Lifeboat Foundation

NASA’s long-delayed James Webb Space Telescope is close to entering service. The agency now plans to launch the telescope on December 18th, 2,021 just a few months after testing completed in late August. The hardware will reach orbit aboard an ESA-supplied Ariane 5 rocket lifting off from French Guiana. NASA still has to ship the telescope to the launchpad, although much of the rocket has already arrived.

The JWST was deemed complete in 2016 ahead of an expected 2018 launch, but faced a number of delays due to its elaborate construction. It wasn’t assembled until 2019, and factors like the COVID-19 pandemic further hindered NASA’s efforts. That’s not including earlier setbacks — development started in 1996 with an expected 2007 deployment, but the team scrapped much of its work and redesigned the equipment in 2005.

The telescope’s importance hasn’t changed. It’s considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. It includes a much larger mirror along with a focus on lower-frequency observations (particularly mid-infrared) that will help it detect early galaxies that even Hubble can’t find. That priority also helps explain some of its technical challenges. The JWST’s instruments will need to stay extremely cold (−370F) to avoid interference with infrared measurements, requiring both a large sunshield and an insertion near a Sun-Earth Lagrange point.

Scientists have long been interested in plasma’s biological implications. In the late 19th century, the Finnish physicist Karl Selim Lemström observed that the width of growth rings in fir trees near the Arctic Circle followed the cycle of the aurora borealis, widening when the northern lights were strongest. He hypothesized that the light show somehow encouraged plant growth. To artificially emulate the northern lights, he placed a metal wire net over growing plants and ran a current through it. Under the right conditions, he reported, the treatment produced larger vegetable yields.

For decades, scientists have known that exposure to plasma can safely kill pathogenic bacteria, fungi and viruses. Small studies in animals also suggest that plasma can prompt the growth of blood vessels in skin. In his research, Reuter studies ways to harness these properties to inhibit new infections in wounds and expedite healing or treat other skin conditions. But more recently, he and other physicists have been working on ways to use the power of plasma to improve food production.

Experiments conducted in the last decade or so have tested a mix of ways to apply plasma to seeds, seedlings, crops and fields. These include plasma generated using noble gases, as well as plasma generated from air. In some cases, plasma is directly applied through plasma “jets” that stream over the seeds or plants. Another approach uses plasma-treated water that can do double duty: irrigation and fertilization. Some studies have reported a range of benefits, from helping plants grow faster and bigger to resisting pests.

Researchers have developed artificial cell-like structures using inorganic matter that autonomously ingest, process, and push out material—recreating an essential function of living cells.

Their article, published in Nature, provides a blueprint for creating “cell mimics,” with potential applications ranging from drug delivery to environmental science.

A fundamental function of living cells is their ability to harvest energy from the environment to pump molecules in and out of their systems. When energy is used to move these molecules from areas of lower concentration to areas of higher concentration, the process is called active transport. Active transport allows cells to take in necessary molecules like glucose or amino acids, store energy, and extract waste.

A newly discovered antibody was able to neutralize not only all strains of COVID-19, but other coronaviruses known to cause respiratory infections in humans — a potential silver bullet for a whole class of deadly, flu-like viruses.

Mutant viruses: As viruses spread, they undergo tiny genetic mutations, and when we find a unique version of the virus, we call it a new strain.

Occasionally, new strains appear that can spread more easily, evade the immune system, or cause more severe disease.

This makes sense, as we believe that inflammation in the central nervous system can start the autoimmune process (when a person’s immune system attacks part of their body) that causes MS.

Summary: A new study links viral infections including mononucleosis and pneumonia experienced during adolescence with an increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis.

Source: The Conversation

Continue reading “Multiple Sclerosis Linked to Infection in Adolescence” »

Thus, the researchers propose that disturbance in the DVC’s timekeeping leads to obesity, rather than being the result of excessive body weight.

When rats are fed a high fat diet, this disturbs the body clock in their brain that normally controls satiety, leading to over-eating and obesity. That’s according to new research published in The Journal of Physiology.

The number of people with obesity has nearly tripled worldwide since 1975.^[1] In England alone, 28% of adults are obese and another 36% are overweight.^[2] Obesity can lead to several other diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer.^[3]

Continue reading “High Fat Diets Break the Body Clock — This May Be the Underlying Cause of Obesity” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8XUFrNQ7YSk

“After demonstrating that cultured meat can reach cost parity faster than the market anticipated, this production facility is the real game-changer,” said Yaakov Nahmias, Future Meat Technologies founder and chief scientific officer, in a press release. “This facility demonstrates our proprietary media rejuvenation technology in scale, allowing us to reach production densities 10-times higher than the industrial standard.”

Cultured meat is made by extracting cells from animal tissue and giving them nutrients, oxygen, and moisture while keeping them at the same temperature they’d be at inside an animal’s body. The cells divide and multiply then start to mature, with muscle cells joining to create muscle fibers and fat cells producing lipids. The resulting nuggets of meat can be used to make processed products like burgers or sausages. Structured cuts of meat with blood vessels and connective tissue, like steak or chicken breast, require scaffolds, and researchers are creating these with biomaterials, like cellulose from plants. Companies are working on several varieties of more elaborate cultured products, from bacon to salmon.

Continue reading “New Cultured Meat Factory Will Churn Out 5,000 Bioreactor Burgers a Day” »

“I think this virus is here to stay with us and it will evolve like influenza pandemic viruses, it will evolve to become one of the other viruses that affects us,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, said at a press briefing.

Covid-19 could become endemic like the flu and circulate in the population at low levels.

Singapore said the robots, called “Xavier,” can report bad behavior to law enforcement and display messages to “educate” the public.