Lifeboat Foundation

Have you been sleeping worse since the pandemic came round? If so, do not despair, you are not alone, studies have found that even amongst those who previously had no problems, there were issues. Now there are many reasons why this might be so, from added stress and uncertainty, to less physical exertion during the day and much more… But, one factor that can play a huge role is your diet. I am sure you know about fast and slow carbs, and I am sure some of you try your hardest to avoid them at all costs…not me though, I am a carb fan lol. But anyway, carbs can actually help you sleep when paired with the right foods because of the way they create competition between amino acids for absorption into muscles, when stimulated by glucose, but on the negative side, quick, or beige, carbs can cause waking during the night, as the blood sugar is not as stable. If you want to find out more, in a bit more depth, along with all the studies I have brought together, then check out this video, all links are in its description. Sleep well wink

In Carbs Sleep Problems — How Nutrition Affects Your Sleep Quality, I look at just that, the importance of the reciprocal link between diet and sleep.

Continue reading “How Nutrition Affects Your Sleep Quality” »

Israeli aerospace company Urban Aeronautics announced this week that it sold its first four vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft to Hatzolah Air, a nonprofit emergency medical air transport provider based in New York. The organization already operates fixed-wing aircraft (meaning propeller-driven or powered by a jet engine, with wings that don’t move) as part of its emergency missions.

To that end, “flying ambulances” isn’t a new concept; they’ve existed for a long time in the form of helicopters and planes. In fact, the Association of Air Medical Services estimates that around 550000 people get medevaced in the US each year.

But Urban Aeronautics’ Cormorant CityHawk, as the aircraft is called, will bring some functional new features to the skies. Though it’s lightweight and has a compact footprint, its interior cabin is 20 to 30 percent larger than that of a helicopter, meaning it will be able to fit two EMTs, the patient plus a companion, and medical equipment (plus the pilot) without things getting too cramped.

Deep learning has come a long way since the days when it could only recognize handwritten characters on checks and envelopes. Today, deep neural networks have become a key component of many computer vision applications, from photo and video editors to medical software and self-driving cars.

Roughly fashioned after the structure of the brain, neural networks have come closer to seeing the world as humans do. But they still have a long way to go, and they make mistakes in situations where humans would never err.

These situations, generally known as adversarial examples, change the behavior of an AI model in befuddling ways. Adversarial machine learning is one of the greatest challenges of current artificial intelligence systems. They can lead to machine learning models failing in unpredictable ways or becoming vulnerable to cyberattacks.

A scalpel-free alternative to brain surgery has the potential to benefit people with Parkinson’s disease symptoms that are much more severe on one side of the body, new research suggests.

More testing is needed, but the approach, which uses a technology called focused ultrasound, could offer a new option for patients whose symptoms are poorly controlled by medications and those who cannot or do not wish to undergo traditional brain surgery.

“This small brain region, the subthalamic nucleus, had a very strong and potent effect on parkinsonian symptoms when we targeted it with precise, focused ultrasound energy,” said researcher Jeff Elias, MD, a neurosurgeon at UVA Health and a pioneer in the field of focused ultrasound. “The key for the ultimate adoption of this new procedure will be further refinements of the technology to ensure reliability and safety.”

There were a number of fascinating new electric motorcycles that were slated for release in 2020, but many saw their timelines stretched by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now 2021 appears to be the year of the new e-moto swarm with a score of models set to finally debut. Here are the ones keeping me on the edge of my seat.

I’ve been following this one for way too long.

Circa 2019 o.o

Will scientists ever be able to create ‘better’ DNA in the lab than evolution did in nature?

Circa 2019 o.o!

In a milestone for synthetic biology, colonies of E. coli thrive with DNA constructed from scratch by humans, not nature.

Once, at a friend’s wedding, he left a group of guests mildly incensed for suggesting that near-future humans might live well into their 100s. A similar thing happens at dinner parties, where the responses are more polite but no less sceptical. Eventually, he says, “I think we are very likely to have a drug that treats ageing in the next 10 years.” Steele believes we will be hopelessly unlucky if scientists don’t make a breakthrough within that time, given how many human trials are in progress or upcoming. And although these breakthroughs won’t result in treatments that extend our lives by 100 years, they will give us enough extra time to ensure we’re alive for subsequent breakthroughs, subsequent treatments, subsequent additions in lifespan and so on.

The biologist Andrew Steele thinks ageing is a disease that can be treated. But if we had a cure for getting old, what would that mean for us?

New probes allow scientists to see four-stranded DNA interacting with molecules inside living human cells, unraveling its role in cellular processes.

DNA usually forms the classic double helix shape of two strands wound around each other. While DNA can form some more exotic shapes in test tubes, few are seen in real living cells.

However, four-stranded DNA, known as G-quadruplex, has recently been seen forming naturally in human cells. Now, in new research published today in Nature Communications, a team led by Imperial College London scientists have created new probes that can see how G-quadruplexes are interacting with other molecules inside living cells.