Lifeboat Foundation

Vitamin D supplements with or without calcium, while necessary for overall health, have no effect on preventing falls or fractures in older adults, according to a new draft recommendation from the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force.

By analyzing 20 unique randomized, controlled studies in 54 different publications, reviewers determined that additional vitamin D supplementation for postmenopausal women and older men — given that those populations had normal vitamin D levels, no previous fractures, and no issues with bone density — was unnecessary and had no bearing on the severity of injuries from falls.

The finding was an update from a 2018 recommendation that postmenopausal women should not supplement with 400 units or less of vitamin D and 1,000 milligrams or less of calcium for the primary prevention of fracture; men were not included in that recommendation.

What if our understanding of time as a linear sequence of events is merely an illusion created by the brain’s processing of reality? Could time itself be an emergent phenomenon, arising from the complex interplay of quantum mechanics, relativity, and consciousness? How might the brain’s multidimensional computations, reflecting patterns found in the universe, reveal a deeper connection between mind and cosmos? Is it possible that advancements in our understanding of temporal mechanics could one day make time travel a practical reality rather than a theoretical concept? Could Quantum AI and Reversible Quantum Computing provide the tools to simulate, manipulate, and even reshape the flow of time, offering practical applications of D-Theory that bridge the gap between theoretical physics and transformative technologies? These profound questions lie at the heart of Temporal Mechanics: D-Theory as a Critical Upgrade to Our Understanding of the Nature of Time, my 2025 paper and book. D-Theory, also referred to as Quantum Temporal Mechanics, Digital Presentism, and D-Series, challenges conventional views of time as a fixed, universal backdrop to reality and instead redefines it as a dynamic interplay between the mind and the cosmos.

Misfolded proteins may preserve postmortem brains well after other tissues have decayed.

By Kermit Pattison edited by Tanya Lewis

No part of our body is as perishable as the brain. Within minutes of losing its supply of blood and oxygen, our delicate neurological machinery begins to suffer irreversible damage. The brain is our most energy-greedy organ, and in the hours after death, its enzymes typically devour it from within. As cellular membranes rupture, the brain liquifies. Within days, microbes may consume the remnants in the stinky process of putrefaction. In a few years, the skull becomes just an empty cavity.

Our purpose-built “frog saunas” allow amphibians to warm up in winter and bake off chytrid infections. You can even DIY and build a frog sauna for your own backyard with our step-by-step guide.

📚 🧑🏻‍🔬 By Dr. Lena Katharina Müller-Heupt et al.

MDPI university of nebraska medical center — UNMC.

This study investigated the whitening effect, cytotoxicity and enamel surface alterations induced by different over-the-counter (OTC) bleaching agents in comparison to hydrogen peroxide. Human teeth (n = 60) were randomly assigned into 6 groups (n = 10), stained with coffee solution for 7 d, followed by a whitening period of 7 d with either placebo, bromelain, sodium bicarbonate, sodium chlorite, PAP or hydrogen peroxide. Color measurements were performed with a spectrophotometer. Scanning electron micrographs (SEM) were taken to assess the enamel structure. Cytotoxicity of the tested substances was assessed based on the cell viability of primary human fibroblasts. The application of all whitening gels resulted in a greater color difference of the enamel (ΔE) in comparison to the negative control. Hydrogen peroxide caused the greatest color difference.

All solids have a crystal structure that shows the spatial arrangement of atoms, ions or molecules in the lattice. These crystal structures are often determined by a method known as X-ray diffraction technique (XRD).

These crystal structures play an import role in determining many physical properties such as the electronic band structure, cleavage and explains many of their physical and chemical properties.

This article aims to discuss an approach to identify these structures by various machine learning and deep learning methods. It demonstrates how supervised machine learning and deep learning approaches and help in determining various crystal structures of solids.

We are in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices’ era, in which quantum hardware has become available for application in real-world problems. However, demonstrations of the usefulness of such NISQ devices are still rare. In this work, we consider a practical railway dispatching problem: delay and conflict management on single-track railway lines. We examine the train dispatching consequences of the arrival of an already delayed train to a given network segment. This problem is computationally hard and needs to be solved almost in real time. We introduce a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) model of this problem, which is compatible with the emerging quantum annealing technology. The model’s instances can be executed on present-day quantum annealers.

Cephalopods’ remarkable behavior and complex neurobiology make them valuable comparative model organisms, but studies aimed at enhancing welfare of captive cephalopods remain uncommon. Increasing regulation of cephalopods in research laboratories has resulted in growing interest in welfare-oriented refinements, including analgesia and anesthesia. Although general and local anesthesia in cephalopods have received limited prior study, there have been no studies of systemic analgesics in cephalopods to date. Here we show that analgesics from several different drug classes may be effective in E. berryi. Buprenorphine, ketorolac and dexmedetomidine, at doses similar to those used in fish, showed promising effects on baseline nociceptive thresholds, excitability of peripheral sensory nerves, and on behavioral responses to transient noxious stimulation.

Tohoku University scientists created lab-grown neural networks using microfluidic devices, mimicking natural brain activity and enabling advanced studies of learning and memory.

The phrase “Neurons that fire together, wire together” encapsulates the principle of neural plasticity in the human brain. However, neurons grown in a laboratory dish do not typically adhere to these rules. Instead, cultured neurons often form random, unstructured networks where all cells fire simultaneously, failing to mimic the organized and meaningful connections seen in a real brain. As a result, these in-vitro models provide only limited insights into how learning occurs in living systems.

What if, however, we could create in-vitro neurons that more closely replicate natural brain behavior?