Lifeboat Foundation

Urban air pollution exposure is an ongoing critical challenge for humanity today because the majority of us live in cities. A just-published study in The Lancet Planetary Health reports that 2.5 billion live in urban areas where particulate matter levels exceed World Health Organization (WHO) safety guidelines causing more than 1.8 million attributed deaths annually. The study reports that “the global health burden of ambient fine particulate matter is increasing annually” and is associated with mortality from cardiovascular, respiratory, and lung diseases including cancer. And in terms of chronic diseases, particulate matter in the air contributes to asthma, bronchitis and emphysema, and seen as the leading environmental risk humans face today.

What is particulate matter? The Canadian government defines it as airborne particles that can be solid or liquid. Particulate matter comes from natural and human sources. The natural ones can be seen when volcanoes erupt spewing ash and other aerosols high into the atmosphere. But far more dangerous because of the sheer volume, is human-produced particulate matter coming from smokestacks, tailpipes, power plants, recently tilled fields, tires running across asphalt and concrete roads, and other human activities that release fine particles into the wind. The lighter and smaller the particle, the greater the threat. That’s because fine particulate matter is easier to inhale. It’s also easier to enter the pores of leaves in plants, and easier as liquid aerosols to bind to our buildings and bridges and other infrastructure where its acidic nature causes corrosion.

A particle of 2.5 micrometres (equivalent to 0.00009843 inches) or less is a public health threat. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tracks aerosol pollution at this size and on its site notes that particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometres has been declining for two decades. The Lancet study contradicts this finding noting that globally levels of airborne particulate matter have changed very little in twenty years. And where’s the greatest rise? In the cities of Southeast Asia.

Excess death modelling varies. But all modellers agree that the official mortality numbers seriously underestimate COVID-19 deaths.

Please welcome Samantha Higgins, who defines herself as a professional writer with a passion for research, observation, and innovation. She resides in Portland, Oregon with her husband and her two twin boys. When she’s not writing about artificial intelligence and other technology subjects, Samantha loves kayaking and reading creative non-fiction. In this her first contribution to 21st Century Tech Blog, she talks about the progress being made by those who create the neural networks that make computers learn about the patterns in human existence. That’s what machine learning is all about.

Machine learning is a technology that gives us language translation applications, word prediction when composing emails and texts, and suggestions on the order presentation within social media feeds. It is a technology used by many industries from healthcare where it can aid in medical diagnosis and interpretation of radiology images, as well as in the operation of autonomous vehicles.

Machine learning is a subcategory of artificial intelligence (AI), software tools that learn without explicitly relying on programming. Many companies deploying AI today are primarily using machine learning to help reduce labor costs and increase productivity.

Recent advances in AI are using deep learning to identify areas within human organs that surgeons can safely dissect before operating, machine learning to predict if patients with memory issues will develop Alzheimer’s within two years, and deep learning to analyze eye scans during routine examinations to identify patients at short-term high risk for a heart attack.

AI is being used for surgical guidance in the OR, for predicting early-onset Alzheimer’s, and through eye exams who may have a heart attack.

Research on proteins has been front and centre in our battle to defeat COVID-19. That’s why major efforts are being made to unlock the mystery of how combinations of amino acids when folded can be powerful tools in combatting diseases and more.

DeepMind in the UK and the University of Washington leading the way in proteins research to meet 21st-century problems and challenges.

The elixir of technological innovation and the information it delivers at our very fingertips every day has proven to be a Pandora’s Box unleashing misinformation, rumour, hate, selfish malfeasance, and violence. Since when did access to knowledge produce so much havoc? Because that’s what appears to be happening with COVID-19, climate change, and more.

My more recent personal experience is equally relevant. When I got COVID-19 in April 2020, it attacked the lining of my heart temporarily enlarging the upper left chamber where pulmonary veins interact with the muscle. Those veins were damaged by the virus leading to the beginning of changes to my heart rhythm and the onset of atrial fibrillation and other arrhythmias.

Three weeks before getting infected I had a full physical in preparation for upcoming knee replacement surgery. At the time I was told that my heart was healthy with no underlying medical conditions of concern. Then COVID-19 struck leading me to go to the hospital emergency where I was told that I was in danger of an imminent stroke and was now a heart patient.

Continue reading “Technology, Human Behaviour and the March of Events Setting Us Up for Catastrophe” »

Paroxysmal AF occurs when the upper chambers of the heart beat irregularly. Instead of initiating normal sinus rhythm, the two atria fibrillate or quiver. That doesn’t stop blood flowing from the upper to lower chambers, but it does upset the normal heartbeat causing the heart to race. In my case, the paroxysmal reference meant that my heart was going in and out of AF. Sometimes everything was normal. At other times I would experience a racing heartbeat exceeding 120 beats per minute and lasting from minutes to hours.

When an AF episode ends what happens inside the heart? An apt analogy is the electric control panel in every home that either contains circuit breakers or fuses. When lights go out you can go to the box to reset a tripped circuit or replace a blown fuse. In Paroxysmal AF that reset is automatic with the heartbeat returning to normal sinus rhythm.

So where does conversion come into the conversation? I had worn a Holter Monitor (a portable ECG device) for 14-days back in the latter part of November of last year. In this pandemic-disrupted world, it took a while before a cardiologist got back to me about what the Holter showed. In a video call last week I learned about conversion in an entirely new context. The cardiologist told me that over the two weeks of wearing the Holter Monitor I had been in AF for 8.5% of the time and had experienced seven conversion pauses lasting between 3.5 and 5 seconds. A pause is exactly what you think it means. If we carry the analogy of the fuse box, it is as if a power fluctuation caused the lights to go out and it took five seconds to reset the circuit breaker for them to come back on. The cardiologist said the AF occurrences were less of a concern than the conversion pauses, particularly one lasting 5 seconds (apparently happened in my sleep).

University associations are looking to make research papers and publications open to all by dropping paywalls.

The European University Association (EUA) consists of 850 academic institutions covering 48 countries. Created in 2001 they are responsible for the education and training of more than 17 million students across Europe. In creating the Association, European academics have endeavoured to create a common educational standard and policies related to educational and research accountability and processes. They are not alone in doing this, joined by like-minded organizations such as OA2020, the Max Planck Society open access initiative, and the IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the need to accelerate research and development of new vaccines and medications has fostered a move for greater openness in publishing and sharing research. This has spirited a recently unveiled strategy, the EUA Open Science Agenda 2025 promoting open access to research and scholarly publications, and the removal of paywalls from scientific and academic journals and publications of European origin.

Continue reading “Making Scientific Discoveries Open to All” »

Biotechnology is a rapidly growing industry with lots of exciting innovations! So, I created this list as a resource to help people learn about and keep track of key biotechnology companies.

PDF version: List of Biotechnology Companies to Watch

I created this list to serve as a resource to help people learn about and keep track of key biotechnology companies. Some of these are emerging startups, some are established giants, and some provide useful services. Though this list is far from comprehensive, I have tried to cover as many of the key players as possible. In the next iteration of this list, I would especially like to add more agricultural biotechnology companies. It is also important to realize that this landscape is constantly changing, so some of the information on this list will eventually transition into antiquity (this current version was written over the course of 2021 and early 2022). I think many people will find my compilation both interesting and useful. I hope you enjoy delving into the exciting world of biotechnology!

Continue reading “List of Biotechnology Companies to Watch” »