Lifeboat Foundation

The research team found that long-term urolithin A treatment in mice significantly improved their learning, memory and olfactory function. The treatment also reduced amyloid beta (Aβ) and tau pathologies and improved cellular lysosomal function [1].

The researchers’ findings also suggest that urolithin A is as effective as NAD in promoting mitophagy, positioning it as a potential therapeutic agent for Alzheimer’s disease.

“Our study on mouse models with AD shows that urolithin A, which is a naturally occurring substance in pomegranates, can alleviate memory problems and other consequences of dementia,” says Bohr. “Even though the study was conducted on mouse models, the prospects are positive. So far, research has shown promising results for the substance in the muscles, and clinical trials on humans are being planned [3].”

An Engineering team at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has developed a novel microfluidic technique capable of greatly enhancing applications in materials science and biomedical engineering.

‘Hervs’ date back hundreds of thousands of years – and play an important role in regulating genes.

All the parts of our bodies share an inherent connectivity. This goes much further than “the foot bone’s connected to the … leg bone.” For instance, both hands and feet are connected to a constantly flowing bloodstream, and a nerve network that makes their muscles kick.

So what about the connection recently proposed by some news outlets regarding a simple test involving your palm and thumb? Could it really help diagnose a silent, yet potentially serious problem?

An aneurysm is what we’re referring to here. This is a ballooned segment of an artery—the vessels that supply oxygenated blood to your body tissues. Aneurysms may cause no problems, but if they grow larger, they can weaken, burst and bleed. This is bad enough in most arteries, but imagine if the artery involved were the biggest in your body?

Those who know Oxford University for its literary luminaries might be surprised to learn that some of the most important reflections on emerging technologies come from its hallowed halls. While the leading tech innovators in Silicon Valley capture imaginations with their bold visions of future singularities, mind-machine melding, and digital immortality by 2045, they rarely engage as deeply with the philosophical issues surrounding such developments as their like-minded scholars over the pond. This essay will briefly highlight some of the key contributions of Oxford University’s professors Nick Bostrom, Anders Sandberg, and Julian Savulescu to the transhumanist movement. It will also show how this movement’s focus on radical autonomy in biotechnical enhancements shapes the wider global bioethical conversation.

As the lead author of the Transhumanist FAQ, Bostrom provides the closest the movement has to an institutional catechism. He is, in a sense, the Ratzinger of Transhumanism. The first paragraph of the seminal text emphasizes the evolutionary vision of his school. Transhumanism’s incessant pursuit of radical technological transformation is “based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase.” Current humans are but one intriguing yet greatly improvable iteration of human existence. Think of the first iPhone and how unattractive 2007’s most cutting-edge technology is in 2024.

Continue reading “Training Transhumanists at Oxford University” »

Using ancient DNA recovered from a fossil bone, researchers in Science Advances have reconstructed a complete genome of the little bush moa, an extinct species of flightless bird that once roamed the forested islands of New Zealand.

The study indicates Ozempic reduces kidney failure risk and may delay dialysis need.

The research suggests that Ozempic, commonly used to treat diabetes, may offer significant benefits for individuals with kidney disease.

Researchers have tested a range of neuroprosthetic devices, from wheelchairs to robots to advanced limbs, that work with their users to intelligently perform tasks.

They work by decoding brain signals to determine the actions their users want to take, and then use advanced robotics to do the work of the spinal cord in orchestrating the movements. The use of shared control — new to neuroprostheses — “empowers users to perform complex tasks,” says José del R. Millán, who presented the new work at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) conference in San Francisco today.

Millán, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, began working on “brain-computer interfaces” (BCIs), designing devices that use people’s own brain activity to restore hand grasping and locomotion, or provide mobility via wheelchairs or telepresence robots, using people’s own brain activity.

This is something I wish i had.

Acute mapping of responses to focal electrical neuromodulation in a patient with treatment-resistant depression reveals distinct mood and symptom changes that are highly context dependent.