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A new study is the first to report evidence that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like aspirin may lessen the adverse effects of air pollution exposure on lung function. The team of researchers from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, Harvard Chan School of Public Health, Boston University School of Medicine published their findings in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The researchers analyzed a subset of data collected from a cohort of 2,280 male veterans from the greater Boston area who were given tests to determine their lung function. The average age of participants was 73 years. The researchers examined the relationship between test results, self-reported NSAID use, and ambient particulate matter (PM) and black carbon in the month preceding the test, while accounting for a variety of factors, including the health status of the subject and whether or not he was a smoker. They found that the use of any NSAID nearly halved of the effect of PM on lung function, with the association consistent across all four weekly air pollution measurements from same-day to 28 days prior to the lung function test.

Because most of the people in the study cohort who took NSAIDs used aspirin, the researchers say the modifying effect they observed was mainly from aspirin, but add that effects of non-aspirin NSAIDs are worthy of further exploration. While the mechanism is unknown, the researchers speculate that NSAIDs mitigate inflammation brought about by air pollution.

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A year old, and this video is titled with the “I-word”. But a very interesting talk.

It’s not every day that I get to post a video where I feel like I’m involved with something that may seriously improve and extend lives. I’m so grateful that somehow, I was brought into this process.

The ForbiddenKnowledgeTV newsletter and website attract a large number of physicians and health-practitioner subscribers and it’s been a real joy to make friends with the doctors on my list over the years. One leading physician who first contacted me, way back in August 2011 was Dr. Ron Klatz, Founder-President of the American Academy of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine (A4M).

Continue reading “Immortality by 2029” | >

An international team of researchers recently placed an entire molecule into a state of quantum superposition. This huge breakthrough represents the largest object to ever be observed in such a state – essentially occupying two places at once. And it may just be the eureka moment that defines our species’ far-future technology.

Quantum physics is about as close to a faith-based field of scientific study as there is. It’s not our fault, the universe is infinite and complex and we’ve been here for a relatively short amount of time. It’s excusable that we still don’t understand all the rules and, in lieu of a blueprint, we’re forced to come up with theories to explain the things we don’t know.

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If India can continue to develop its urban centres and promote a Silicon Valley spirit of entrepreneurship, it could be in a prime position to achieve global tech hub status. Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) in the south and Gurgaon in the north are two tech-savvy cities emblematic of India’s rapid urbanization. The country is set to become the largest contributor to the world’s urban population.

India has long branded itself as the world’s leading outsourcing destination for global companies, particularly for those in the technology sector — but in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the time is ripe for the world’s most populous country to reinvent itself.

There is a burgeoning start-up and innovation culture, as shown by the Global Innovation Index, where India has improved its ranking from 81 to 52 between 2015 and 2019. In addition, the country has improved its reputation in terms of the risk posed to foreign investments and, in 2019, ranked third in the world in terms of attracting investment for technology transactions.

To maintain this momentum, India needs to further improve government regulations to encourage support for technological innovation, train tech talent and incentivize it to stay in the country and continue to improve its risk profile by attracting significant foreign and domestic investment in technology. Provided these favourable conditions can be met, India has unmatched potential to become the world’s next Silicon Valley.

Continue reading “This is how India can become the next Silicon Valley” | >

A team of researchers from Baylor University, with assistance from staff at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has developed and tested a smartphone app that is able to detect “white eye” in children by analyzing stored photographs. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes how the app was developed and tested, and how well it works.

Most everyone has seen pictures of people seemingly possessed by the devil because their pupils glow red—this is caused by light bouncing off their retinas. However, such pictures sometimes produce white instead of red retinas. Sometimes it can happen due to ambient lighting conditions, but other times, it can indicate an eye ailment. Such problems can include retinoblastoma, a type of eye cancer, retinopathy, or even cataracts.

The idea for an app that could detect white eye came from the experience of one of the researchers, Brian Shaw, and his son, who developed retinoblastoma and subsequently lost an eye. The team developed the app and made it available to the public back in 2014, but it was not until more recently that the team decided to test the app to see how well it works.

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As quantum objects are susceptible to their surrounding environment, quantum coherence and quantum states can easily be destroyed due to the impact of external signals, which can include thermal noise and backscattered signals in the measurement circuit. Researchers have thus been trying to develop techniques to enable nonreciprocal signal propagation, which could help to block the undesired effects of backward noise.

In a recent study, members of the dynamic spintronics group at the University of Manitoba in Canada have proposed a new method to produce dissipative coupling in hybrid quantum systems. Their technique, presented in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, enables nonreciprocal signal propagation with a substantial isolation ratio and flexible controllability.

“Our recent work on nonreciprocity in cavity magnonics is grounded in a research area combining cavity spintronics and hybrid quantum systems, which holds promise for constructing new quantum information processing platforms,” Yi-Pu Wang, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Manitoba who was involved in the study, told Phys.org.

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