Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 9,102

Organic electronic devices, which are made of small molecules or polymers (i.e., substances composed primarily or completely of similar units bound together) are known to have several advantageous properties. In fact, organic electronics have relatively low production costs, they are easy to integrate with other systems and they enable good device flexibility.

Despite their advantages, most organic optoelectronics devices do not perform as well as devices built on rigid substrates. This is primarily due to the lack of existing flexible electrodes that can simultaneously provide low resistance, high transparency and smooth surfaces.

With this in mind, researchers at Nankai University in China have recently set out to create new organic electrodes for flexible photovoltaics, devices that can be used to capture sunlight and convert it into electricity. The electrodes they developed, presented in a paper published in Nature Electronics, were built using water-processed silver nanowires and a polyelectrolyte.

Read more | >

Last week, the BBC reported on the plight of axolotls in Mexico City, which are under threat of extinction. [1] The risk to these creatures is made doubly concerning when you consider their incredible ability to regenerate and apparent immunity to cancer, which is of great interest to scientists and companies working in the Longevity sector. One such company is Bioquark, a Philadelphia-based life sciences company that is working on the development of combinatorial biologics for the rejuvenation and repair of human organs and tissues. Among its clinical plans, it lists the development of therapeutic products for cancer reversion, organ repair and regeneration, and even brain death resuscitation. Nothing major then!

Bioquark has developed a novel combinatorial biologic called BQ-A, which mimics the regulatory biochemistry of the living human egg (oocyte) immediately following fertilization. While ooplasm-based reprogramming has been studied in experiments such as in-vitro fertilization and cloning, Bioquark claims it is the first company to apply it to somatic tissue in mammals.

We spoke with Bioquark’s CEO, Ira Pastor, a 30-year veteran of the pharmaceutical industry, to find out more about the company and where it’s headed.

Read more | >

Statistically, it’s unlikely that most of us will ever reach our 110th birthday, so scientists are fascinated by those few that do. In a new study, researchers looked at the immune systems of people who have hit the milestone, and found that they have a high number of a particular type of immune cell that’s rare even in healthy, younger people.

Even in our world of modern medicine, supercentenarians (people over the age of 110) are extremely rare, with estimates saying there are less than 1,000 such people worldwide. Perhaps not surprisingly, previous studies have shown that people who make it to 110 years old generally seem to avoid illnesses like cancer or infections throughout their whole lifetimes.

So for the new study, researchers at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Science (IMS) and Keio University set out to examine the immune systems of supercentenarians and compare them to younger people. They took over 40,000 cells from seven supercentenarian subjects, and about 20,000 cells from five control subjects, aged in their 50s to 80s.

Read more | >

While Intermittent fasting may sound like another dieting craze, the practice of routinely not eating and drinking for short periods of time has shown again to lead to potentially better health outcomes.

In a new study by researchers at the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City, researchers have found that cardiac catheterization patients who practiced regular intermittent lived longer than patients who don’t. In addition, the study found that patients who practice intermittent fasting are less likely to be diagnosed with .

“It’s another example of how we’re finding that regularly fasting can lead to better health outcomes and longer lives,” said Benjamin Horne, Ph.D., principal investigator of the study and director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute.

Read more | >

I found several bloopers here how about you??? AEWR.

If you buy something through a link on this page, we may earn a small commission. How this works.

While everyone has specific life stressors, factors related to job pressure, money, health, and relationships tend to be the most common.

Stress can be acute or chronic and lead to fatigue, headaches, upset stomach, nervousness, and irritability or anger.

Read more | >

The fast-moving development of brain-machine interfaces got a boost when Elon Musk announced the work for Neuralink, his new company devoted to implantable devices to enhance cognition and better marry our brains with super-computing. His competitor, fellow tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson of Kernel, weighs in on why he thinks advancing cognition can solve all the other problems in the world. But tech ethicist Tristan Harris says not so fast — we haven’t properly accounted for what existing tech has already done to us. Think things through with this brainy episode of Future You with Elise Hu.

—————————————————–

Follow NPR elsewhere, too:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/npr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NPR
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/npr/
• Tumblr: http://npr.tumblr.com/
• Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/npr

ABOUT NPR
NPR connects to audiences on the air, on demand, online, and in person. More than 26 million radio listeners tune in to NPR stations each week and more than 36 million unique visitors access NPR.org each month making NPR one of the most trusted sources of news and insights on life and the arts. NPR is also the leading publisher of podcasts, with 36 original shows and an average of 4 million listeners per week. NPR shares compelling stories, audio and photos with millions of social media users on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and Snapchat; NPR News and NPR One apps, online streaming, podcasts, iTunes radio and connected car dashboards help meet audiences where they are. NPR’s live events bring to the stage two-way conversations between NPR hosts and the audience in collaboration with the public radio Member Station community. This robust access to public service journalism makes NPR an indispensable resource in the media landscape.

Read more | >