Lifeboat Foundation

Year 2018 😗

State-of-the-art software tools for neuronal network simulations scale to the largest computing systems available today and enable investigations of large-scale networks of up to 10% of the human cortex at a resolution of individual neurons and synapses. Due to an upper limit on the number of incoming connections of a single neuron, network connectivity becomes extremely sparse at this scale. To manage computational costs, simulation software ultimately targeting the brain scale needs to fully exploit this sparsity. Here we present a two-tier connection infrastructure and a framework for directed communication among compute nodes accounting for the sparsity of brain-scale networks. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach by implementing the technology in the NEST simulation code and we investigate its performance in different scaling scenarios of typical network simulations. Our results show that the new data structures and communication scheme prepare the simulation kernel for post-petascale high-performance computing facilities without sacrificing performance in smaller systems.

Modern neuroscience has established numerical simulation as a third pillar supporting the investigation of the dynamics and function of neuronal networks, next to experimental and theoretical approaches. Simulation software reflects the diversity of modern neuroscientific research with tools ranging from the molecular scale to investigate processes at individual synapses (Wils and De Schutter, 2009) to whole-brain simulations at the population level that can be directly related to clinical measures (Sanz Leon et al., 2013). Most neuronal network simulation software, however, is based on the hypothesis that the main processes of brain function can be captured at the level of individual nerve cells and their interactions through electrical pulses. Since these pulses show little variation in shape, it is generally believed that they convey information only through their timing or rate of occurrence.

Year 2021 face_with_colon_three

Xenobots, a type of programmable organism made from frog cells, can replicate by spontaneously sweeping up loose stem cells, researchers say. This could have implications for regenerative medicine.

The effort is the first to show that a cancer vaccine using messenger RNA may be effective.

Could zebrafish’s ability to regenerate the heart work in mammals as well?

The processes by which zebrafish repair injury to their hearts were combined with viral vectors used in human gene therapy, according a study published today (Dec .13) in Cell Stem Cell.

Continue reading “Gene therapy could save mice from heart attacks — humans could be next” »

Detect and kill oral cancer quickly; otherwise, it’d be too late.

In January 2022, a report from the American Cancer Society predicted 54,000 new oral cancer cases in the US. The same report also suggested 11,230 deaths.

This is why early diagnosis is critical for patients suffering from oral cancer. A team of researchers realized this and developed a point-of-care bio-sensor that could allow easy, quick, and accurate detection of oral cancer in humans. Commons.

Tel Aviv-based D-ID released today the first multimodal generative AI video platform to combine text, image and animation in one interface. The self-service video platform integrates D-ID’s proprietary generative AI technology with GPT-3 from Open AI and Stable Diffusion from Stability AI, allowing users to generate digital composite faces and speech in 119 languages based on their text prompts.

“This is a game changer for creators,” says Gil Perry, D-ID co-founder and CEO. “It’s the bleeding edge of generative AI,” he asserts, touting the startup’s expertise in deep learning and computer vision. When I talked to Perry last year, he said that the company’s long-term vision is “to lead the next disruption in the video entertainment space by creating AI-generated synthetic media in a responsible way.”

In the rapidly evolving generative AI space, “long-term” means “next year,” so now Perry talks about providing “digital humans” to enterprises, “transforming the way we communicate with machines and elevating our capabilities as humans.” He hopes that sometime next year, we could chat with the digital humans we will create with D-ID’s help.

Hitting two targets at the same time may be the key to stopping the spread of aggressive cancers, according to new research from the University of East Anglia and the Quadram Institute.

Researchers have found that tumor growth in mice could be stopped by simultaneously targeting two signaling switches that trigger growth of new blood vessels.

Their study, published in the journal Cancer Research Communications, points to new approaches for treating cancer in humans.

The research has shown that people with shorter genes age faster, die sooner and are more prone to disease New research has determined that a “single concise” phenomenon that will be able to tell you how long you will live, The Mirror reports. It has shown that people with shorter genes age faster, die sooner and more prone to disease.

The BACE1 enzyme has a rate-limiting role in the amyloidogenic pathway (see Glossary) and has been extensively studied for its neuronal functions[1]. Since 2000, intensive efforts have focused on developing small-molecule BACE1 inhibitors to reduce amyloid β (Aβ) production in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brains. However, human clinical trials involving most BACE1 inhibitors were stopped at Phase 2/3 due to limited therapeutic benefits[2]. BACE1 inhibitors act by reducing Aβ-related pathologies in AD brains, that is, they are used to treat the symptoms rather than the underlying disease.