Lifeboat Foundation

NOTE FROM TED: Please do not look to this talk for mental health advice. This talk represents the speaker’s personal views and interpretation of psychedelics and mental health, which remains an emerging field of study. We’ve flagged this talk because it falls outside the content guidelines TED gives TEDx organizers. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/tedx_content_guidelines.pdf.

Psychedelics as medicine to treat mental health disease has had a recent resurgence of attention and dedicated research, with encouraging results. Could this class of drugs serve as a paradigm shift in the way mindfulness therapy and mental health is approached? Compounds like LSD, DMT, psilocybin, and MDMA are investigated as treatments for states of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and addiction. Listeners are challenged to question their preconceived notions and judgements as it pertains to this group of restricted therapeutics in the psychedelic class. Burton J. Tabaac, MD FAHA

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How Humanity Could be Transformed through Technology | Technology Documentary.

Watch ‘How Biotechnology Is Changing the World’ here: https://youtu.be/lFcF4DsuC9A

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TMCs are responsible for all aspects of data generation from tissue collection and analysis to data integration and interpretation. We anticipate that TMCs will acquire and integrate imaging and omics data to benchmark, standardize and validate SnC maps at single-cell resolution for their assigned tissues. The TDA sites are responsible for development of innovative, new approaches and tools necessary to deeply phenotype SnCs in human tissues and model systems. Examples include multi-omics characterization of the 4D nucleome in SnCs, high-throughput quantification of telomere-associated foci, and in vivo detection of SnCs via positron emission tomography imaging. Once developed, these new technologies are expected to be applied broadly and collaboratively across multiple tissues by the TMCs. The CODCC will collect, store and curate all data and metadata generated by the TMCs and TDA sites. The CODCC is responsible for generating the computational models, and final atlas products as well as the tools to visualize and disseminate the data as a resource for the broad scientific community.

It is expected that SenNet will interface with other cell mapping programs such as Human Bimolecular Atlas Program (HuBMAP), Human Cell Atlas (HCA) and the Kidney Precision Medicine Project (KPMP). HuBMAP is an NIH Common Fund Initiative to develop the resources and framework to map the 30 trillion cells that make up the human body using protein identifiers of cell lineage. HCA is using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to create cell reference maps defining the position, function and characteristics of all cells in the human body. The KPMP is an initiative of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) aimed at using state-of-the-art and emerging technologies to characterize renal biopsies from participants with acute kidney injury or chronic kidney disease to enable personalized approaches to their treatment.

We’re about to revolutionize how drugs are developed in the United States.

A group of neuroscientists developed a test to detect a novel marker of Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that attacks the brain, causing a decline in mental ability that worsens over time. It is the most common form of dementia and accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. There is no current cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but there are medications that can help ease the symptoms.

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John DeLong and his colleagues at the University of Nebraska have discovered that a species of Halteria—microscopic ciliates prevalent in freshwater habitats worldwide—can consume a sizable number of infectious chloroviruses. For the first time, the team’s laboratory tests have also demonstrated that a virus-only diet, or “virovory,” can support an organism’s physiological growth and even population increase.

Transhuman brains are the melding of hyper-advanced electronics and super-artificial intelligence (AI) with neurobiological tissue. The goal is not only to repair injury and mitigate disease, but also to enhance brain capacity and boost mental function. What is the big vision, the end goal — how far can transhuman brains go? What does it mean for individual consciousness and personal identity? Is virtual immortality possible? What are the ethics, the morality, of transhuman brains? What are the dangers?

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India’s space program is still in its early stages but has been making global headlines in recent years after ISRO’s launch vehicle launched a record-breaking 104 satellites in one go a few years ago. More recently, a private space tech company test-fired the world’s first 3D-printed rocket engine, which has a turnaround of just four days.

The next phase of the country’s space story includes human space flight, which was announced in 2018 and expected to be launched this year, coinciding with the 75th year of Indian independence. However, the COVID-19 pandemic threw a spanner in the works delaying the project by two years.

New insights into the opposing actions of serotonin-producing nerve fibers in mice could lead to drugs for treating addiction and major depression.

Scientists in Japan have identified a nerve pathway involved in the processing of rewarding and distressing stimuli and situations in mice.

The new pathway, originating in a bundle of brain stem nerve fibers called the median raphe nucleus, acts in opposition to a previously identified reward/aversion pathway that originates in the nearby dorsal raphe nucleus. The findings, published by scientists at Hokkaido University and Kyoto University with their colleagues in the journal Nature Communications, could have implications for developing drug treatments for various mental disorders, including addiction and major depression.