Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists race to cure Alzheimer’s disease, using revolutionary approaches that may reduce the number of people affected by about 40 pct.

Summary: Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases are partially caused by the build-up of garbage due to a breakdown of the cellular housekeeping process known as autophagy. British scientists just discovered what may be the key to stopping this collapse in cellular housekeeping. [Author: Brady Hartman. This article first appeared on LongevityFacts.com. Follow us on Reddit | Google+ | Facebook. ]

Scientists at King’s College London (KCL) discovered new mechanisms of cell death in neurodegenerative disorders, which may be involved in the leading causes of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The novel research was published Wednesday in the journal Current Biology.

If the findings are expanded, the discovery could lead to new treatments for delaying the progression of previously incurable neurodegenerative conditions.

Continue reading “Researchers Discover Key to Alzheimer’s Disease in Our Brains” »

Summary: Cryonics firm CryoGen makes a radical new proposal to freeze people before death, known as ‘mercy freezing.’ Customers will pay for the Cryopreservation: Also called cryobanking. The process of cooling and storing cells, tissues, or organs at very low or freezing temperatures to save them for future use. Used in cryonics and the storage of reproductive cells in fertility treatments. [Source – NCI].” class=” glossaryLink “cryopreservation using a new blockchain based cryptocurrency called the CRYO. [This article first appeared on LongevityFacts.com. Author: Brady Hartman. Follow us on Reddit | Google+ | Facebook. ]

Cryonics is legally allowed only after death, and during this time the body starts to decay. Cryopreservation should ideally be performed within a few minutes of the patient’s demise. This happens less than half the time for current cryonics clients, and their tissues start turning to mush before freezing.

A Russian-Swiss company named CryoGen plans to solve that problem by freezing people before death, calling it ‘mercy freezing.’ CryoGen is building a cryonics lab in Switzerland, a country where euthanasia is legal. According to a white paper on CryoGen’s website.

Continue reading “Company Offers to Freeze Your Body Before Death” »

Ontario intends to provide a basic income to 4,000 people in three different communities as part of an experiment that seeks to evaluate whether providing more money to people on public assistance or low incomes will make a significant material difference in their lives. How people like Button respond over the next three years is being closely watched by social scientists, economists and policymakers in Canada and around the world.

Former security guard Tim Button considers how a sudden increase in his income from an unusual social experiment has changed his life in this Canadian industrial city along the shore of Lake Ontario.

Sipping coffee in a Tim Horton’s doughnut shop, Button says he has been unable to work because of a fall from a roof, and the financial boost from Ontario Province’s new “basic income” program has enabled him to make plans to visit distant family for Christmas for the first time in years. It has also prompted him to eat healthier, schedule a long-postponed trip to the dentist and mull taking a course to help him get back to work.

Continue reading “Canada tests ‘basic income’ effect on poverty amid lost jobs” »

Summary: Scientists discover that the anti-aging protein SIRT1 could be targeted to rejuvenate T cells in our aging immune systems. [Author: Brady Hartman] This article first appeared on LongevityFacts.com. Follow us on Reddit | Google+ | Facebook.

Anti-aging proteins in the sirtuin family have long been shown to protect against age-related diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurodegeneration. A new research study by scientists at the Gladstone Institutes now reveals that the protein called SIRT1 could also be targeted to rejuvenate aging immune system cells. SIRT1 is commonly known for being activated by naturally occurring substances found in red wine.

In the new study, published Wednesday in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the researchers found that SIRT1 is also involved in how immune system cells develop with age. The Gladstone scientists wanted to find out how the anti-aging protein SIRT1 affects the immune cells known as cytotoxic T cells. Also called killer T cells, these cells are highly specialized guardians of the immune system, and their role is to kill cancer cells, damaged cells, or those cells infected by a virus. More specifically, a cytotoxic T cell is a type of white blood cell and also a type of lymphocyte. To treat tumors, these can be separated from other blood cells, grown in a laboratory, and then given to a patient to kill cancer cells. Melanie Ott, a senior author of the new study, and a Gladstone Senior Investigator said.

Continue reading “This Anti-Aging Protein Could Be Targeted to Rejuvenate Our Immune Cells” »

Just need to prevent brain hacking.

Eric Leuthardt believes that in the near future we will allow doctors to insert electrodes into our brains so we can communicate directly with computers and each other.

Scientists have expanded the building blocks of DNA to create a stable semi-synthetic organism that can produce biological compounds entirely new to nature.

The DNA that makes up essentially all living things on Earth consists of arrangements of four basic nucleotides, but the new life-form developed by researchers in the US makes use of six – and that’s where things get interesting.

The semi-synthetic organism (SSO) engineered by a team at the Scripps Research Institute in California is made from the same four regular nucleobases as you and I – adenine (A), cytosine ©, guanine (G), and thymine (T) – but it’s also got two unnatural nucleotides to call upon.

Continue reading “New Semi-Synthetic Organism Can Make Molecules We’ve Never Seen Before” »

In a major step toward creating artificial life, U.S. researchers have developed a living organism that incorporates both natural and artificial DNA and is capable of creating entirely new, synthetic proteins.

“If something goes wrong, I can just chop off that part of the skin.” Josiah Zayner took a swig from his beer and squinted into the spotlight. He was already kind of drunk. He also hadn’t bothered to write a speech. Tattooed and heavily pierced with a shock of blue-gray hair, he shuffled around uneasily on stage. But 150-odd people had flown in from around the country to hear him speak—the mad pirate-king of biotech. “It all is coming from my heart,” he said, choking up a little. “Everything you’re going to hear today is me to the core.” Advertisement Zayner’s audiencesat in the fashionably…