Lifeboat Foundation

The mice helped the tiny organoids get nutrients, oxygen, and even start developing human neurons.

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Scientists at the Salk Institute implanted lentil-sized human brain organoids into the heads of mice, then closed it with a transparent window. The mice looked and behaved like ordinary mice, while supplying blood and nutrients to keep human brains developing for months.

Continue reading “Scientists Implanted Tiny Human Brains Into Mice” »

“Old age isn’t a battle,” she says, quoting Philip Roth, “old age is a massacre.” In the past few years, she has given up on screenings and scans. Not that she is lazy or suicidal. But at 76, she considers herself old enough to die. All the self-help books aimed at her age group tell her otherwise; they talk of “active ageing”, “productive ageing”, “anti-ageing”, even “reverse-ageing”, with a long life promised to anyone who makes an effort, regardless of factors such as genetics or poverty. But to her, ageing is “an accumulation of disabilities”, which no amount of physical activity or rigorous self-denial can prevent. If she has symptoms, she’ll have them investigated. But when a doctor tells her there could be an undetected problem of some kind, she won’t play along.

A great iconoclast has written a polemic about ageing that sends up New Age platitudes and is full of scepticism of the wellness industry.

Blake Morrison

Continue reading “Natural Causes” »

If you aren’t freaked out by privacy concerns of DNA testing kits (basically, they may sell anonymized genetic data, but not personally identifiable data), the tests are getting better, and 23andMe’s are on sale today.

I guess any procedure involving the brain feels like a different category of risk to most people. You must face that anxiety every day. I think there are two types of surgical practice that really strike at the core of people’s anxiety. One is brain surgery, where you are operating on something that people see as themselves, their sense of identity, their mind. The other one is, I think, paediatric surgery, where the operation is on the thing most precious to you – your children. I think both create a dynamic where you need to work harder to create trust with your patients.

When it comes to innovation that might link a person’s mind directly with a machine, it seems as much an ethical as a medical question. Is that how you see it? Ethicists are critical in what we do. A working interface would be a real turning point in human evolution. I don’t say that with bombast or hyperbole. And just like with artificial intelligence, we need to take the greatest care in how we think about it. Whether it happens in five years or 50 years, it will happen. I wrote these two science-fiction novels to try to walk people through some of the things that could happen; for example, if others got unauthorised access to these implants, or when corporations got involved. We need to be thinking about these things now, rather than after the fact.

Was one of the motivations in writing your books to work out these things for yourself? Did you feel the same at the beginning of the process as at the end? I had certain ideas in mind when I started the books, but there was an evolution. I came to think less about that individual interface and more about the effect this technology might have on society. We need to think hard about how advances [might] not increase social division.

Continue reading “Neurosurgeon Eric Leuthardt: ‘An interface between mind and machine will happen’” »

Peripheral Elevation of a #Klotho Fragment Enhances Brain Function and Resilience in Young, Aging, and α-Synuclein Transgenic Mice.

Klotho is a longevity factor associated with cognitive enhancement when genetically and widely overexpressed over the lifetime of mice. Leon et al. show that peripheral delivery of a klotho fragment, αKL-F, acutely enhances cognition and neural resilience in young, aging, and disease model mice, establishing its therapeutic relevance and dissecting its underlying mechanisms.

A UK man who caught what was dubbed the world’s “worst-ever” case of super-gonorrhoea has been cured, Public Health England (PHE) said — but two similar cases have been reported in Australia.

The unidentified heterosexual man, who had a partner in the UK, picked up the infection having sex with another woman in South-East Asia, PHE said.

Health officials said it was the first time the infection could not be cured with the regular treatment — a combination of antibiotics azithromycin and ceftriaxone.

Continue reading “UK man’s super-gonorrhoea cured — but now two Australians have it” »

Today we will be looking at new research that may provide a new treatment option for those suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

What is Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease?

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, is a progressive respiratory disease characterized by shortness of breath and cough with sputum production. It generally takes a long time to develop, so it is more common in people who are at least forty years old.

Fun event if you’re in London on May 30th smile

___ Heads-up: the Imperial College Centre for Neurotechnology will host a keynote by Alvaro Fernandez on Wednesday, May 30th, titled Why the Future of Brain Enhancement & Mental Health is Digital & Pervasive. Description: As seen in patent and investment trends, research findings and consumer/patient behaviors, Mental.

When it comes to pegging the blame for the obesity crisis, farm subsidies are a popular target. Subsidies, the argument goes, encourage farmers to grow less-healthy foods—corn, turned into corn syrup, is the common culprit here—and fewer unsubsidized fruits and vegetables.

Not everyone agrees. Experts caution that cheap corn isn’t the only cause of poor nutrition and that other factors, like technology, are responsible for the low cost of field crops. Still, it’s reasonable to ask: How can subsidies be used to make healthier food options more available?

One answer: by making sure that subsidies take into account consumer welfare as well as farmers’ incomes, suggest UCLA Anderson’s Prashant Chintapalli, a Ph.D student, and Christopher S. Tang. In a working paper examining a type of subsidy called “minimum support prices,” or MSPs, the authors suggest that backing a diverse mix of crops—including fruits and vegetables—would give consumers a wider selection and be most effective at raising farmer profits at a lower cost to the government.

Continue reading “Model suggests well-designed subsidies can help farmers and give consumers better food choices” »