Lifeboat Foundation

Jared Isaacman — the billionaire CEO of payments processing company Shift 4 — is buying three more flights with SpaceX, the first of which is scheduled for this year and could put Isaacman and SpaceX on track to travel deeper into space than any human has traveled in a half century.

The first flight in the series of missions, which are being called “Polaris” after the North Star, is planned for late this year and will last up to five days and include a crew of Isaacman and three other people. It’s expected to travel out to the Van Allen radiation belt, which has an inner band that stretches from about 400 to 6,000 miles above Earth, in part to help the crew research how radiation in space affects the human body. Radiation remains a serious concern for spaceflights to the moon and Mars, as SpaceX says it aims to do, because they would require prolonged exposure to radiation, which can lead to an “increased risk of cancer and degenerative diseases” and other long-term impacts, according to NASA.

When asked on a press call Monday, Isaacman said the Gemini missions of the 20th century, which set altitude records at the time, are a guidepost for how high the first Polaris mission will travel. Gemini missions reached as high as about 850 miles — or about three times higher than where the International Space Station orbits. Isaacman declined to share a specific altitude for the flight.

Instead of relying on a fixed catalogue of available materials or undergoing trial-and-error attempts to come up with new ones, engineers can turn to algorithms running in supercomputers to design unique materials, based on a “materials genome,” with properties tailored to specific needs. Among the new classes of emerging materials are “transient” electronics and bioelectronics that portend applications and industries comparable to the scale that followed the advent of silicon-based electronics.

In each of the three technological spheres, we find the Cloud increasingly woven into the fabric of innovation. The Cloud itself is, synergistically, evolving and expanding from the advances in new materials and machines, creating a virtuous circle of self-amplifying progress. It is a unique feature of our emerging century that constitutes a catalyst for innovation and productivity, the likes of which the world has never seen.

Adult frogs can’t usually regrow a lost leg, but they can after treatment with a regenerative cocktail — and the new leg even contains functioning nerves.

Adult frogs can gain the ability to regrow a lost leg if they are treated with a device containing a silk gel infused with five regenerative chemicals. The limbs the frogs grow can apparently move and sense as well as the original legs.

Although tadpoles and young froglets can regenerate hindlimbs, adult frogs, like humans, lack the capacity to regrow their legs.

Continue reading “Frogs regrow amputated legs after treatment with a chemical cocktail” »

A patient with leukaemia in the US has become the first woman to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant aje.io/nkfvf8

The new approach may make the treatment available to more people without the need for antiretroviral therapy.

Continue reading “Woman cured of HIV after stem cell transplant” »

‘The fact that she’s mixed race, and that she’s a woman, that is really important scientifically and really important in terms of the community impact,’ doctor says.

The new findings were presented on Tuesday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Denver, Colorado.

University of California, San Francisco AIDS expert Dr Steven Deeks said that “the fact that she’s mixed race, and that she’s a woman, that is really important scientifically and really important in terms of the community impact,” The New York Times reported.

Continue reading “Woman is cured of HIV in huge breakthrough for virus treatment” »

There is a cyborg organoid platform developed by integrating “tissue-like” stretchable mesh nanoelectronics with 2D stem cell sheets. Leveraging the 2D-to-3D reconfiguration during organoid development, 2D stem cell sheets fold and embed stretchable mesh nanoelectronics with electrodes throughout the entire 3D organoid. The embedded electronics can then enable continuous electrical recording.

Scientists design stretchable mesh nanoelectronics, mimicking the mechanical and structural properties of brain organoids to build cyborg human brain organoids.

Using the 3D embedded stretchable electrodes, achieved reliable long-term electrical recording of the same hiPSC-derived neural tissue at single-cell, millisecond spatiotemporal resolution for 6 months, revealing the evolution of the tissue-wide single-cell electrophysiology over hiPSC-derived neuron development. Applying this technology to brain organoids at early developmental stages, they traced the gradually emerging single-cell action potentials and network activities.

Continue reading “Stretchable Mesh Nanoelectronics for 3D Single‐Cell Chronic Electrophysiology from Developing Brain Organoids” »

Sometimes those working in the field of rejuvenation biotechnology face the accusation that what they are doing is just a fear of death, like not being scared of age-related diseases is somehow brave.

War used to be fashionable but now it isn’t

Continue reading “Some People think Life Extension is ‘Just a Fear of Death’” »

About 1 in 300 people in the general population carry the Tay-Sachs disease gene. Ray Kachatorian/Stone via Getty ImagesTwo babies have received the first-ever gene therapy for Tay-Sachs disease after over 14 years of development. Tay-Sachs is a severe neurological disease caused by a deficiency in an enzyme called HexA. This enzyme breaks down a fatlike substance that normally exists in very small, harmless amounts in the brain. Without HexA, however, this fatlike substance can accumulate to toxic levels that damage and kill neurons.

Genetically modified are words that bother many in Western countries, but they provide for the necessities of life elsewhere.