Lifeboat Foundation

New view on mitochondrial DNA could put the brakes on mutations that drive diseases. Scientists perform landmark sequencing of mitochondrial DNA and discover surprising facts.

Summary: New view on mitochondrial DNA could help put the brakes on mutations that drive diseases. [Author: Brady Hartman. This article first appeared on LongevityFacts.]

DNA sequences between mitochondria inside a single cell are vastly different, reported scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. This discovery will help to illuminate the underlying mechanisms of diseases that start with mutations in mitochondrial DNA and provide clues about how patients might respond to specific treatments. The researchers published their findings in the journal Cell Reports this week.

Continue reading “Researchers Discover Key to Diseases in Mitochondrial DNA Mutations” »

When Tina Gibson got married seven years ago, the 26-year-old knew it was unlikely that she would have children naturally. Her husband, 33-year-old Benjamin Gibson, had cystic fibrosis, a condition that can make men infertile, the couple told CNN.

The East Tennessee pair decided they would eventually adopt a child instead — and that they would foster several children in the meantime, until they were ready.

Then, last year, during a break between foster children, her father told them about something he’d heard on the news — embryo adoption, according to CNN. Gibson couldn’t get the idea out of her head.

Continue reading “A Baby Spent 24 Years as a Frozen Embryo Before Being Born Last Month” »

See researchers’ recipe for synthetic mesenchymal stem cells, which showed cardiac regenerative potential in mice.

A new Facebook tool deploys facial-recognition to identify users in photos, even when they’re not tagged.

Gene therapy is the process of replacing defective genes with healthy ones, adding new genes to help the body fight or treat disease, or deactivating problem genes. It holds the promise to transform medicine and create options for patients who are living with difficult, and even incurable, diseases. Learn how this innovative therapy works.

The US federal government has lifted an enforced moratorium on funding research into how to make viruses deadlier and more transmissible.

The moratorium, which was imposed three years ago, froze funding for what’s called “gain of function” research: controversial experiments seeking to alter pathogens and make them even more dangerous. Now, the money is back on the table, giving those trials the green light once more.

The director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis S. Collins, announced the lifting of the moratorium on Tuesday, saying gain of function (GOF) research with viruses like influenza, MERS, and SARS could help us “identify, understand, and develop strategies and effective countermeasures against rapidly evolving pathogens that pose a threat to public health”.

Continue reading “The US Just Ended Its Own Ban on Engineering Deadly Viruses in The Lab” »

Have you ever had an argument because you disagree about the way something happened? You were both there, you saw the same thing, but you remember it differently.

This happens quite a lot, because human memories are imperfect. As much as we all like to think we can trust our own minds, memories can be altered over time.

Elizabeth F. Loftus is a researcher and professor of cognitive psychology and human memory. She is well known in the field for her work on the creation and nature of false memories, and how people can be influenced by information after an event has happened, event consulting or providing expert witness testimony for hundreds of court cases.

Continue reading “It’s Possible to Plant False Memories Into Your Brain, And It Could Be a Good Thing” »

If you’re like most of our readers, you’re probably reading this right now on your mobile, which means there’s also a chance you’re reading it on a broken, fragmented phone screen.

Luckily, the days of squinting at cracked phone displays like this could soon be over, thanks to a team of Japanese scientists who have developed a new kind of self-healing glass that fuses itself back together, simply by pressure being applied.

The self-healing polymer, created by researchers at the University of Tokyo, was initially discovered by accident while they were studying new adhesives.

Continue reading “Scientists Have Developed Glass That Heals Itself When You Press It Together” »

This Autonomous Flying Car will be ready to take to the skies by 2018.