Lifeboat Foundation

Take my micro-transaction.

We may be on track to our own version of the Oasis after an announcement yesterday from Epic Games that it has raised $1 billion to put towards building “the metaverse.”

Epic Games has created multiple hugely popular video games, including Fortnite, Assassin’s Creed, and Godfall. An eye-popping demo released last May shows off Epic’s Unreal Engine 5, its next-gen computer program for making video games, interactive experiences, and augmented and virtual reality apps, set to be released later this year. The graphics are so advanced that the demo doesn’t look terribly different from a really high-quality video camera following someone around in real life—except it’s even cooler. In February Epic unveiled its MetaHuman Creator, an app that creates highly realistic “digital humans” in a fraction of the time it used to take.

Continue reading “Epic Games Raised $1 Billion to Fund Its Vision for Building the Metaverse” »

Scientists are using natural-language algorithms to try understand which coronavirus mutations will be most infectious.

Covid variants will be the next big challenge. Can vaccines protect us?

All viruses mutate. They do this to adapt and survive better in their specific host. The virus that causes Covid-19 is no different: it has moved from the animal realm, where it most likely originated in bats, to the human world. Since then, scientists have been locked in a battle between the spread of the virus and the ability to immunise against it. We now have the vaccines to protect us against Covid-19 – but what happens when this virus mutates further, as it likely will? {“uid”:0.9208093413637026,” hostPeerName”:” https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.

The reality is Benny and Josh both have Canavan disease, a fatal inherited brain disorder. They are buckled into wheelchairs, don’t speak, and can’t control their limbs.

On Thursday, April 8, in Dayton, Ohio, Landsman and his family rolled the older boy, Benny, into a hospital where over several hours, neurosurgeons drilled bore holes into his skull and injected trillions of viral particles carrying the correct version of a gene his body is missing.

The material is one of the thinnest antimicrobial coatings developed to date and is effective against a broad range of drug-resistant bacteria and fungal cells, while leaving human cells unharmed.

Importantly, the BP also began to self-degrade in that time and was entirely disintegrated within 24 hours—an important feature that shows the material would not accumulate in the body.

The laboratory study identified the optimum levels of BP that have a deadly antimicrobial effect while leaving human cells healthy and whole.

Continue reading “Superbug killer: New nanotech destroys bacteria and fungal cells” »

How seriously do you take your diet?

It is one of the foundations upon which everything else stands.

Continue reading “Change Your Diet Change Your Life” »

Controversy has shrouded the once-common plasticizer BPA since studies started to highlight its links to a whole range of adverse health effects in humans, but recent research has also shown that its substitutes mightn’t be all that safe either. A new study has investigated how these compounds impact nerve cells in the adult brain, with the authors finding that they likely permanently disrupt signal transmission, and also interfere with neural circuits involved in perception.

BPA, or bisphenol A, is a chemical that has been commonly used in food, beverage and other types of packaging for decades, but experts have grown increasingly concerned that it can leech into these consumables and impact human health in ways ranging from endocrine dysfunction to cancer. This came on the back of scientific studies revealing such links dating back to the 1990s, which in turn saw the rise of “BPA-free” plastics as a safer alternative.

One of those alternatives is bisphenol S (BPS), and while it allows plastic manufacturers to slap a BPA-free label on their packaging, more and more research is demonstrating that it mightn’t be much better for us. As just one example, a study last year showed through experiments on mice that just like BPA, BPS can alter the expression of genes in the placenta and likely fundamentally disrupt fetal brain development.

Bill Whitaker reports on the Pentagon projects that helped combat COVID-19 and may help end pandemics forever.

Michael D. West talking about regeneration.

[Reuploaded from Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/522148118]

In this video, Dr. Michael West, CEO of AgeX Therapeutics, discusses the non-peer reviewed preprint article in bioRxiv on the potential role of the clustered protocadherin genes in regeneration, aging, and cancer, and the relevance of the discovery for iTR product development.

Continue reading “AgeX Discussion of Paper on Protocadherins, Aging, and Regeneration” »