Lifeboat Foundation

The US is currently experiencing its worst-ever outbreak of bird flu, also known as avian influenza — and a new study has found that the strain could become endemic in the country.

The outbreak is “wiping out everything in numbers we’ve never seen before,” Jennifer Mullinax, an assistant professor of environmental science and technology at the University of Maryland, told Sky News. The new H5N1 strain has already killed over 58 million chickens, turkeys, and other birds, Reuters reported.

The US is no stranger to the impact of the disease, with the H5N8 strain having led to the culling of 50 million birds in 2015. But the new, more contagious strain is particularly affecting wild birds, Sky News reported.

(NEXSTAR) – A deadly fungus spreading in more than half of U.S. states is so concerning in part because of the way it has evolved to be resistant to both antimicrobial cleaning products and anti-fungal drugs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned.

The fungus, Candida auris or C. auris, has mainly spread in health care settings, like hospitals and nursing homes. Counterintuitively, because hospitals are disinfected so frequently, they can be the birthplace of bacteria or fungus that are resistant to cleaning products and to treatments.

Plants that glow under ultraviolet (UV) light aren’t just inventions of science fiction TV and movies. Roots of a traditional medicine plant called the orange climber, or Toddalia asiatica, can fluoresce an ethereal blue hue. And now, researchers have identified two coumarin molecules that could be responsible. These natural coumarins have unique fluorescent properties, and one of the compounds could someday be used for medical imaging. Their study is published in ACS Central Science.

Fluorescent substances take in UV light that is directed on them and release vibrantly colored visible light. And some glow even more brightly when they are close together, a phenomenon seen in compounds called aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens). They are key components in some optical devices, cellular imaging techniques and environmental sensors. However, these molecules are usually made in a lab, and many are toxic. Some plants already have this ability, so, Ben Zhong Tang, Zheng Zhao, Xiao-Dong Luo and colleagues turned to nature to find naturally occurring and safer AIEgens.

The researchers dried orange climber roots, crushed them into a powder, and then isolated and identified coumarin compounds with aggregation-induced emission properties: 5-methoxyseselin (5-MOS) and 6-methoxyseselin (6-MOS). When dissolved in an organic solvent, 5-MOS exhibited a blue-green glow and 6-MOS had a slightly dimmer blue glow. In addition, both AIEgens had low cytotoxicity and good biocompatibility.

The first-ever feature film shot in space has premiered on April 20, 2023 and Moscow is celebrating the achievement, considering it a victory over a rival Hollywood project amid rising tensions with the West. In October 2021, Russia dispatched an actor and a film director to the International Space Station to shoot scenes for a movie titled “The Challenge.” The plot of the film revolves around a surgeon who is sent to the ISS to save an injured cosmonaut. The filming took place during a 12-day stint onboard the orbiting laboratory. In a competition to produce the first feature film shot in space, the Russian crew emerged as the winners, surpassing a Hollywood project that was announced in 2020 by Tom Cruise in collaboration with NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

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Summary: It may be possible to optimize the stimulation parameters of brain implants in animals without human intervention. The study highlights the potential for autonomous optimization of prostheses implanted in the brain. The advance may prove to be beneficial for those with spinal cord injury and diseases that affect movement.

Source: University of Montreal.

Scientists have long studied neurostimulation to treat paralysis and sensory deficits caused by strokes and spinal cord injuries, which in Canada affect some 380,000 people across the country.

A causal relationship exists among the aging process, organ decay and dis-function, and the occurrence of various diseases including cancer. A genetically engineered mouse model, termed Eklf^K74R/K74R or Eklf (K74R), carrying mutation on the well-conserved sumoylation site of the hematopoietic transcription factor KLF1/ EKLF has been generated that possesses extended lifespan and healthy characteristics including cancer resistance. We show that the high anti-cancer capability of the Eklf (K74R) mice are gender-, age-and genetic background-independent. Significantly, the anti-cancer capability and extended lifespan characteristics of Eklf (K74R) mice could be transferred to wild-type mice via transplantation of their bone marrow mononuclear cells. Targeted/global gene expression profiling analysis has identified changes of the expression of specific proteins and cellular pathways in the leukocytes of the Eklf (K74R) that are in the directions of anti-cancer and/or anti-aging. This study demonstrates the feasibility of developing a novel hematopoietic/ blood system for long-term anti-cancer and, potentially, for anti-aging.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Aging clocks estimate how fast specific organs are deteriorating—but it’s hard to know what to do with the results.

What if we could just skip the workout part and take the results in supplement form? Researchers did it… On mice and flies.

EXPERTS:

It’s a step that could one day lead to advances for humans that boost quality of life for many by: giving amputees and those with spinal injuries control of advanced prosthetics, stimulating the sacral nerve to restore bladder control, stimulating the cervical vagus nerve to treat epilepsy and providing deep brain stimulation as a possible treatment for Parkinson’s.