Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have designed an innovative pixelated, soft, color-changing system called a Morphable Concavity Array (MoCA).

Pixelated, soft, color-changing systems are malleable structures that can change color by manipulating light. They have applications in a wide range of industries, from medical bandages that change color if there is an infection, to foldable screens on smartphones and tablets, as well as wearable technology where sensors are integrated into the clothing fabric.

The research was co-directed by Professor Anderson Ho Cheung Shum from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at HKU, and Professor Mingzhu Li from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and led by Dr. Yi Pan from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at HKU.

Combining two cutting-edge technologies, researchers revealed the impact of a multitude of genes that are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, but whose effects on human brain development were previously unknown.

The award honors three scientists who discovered and built quantum dots, which are now used in everything from TVs to medical tools.

Cancer relies on metabolism pathways to grow, which has Rogel Cancer Center researchers looking at how to use food and diet to exploit cancer’s vulnerabilities as a foundation of new potential therapies.

Learn more about the cancer research being done at University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center: https://www.rogelcancercenter.org/research/programs.

Continue reading “Cancer, Metabolism, and Food: A New Way to Look at Potential Therapies” »

Winter is coming—eventually. And while the Earth is warming, a new study suggests that the atmosphere is being pushed around in ways that cause long bouts of extreme winter cold or wet in some regions.

The study’s authors say they have identified giant meanders in the global jet stream that bring polar air southward, locking in frigid or wet conditions concurrently over much of North America and Europe, often for weeks at a time. Such weather waves, they say, have doubled in frequency since the 1960s. In just the last few years, they have killed hundreds of people and paralyzed energy and transport systems.

The new paper, titled “Recent Increase in a Recurrent Pan-Atlantic Wave Pattern Driving Concurrent Wintertime Extremes,” appears this week in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

“We hope that the research can contribute to and complement the arsenal of techniques used to diagnose breast cancer and to generate a large amount of data associated with it that may be useful in trying to identify large-scale trends that could help diagnose breast cancer early,” George added.

The team next plans to combine CBE techniques learned from professionals with AI and fully equip IRIS with sensors to determine the effectiveness of the whole system in identifying potential cancer risks. The ultimate goal is to have the manipulator detect lumps more accurately and deeper than it is possible only by applying human touch.

This promising development could revolutionize how women monitor their breast health. With safe electronic CBEs located in easily accessible places like pharmacies and health centers, women could have access to accurate results and take a proactive approach to their health.

Speaker: Robert Hyzy, MD

This lecture explores the use of non-invasive ventilation and high flow nasal cannula in patients with respiratory failure both as a means of avoiding endotracheal intubation and invasive mechanical ventilation as well as in preventing reintubation.

Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2023 for the discovery and development of quantum dots. These tiny particles have unique properties and now spread their light from television screens and LED lamps. They catalyse chemical reactions and their clear light can illuminate tumour tissue for a surgeon.

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” is a classic quote from the film The Wizard of Oz. Twelve-year-old Dorothy faints onto her bed when her house is swept away by a powerful tornado, but when the house lands again and she steps outside the door, her dog Toto in her arms, everything has changed. Suddenly she is in a magical, technicolour world.

If an enchanted tornado were to sweep into our lives and shrink everything to nano dimensions, we would almost certainly be as astonished as Dorothy in the land of Oz. Our surroundings would be dazzlingly colourful and everything would change. Our gold earrings would suddenly glimmer in blue, while the gold ring on our finger would shine a ruby red. If we tried to fry something on the gas hob, the frying pan might melt. And our white walls – whose paint contains titanium dioxide – would start generating lots of reactive oxygen species.

Cancer immunotherapy drugs called PD-1 inhibitors are widely used to stimulate the immune system to fight cancer, but many patients either don’t respond or develop resistance to them. A new small-molecule drug candidate being tested in an early-stage clinical trial aims to improve patient responses to immunotherapy.

Now scientists have shown, in a study published in Nature, that the small molecule works through two different mechanisms to slow tumor growth and increase survival in lab animals.

Researchers from the Tumor Immunotherapy Discovery Engine (TIDE) at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, AbbVie, and Calico Life Sciences report that the molecule simultaneously makes tumors more sensitive to immune attack and boosts the activity of immune cells to fight tumors in mice.