Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that a particular type of immune cell encourages harmful inflammation in the heart after a heart attack, and they have found a potential solution for protecting the heart.

The study, which was led by Dr. Douglas L. Mann, showed that a mouse model of human heart attack lived longer than control mice when treated with the drug pirfenidone, a drug already approved for treating lung conditions. The researchers showed that the drug works by regulating the immune response of B cell lymphocytes in the heart, thereby reducing inflammation and progressive injury following a cardiac event.

Pirfenidone is already used to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a condition in which the lungs become increasingly damaged and form scar tissue rather than healthy, functioning tissue. The researchers hope to understand how pirfenidone works in the heart and reduces inflammation; in doing so, they could potentially modify the drug to work more efficiently.

Since the Reagan administration, federal agencies have been required to produce cost-benefit analyses of their major regulations. These assessments are designed to ensure that regulators are pursuing actions that make society better off.

In my experience working on the White House economic team in the Clinton and Obama administrations, I found cost-benefit analysis provides a solid foundation for understanding the impacts of regulatory proposals. It also generates thoughtful discussion of ways to design rules to maximize net benefits to the public.

Continue reading “Why a minor change to how EPA makes rules could radically reduce environmental protection” »

Humanity has long dreamed about sending humans to other planets, even before crewed spaceflight became a reality. And with the discovery of thousands exoplanets in recent decades, particularly those that orbit within neighboring star systems (like Proxima b), that dream seems closer than ever to becoming a reality.

But of course, a lot of technical challenges need to be overcome before we can hope to mount such a mission.

In addition, a lot of questions need to be answered. For example, what kind of ship should we send to Proxima b or other nearby exoplanets? And how many people would we need to place aboard that ship?

Continue reading “To Start a New Life at Proxima Centauri, This Is How Many People We Need to Send” »

Solar energy is clean and abundant. But when the sun isn’t shining, you must store the energy in batteries or through a process called photocatalysis—in which solar energy is used to make fuels. In photocatalytic water splitting, sunlight separates water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen and oxygen can then be recombined in a fuel cell to release energy.

Now, a new class of materials—halide double perovskites—may have just the right properties to split water, according to a newly published paper in Applied Physics Letters.

“If we can come up with a material that can be useful as a water-splitting photocatalyst, then it would be an enormous breakthrough,” said Feliciano Giustino, a co-author on the paper.

Continue reading “Promising new material has the right properties to capture solar energy, split water into hydrogen and oxygen” »

A space launch every 3 hours may soon be possible using rockets carried on a fully autonomous unmanned airplane, a new startup company suggests.

Alabama-based startup Aevum aims to per mission, using an air-launch system called Ravn.

“Ravn is designed to launch every 180 minutes,” Jay Skylus, Aevum’s CEO and chief launch architect, told Space.com. “Other launch vehicles fly only a handful of times a year with an average of 18 months of lead time.” [Rocket Launches: The Latest Liftoffs, Photos & Videos].

CADET EXPLORER MISSION

Let Bill Nye and Robert Picardo take you on a journey through the future of space exploration and artificial intelligence. Each week they will show us a different space-themed topic and reveal how AI can help us reach the stars.

What does it mean to be human in world of increasingly powerful technology? This is a question video games have grappled with, most recently in the “Deus Ex” franchise and the upcoming E3 show-stealing “Cyberpunk 2077.”

Daedalic’s “State of Mind” approaches the topic in a different, more philosophical way. Guns and body mods aren’t the order of the day. Rather, “State of Mind” is a narrative adventure that considers how far the human race will go to trade dystopia for utopia.

Creative lead Martin Ganteföhr is an avid follower of transhumanist theory, and how humanity will evolve over the coming decades as scientists pursue the singularity. Transhumanism explores the intersection of people and technology, with the ultimate goal giving all people access to technology that leads to an egalitarian utopia.

Continue reading “Elon Musk and ‘State of Mind’s’ Transhumanism Philosophy” »

Better than coffee smile

___ A great way to learn more about our brains and minds is to look at how we can trick them—that is, to see how we react to brain teasers and visual illusions. Below are four fun optical illusio…

Antibiotics have saved countless lives for the better part of a century, but these medical marvels may be approaching the end of their usefulness. Thanks to overuse, bacteria are rapidly evolving resistance to our best drugs, prompting scientists to try to develop new ones. Now, a team at Purdue University has found that a compound called F6 is effective at killing bacteria that have already evolved resistance to existing antibiotics. In tests, the new drug also seems less susceptible to bacterial resistance down the track.

The discovery and use of antibiotics was one of the greatest scientific achievements of the 20th century, as previously-dangerous procedures quickly became safe and infections relatively easy to treat. But after decades of overuse and overprescription, bacteria are fighting back, with more and more antibiotics becoming ineffective – including some of our last lines of defense. If left unaddressed, the problem is predicted to worsen until these so-called superbugs are killing up to 10 million people a year by 2050.