electrons and ions—to deposit their radiation energy precisely at their intended target. But, as the beams do so, they interact with the plasma in ways that can complicate the intended result.

Read more | >

Cyrus Biotechnology has teamed up with the Broad Institute to optimize CRISPR for use in humans. Feng Zhang, who had a hand in developing CRISPR, will serve as the Broad’s principal investigator for the collaboration.

One concern with using CRISPR-Cas9 to perform in vivo genome editing stems from the risk that the body will mount an immune response against the system. Those concerns have grown as researchers have shown that many people have antibodies against Cas9, reflecting the fact that the homologs of the protein used in genome editing systems are derived from bacteria that commonly infect people.

Cyrus, which lists Johnson & Johnson among its customers, thinks its technology can mitigate the risk of an immune reaction. That confidence reflects Cyrus’ experience of using software to identify and work around the epitopes in protein therapeutics that cause immunogenicity.

Read more | >