Lifeboat Foundation

On Thursday, March 18, Austin-based Everlywell announced that it will begin selling home tests for COVID-19 beginning Monday, March 23. The business already offers dozens of at-home testing kits for anything from cholesterol levels to fertility to food sensitivities, but it is the first U.S. company to announce an at-home COVID-19 test. Everlywell has an initial supply of 30,000 COVID-19 tests and is working with multiple laboratories to scale that number to 250,000 tests weekly.

The test can be requested online for people experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. To access a test, consumers can go to everlywell.com and complete a screening questionnaire. According to the website, the test is shipped to customers with everything needed to collect a sample at home and safely ship that sample to a CLIA-certified lab partner. (All of Everywell’s laboratory partners conducting COVID-19 testing are complying with the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization for COVID-19 symptoms.) The samples will then be shipped to partner labs overnight, and secure digital results will be available online within 48 hours of the lab receiving the sample. Free telehealth consultations with an independent, board-certified physician will also be available to those with positive results. The test is $135, at no profit to Everlywell, and is covered by participating HSA and FSA providers. The brand has reached out to government officials to see if the test can be made available for free.

Intel Corp. is releasing an experimental research system for neuromorphic computing, a cutting-edge method that simulates the way human brains work to perform computations faster, using significantly less energy.

The system, called Pohoiki Springs, will be made available this month over the cloud to members of the Intel Neuromorphic Research Community, which includes academic researchers, government labs and about a dozen companies such as Accenture PLC and Airbus SE.

Others, including International Business Machines Corp., are also researching the technique.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he supports direct payments of $1,000 per adult and $500 per child to Americans within three weeks if Congress backs the plan.

“The president is determined that we are going to support” those affected, Mnuchin said in a Fox Business interview Thursday morning.

Cash handouts to all American households are gaining support in Congress as the best way to shore up an economy brought to a near-standstill by the coronavirus response.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and TARRYTOWN, N.Y., March 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc today announced they have started a clinical program evaluating Kevzara^® (sarilumab) in patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19. Kevzara is a fully-human monoclonal antibody that inhibits the interleukin-6 (IL-6) pathway by binding and blocking the IL-6 receptor. IL-6 may play a role in driving the overactive inflammatory response in the lungs of patients who are severely or critically ill with COVID-19 infection. The role of IL-6 is supported by preliminary data from a single-arm study in China using another IL-6 receptor antibody.

This U.S.-based trial will begin at medical centers in New York, one of the epicenters of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak, and will assess the safety and efficacy of adding Kevzara to usual supportive care, compared to supportive care plus placebo. The multi-center, double-blind, Phase 2/3 trial has an adaptive design with two parts and is anticipated to enroll up to 400 patients. The first part will recruit patients with severe COVID-19 infection across approximately 16 U.S. sites, and will evaluate the impact of Kevzara on fever and patients’ need for supplemental oxygen. The second, larger part of the trial will evaluate the improvement in longer-term outcomes including preventing death and reducing the need for mechanical ventilation, supplemental oxygen and/or hospitalization.

“At Sanofi, we are taking a leading role in addressing the global challenge of COVID-19 disease. Scientific evidence has emerged to suggest that Kevzara may be a potentially important treatment option for some patients, and this trial will provide the well-controlled, rigorous scientific data we need to determine if IL-6 inhibition with Kevzara is better than current supportive care alone. Additionally, we expect to rapidly initiate trials outside the U.S. in the coming weeks, including areas most affected by the pandemic such as Italy,” said John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., Sanofi’s Global Head of Research and Development. “In addition to Kevzara, Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines global business unit of Sanofi, is leveraging previous development work for a SARS vaccine as part of our goal to quickly develop a COVID-19 vaccine.”

A group of neuroscience and neurotechnology researchers have conducted extensive research and developed a new brain imaging technology in two EU projects led by Aalto University. As a result of the successful research, a new project funded by Business Finland just started with the aim of making the devices usable for patients. The project’s budget is one million euros.

“More accurate measurements can be helpful in locating epileptic brain activity before surgery. The new device is also expected to help distinguish brain tumours from healthy tissue more accurately prior to cancer surgery. In addition, the device will increase our understanding of the connections between the different brain regions. This will help us understand abnormal brain activity in connection with, for example, depression or the progress of Alzheimer’s disease,” explains Professor Risto Ilmoniemi, Head of Aalto University Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering.

The improved accuracy can also be useful in the study of stroke, autism and brain injuries; and especially as part of basic brain research.

The increasing number of coronavirus cases in Italy has brought the entire country to a standstill. According to the Live Tracking Dashboard, there are 27,980 confirmed cases as of now and 2,158 people have succumbed to the infection. However, a total of 2,749 people have also recovered from the illness.

Since people are socially distancing themselves to avoid the virus from spreading, a lot of them are also losing business with every passing minute. There’s panic and tension all around. However, there is a piece of good news that’s become the silver lining at this time of misery.

Continue reading “Swans & Dolphins Return To Italy, As Air, Water Quality Improves During Lockdown” »

WASHINGTON – SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza issued the following statement today in response to the President’s address to the nation:

“The President took bold, decisive action to make our 30 million small businesses more resilient to Coronavirus-related economic disruptions. Small businesses are vital economic engines in every community and state, and they have helped make our economy the strongest in the world. Our Agency will work directly with state Governors to provide targeted, low-interest disaster recovery loans to small businesses that have been severely impacted by the situation. Additionally, the SBA continues to assist small businesses with counseling and navigating their own preparedness plans through our network of 68 District Offices and numerous Resource Partners located around the country. The SBA will continue to provide every small business with the most effective and customer-focused response possible during these times of uncertainty.”

SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans offer up to $2 million in assistance for a small business. These loans can provide vital economic support to small businesses to help overcome the temporary loss of revenue they are experiencing.

Entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang is not being shy about his belief that the impact of the coronavirus outbreak makes the case for his trademark proposal of giving Americans cash so they can have an economic boost.

Yang is now calling on lawmakers to do just that to help people navigate their way through the pandemic that has resulted in governments ordering schools and many businesses to close.

CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK SPURS NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, CONNECTICUT TO SHUT BARS, RESTAURANTS AND MOVIE THEATERS

Here’s an exciting concept that was actually first discussed in 1959 by Richard Feynman in an article entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”.

I am most interested in this technology for mind uploading.

“Battelle’s N3 concept for a minimally invasive neural interface system, called BrainSTORMS (Brain System to Transmit Or Receive Magnetoelectric Signals), involves the development of a novel nanotransducer that could be temporarily introduced into the body via injection and then directed to a specific area of the brain to help complete a task through communication with a helmet-based transceiver.”

Continue reading “Battelle-Led Team Wins DARPA Award to Develop Injectable, Bi-Directional Brain Computer Interface” »