Lifeboat Foundation

“Sunday Morning” anchor Jane Pauley hosts “Forever Young: Searching for the Fountain of Youth,” a one-hour primetime special exploring the wonders, rewards, and challenges of growing older, to air on CBS Sunday, November 28 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, and to stream on Paramount+.

Can we reset our biological clocks? | Watch Video Life expectancy has increased in recent decades, but researchers are looking for ways to further slow the aging process. Correspondent Lee Cowan looks into recent developments in the study of extending human life, and efforts to ward off disease by targeting the biology of aging itself.

“It is not known at this time whether the variant is more transmissible, or more dangerous to the health of those who catch it, than other coronavirus variants.”

There are two confirmed cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus in Ottawa, the Ontario government announced Sunday.

“Today, the province of Ontario has confirmed two cases of the omicron variant of COVID-19 in Ottawa, both of which were reported in individuals with recent travel from Nigeria. Ottawa Public Health is conducting case and contact management and the patients are in isolation,” the statement said.

Cockroach farming is practiced in China on a massive scale. At present, there are hundreds of cockroach farms in China, with the total number of cockroaches produced annually exceeding the global human population. The insects produced in these unique farms are mostly used in the production of cosmetics and medicines, or for animal feed.

In 2018, Chinese pharmaceutical company Gooddoctor claims that it has earned US$684 million in revenue through selling a “healing potion” made from cockroaches that is used annually by thousands of hospitals and millions of Chinese patients to treat respiratory, gastric, and other diseases.

Continue reading “The Mystery Behind China’s Secret Cockroach Farms” »

In a recently published white paper, imec provided an overview of the building blocks for the next generation of medical implants. Integrating the building blocks into smart chips provides a comprehensive solution that is smaller, smarter and more connected.

A new type of cell has been identified in the heart that is linked to regulating heart rate – and the discovery promises to advance our understanding of cardiovascular defects and diseases, once these cells have been more extensively studied.

The new cell is a type of glial cell – cells that support nerve cells – like astrocytes in the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord). Named nexus glia, they’re located in the outflow tract of the heart, the place where many congenital heart defects are found.

The new cell type was first found in zebrafish, before being confirmed in mouse and human hearts too. Experiments on zebrafish found that when the cells were removed, heart rate increased; and when genetic editing blocked glial development, the heartbeat became irregular.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency on Friday due to a rise in Covid-19 cases in the state and the threat of the omicron variant.

She said the variant hasn’t yet been detected in the state but that she decided to sign an executive order to allow the health department to limit non-essential, non-urgent procedures at hospitals and acquire critical supplies more quickly. The order takes effect Dec. 3 and will be re-assessed based on the latest data on Jan. 15.

“We continue to see warning signs of spikes this upcoming winter, and while the new omicron variant has yet to be detected in New York state, it’s coming,” Hochul said.

For the first time, researchers appear to have effectively treated a genetic disorder by directly injecting a CRISPR therapy into patients’ bloodstreams — overcoming one of the biggest hurdles to curing diseases with the gene editing technology.

The therapy appears to be astonishingly effective, editing nearly every cell in the liver to stop a disease-causing mutation.

The challenge: CRISPR gives us the ability to correct genetic mutations, and given that such mutations are responsible for more than 6,000 human diseases, the tech has the potential to dramatically improve human health.

Scientists have designed new pain-relieving compounds that, like morphine and other drugs, provide pain relief via activation of opioid receptors, but without inducing unwanted side effects.

MIT researchers design glue that mimics the sticky substance barnacles use to cling to rocks.