Lifeboat Foundation

Today, we are going to take a look at a new study in which scientists at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research have recently identified a type of cell that appears to be implied in thymic involution—the shrinking of the thymus[1].

Thymic involution is somewhat of a mystery in biology, a phenomenon that isn’t fully understood that happens to everyone with age and is a driving cause of immunosenescence, the age-related decline in our immune systems’ ability to fight disease. This new study helps to shed light on why it happens.

Contact-free measurement of vital signs is already a reality, but with a few important limitations some of which researchers at Cornell University may be able to overcome. Currently used devices typically require the patient to be in close proximity to the sensor, and they’re only able to measure the breathing and heart rates, along with body movement.

Technology developed at Cornell involves tags worn on clothing, or just placed near the patient, that emit radio waves toward the lungs and heart to measure their activity accurately, while allowing the patient to move around. Additionally, blood pressure may also be measured this way, but more work will be required to validate the technology.

Continue reading “Proximity Tags Emit Radio Waves to Monitor Heart, Lungs, Blood Pressure” »

Today, we have a new paper that discusses how induced pluripotency and cellular senescence, two of several possible cellular states, share similarities[2]. It is likely no surprise that the two states are closely related and that some of the mechanisms for one process are shared by the other. It appears that certain key signaling molecules are important in determining both cell fate and senescence.

Controlling cell behavior in living animals

As our understanding of guiding cell fate grows rapidly by the passing year, it has huge implications for therapies that seek to control cellular activities and encourage certain types of cells to be created. Research is now starting to move beyond the petri dish and to where cells are being programmed in situ in living animals.

Continue reading “The Link Between Cellular Senescence and Cellular Reprogramming” »

Dr. Oliver Medvedik Vice President of LEAF appears in this new TED interview where he talks about aging research and the possibilities of future medicine.

Aging happens to all of us, but scientists still don’t know the mechanism behind it. We need to focus on finding an answer, says molecular biologist Oliver Medvedik.

If given the option, would you choose to live forever? Many of us would say “yes,” but with one major caveat: just as long we don’t age. In scientific terms, aging means “a progressive loss of fitness in an organism over time,” says molecular biologist and TED Fellow Oliver Medvedik. What causes this loss of fitness in humans is multifaceted, although scientists are exploring different theories including — and these are just a few of the many avenues of research — the deterioration of the health of our telomeres (the ends of our chromosomes), changes in cell mitochondria, inefficient clearance of damaged cell proteins, and the senescence of stem cells, leading to chronic inflammation and a depletion of stem cells.

Continue reading “A crowdfunding platform aims to solve the puzzle of aging” »

China is planning to build a 13.8 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) technology park dedicated to developing artificial intelligence (AI), state-backed news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday.

Last year, China laid out plans to become a world leader in AI by 2030.

WASHINGTON — The public’s idea of a war in space is almost entirely a product of Hollywood fantasy: Interstellar empires battling to conquer the cosmos, spaceships going head to head in pitched dogfights.

The reality of how nations will fight in space is much duller and blander. And some of the key players in these conflicts will be hackers and lawyers.

Savvy space warriors like Russia’s military already are giving us a taste of the future. They are jamming GPS navigation signals, electronically disrupting satellite communications links and sensors in space. Not quite star wars. [The Most Dangerous Space Weapons Concepts Ever].

Continue reading “Sorry Sci-Fi Fans, Real Wars in Space Not the Stuff of Hollywood” »

In a basement laboratory, two robotocists have harnessed the sensing, swimming, and swarming abilities of bacteria to power microscopic robots. Who dares to unleash this madness?

To the best of our knowledge, we humans can only experience this world in three spatial dimensions (plus one time dimension): up and down, left and right, and forward and backward. But in two physics labs, scientists have found a way to represent a fourth spatial dimension.

This isn’t a fourth dimension that you can disappear into or anything like that. Instead, two teams of physicists engineered special two-dimensional setups, one with ultra-cold atoms and another with light particles. Both cases demonstrated different but complementary outcomes that looked the same as something called the “quantum Hall effect” occurring in four dimensions. These experiments could have important implications to fundamental science, or even allow engineers to access higher-dimension physics in our lower-dimension world.

Continue reading “Two Experiments Show Fourth Spatial Dimension Effect” »

New transhumanism story with many people in it. Forget the criticism in article, read what the highlighted people have said about the future. Great stuff.

A growing number of wealthy, tech-minded futurists are imagining life beyond their mortal bodies. We created images to match their strange, and varied, visions.