Lifeboat Foundation

Using a modified version of CRISPR, a team of geneticists has successfully triggered 13,200 genetic changes to a single human cell. That’s a new record, by a long shot. This sweeping new editing process could eventually be used to strip DNA of useless or dangerous genetic information—or create entirely new kinds of life.

New research uploaded to the preprint bioRxiv server describes the achievement, in which a Harvard University team led by George Church edited the living crap out of a single human cell to the tune of 13,200 total modifications. Incredibly, the cell survived. The previous record for bulk edits made to a single cell was set in 2017, when Church and his colleagues knocked out 62 copies of a retrovirus found in pig genomes. The new achievement is thus “three orders of magnitude greater” than the previous standard, the authors wrote in their paper.

What’s so hard about keeping a 20-year-old’s body forever?

Biologists have just succeeded in restoring some biological functions in a cell belonging to awoolly mammoth that lived 28,000 years ago.

A new review discusses how neutrophils release toxic substances into the body under inflammatory conditions, detailing one of the ways in which chronic inflammation causes long-term damage.

Casting a deadly NET

As we age, we suffer from the ever-increasing chronic inflammation known as inflammaging. This persistent, smoldering background of low-grade inflammation harms wound healing and promotes multiple age-related diseases. Senescent cells, a weakened immune system, and chronic infections are all proposed to contribute to inflammaging.

Continue reading “Chronic Inflammation Leads to Toxic NET Buildup” »

Over the past twenty years, neuroscientists have been quietly building a revolutionary technology called BrainGate that wirelessly connects the human mind to computers and it just hit the world stage. Entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have entered the race with goals of figuring out how to get computer chips into everyone’s brains. The attention of Musk and Zuckerberg means the potential for giant leaps forward. But the question no one seems to be asking is whether our dependence on machines and technology has finally gone too far. Countries annually celebrate their independence from other countries, but it now seems we should start asking deeper questions about our personal independence.

60 Minutes recently ran a piece showing how engineers are using what scientists have learned about the brain to manipulate us into staying perpetually addicted to our smartphones. The anxiety most of us feel when we are away from our phone is real: During the 60 Minutes piece, researchers at California State University Dominguez Hills connected electrodes to reporter Anderson Cooper’s fingers to measure changes in heart rate and perspiration. Then they sent text messages to his phone, which was out of his reach, and watched his anxiety spike with each notification.

The segment revealed that virtually every app on your phone is calibrated to keep you using it as often and as long as possible. The show made an important point: a relatively small number of Silicon Valley engineers are experimenting with, and changing in a significant way, human behavior and brain function. And they’re doing it with little insight into the long-term consequences. It seems the fight for independence has gone digital.

Continue reading “Hacking The Brain: The Future Computer Chips In Your Head” »

Reading brain waves was useless until A.I. got involved. Now mind reading has real-world, practical applications.

Here’s why current vaccines have such a hard time chasing the virus.

New computer program uses brain activity to draw images of airplanes, leopards, and stained-glass windows.

The U.S. Army wants to allow soldiers to communicate just by thinking. The new science of synthetic telepathy could soon make that happen.