Lifeboat Foundation

Russia’s neighbor has developed a plan for countering misinformation. Can it be exported to the rest of the world?

It’s possible to help reduce mosquito populations around your house without using nasty chemicals. Did you know that dragonflies are the biggest predators of mosquitos and can eat hundreds of them a day? This makes them a great addition to your garden and the safest natural pest control. They keep mosquito population in check.

Circa 2018

A defence firm has unveiled a prototype quantum radar. If it works, it could use entangled protons to locate stealth aircraft that normally avoid detection.

Some A-list names—including the Rockefellers, Charles Schwab and Buzz Aldrin—are chasing the sun at fusion-energy firm TAE Technologies.

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have demonstrated that stem cells derived from the placenta known as Cdx2 cells can regenerate healthy heart cells after heart attacks in animal models. The findings, published in the May 20 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), may represent a novel treatment for regenerating the heart and other organs.

“Cdx2 cells have historically been thought to only generate the placenta in early embryonic development, but never before were shown to have the ability to regenerate other organs, which is why this is so exciting. These findings may also pave the way to regenerative therapy of other organs besides the heart,” said principal investigator Hina Chaudhry, MD, Director of Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “They almost seem like a super-charged population of stem cells, in that they can target the site of an injury and travel directly to the injury through the circulatory system and are able to avoid rejection by the host immune system.”

This team of Mount Sinai researchers had previously discovered that a mixed population of mouse placental stem cells can help the hearts of pregnant female mice recover after an injury that could otherwise lead to heart failure. In that study, they showed that the placental stem cells migrated to the mother’s heart and directly to the site of the heart injury. The stem cells then programmed themselves as beating heart cells to help the repair process.

Continue reading “Researchers discover placental stem cells that can regenerate heart after heart attack” »

It’s long been known that cannabis plants are indigenous to Central Asia, but a new study provides a fresh focus on where exactly this genus may have first evolved millions of years ago.

Documents dating back to the middle ages show humans have been hypothesising about the geographical origins of cannabis for over a thousand years now, with the famed Arab polymath Ibn Wahshiyya suggesting India or perhaps China as far back as 930 CE.

But the rarity of print fossils (impressions of leaves made on other objects) in the historical record has made it difficult for the research community to identify anything more specific than Central Asia, even with the booming popularity of cannabis currently ongoing in many fields of academic and scientific enquiry.

Continue reading “Scientists Might Have Just Found Where Cannabis Originally Came From” »

Robot bees are no replacement for our vital pollinators here on Earth. Up on the International Space Station, however, robots bearing the bee name could help spacefaring humans save precious time.

On Friday, NASA astronaut Anne McClain took one of the trio of Astrobees out for a spin. Bumble and its companion Honey both arrived on the ISS a month ago, and are currently going through a series of checks. Bumble passed the first hurdle when McClain manually flew it around the Japanese Experiment Module. Bumble took photos of the module which will be used to make a map for all the Astrobees, guiding them as they begin their tests there.

Continue reading “All the buzz about NASA’s new fleet of space bees” »

Researchers invent a new approach to assembling big structures — even airplanes and bridges — out of small interlocking composite components. MIT researchers have developed a lightweight structure whose tiny blocks can be snapped together much like the bricks of a child’s construction toy. The new material, the researchers say, could revolutionize the assembly of airplanes, spacecraft, and even larger structures, such as dikes and levees.

NBF – This is huge. It boosts what is possible with additive manufacturing and 3D printing. This will revolutionize manufacturing and construction.

UPDATE – I have added a discussion of variants to the 3D interlock system and compare it to the Utility Fog concept.

Continue reading “MIT new 3D chainmail interlock system with ten times the stiffness” »

Doctors and patients say they’re compelled to use “off-label” medications as research into anti-aging goes unfunded.