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Category: biotech/medical

AI speeds up discovery of next-gen computer chips and electronic materials

An international study team, led by Flinders University in collaboration with Khalifa University UAE, built the machine-learning platform to act like a “smart materials discovery engine,” which is capable of dramatically reducing the time spent on complex computer or lab experiments to test and find new materials for future semiconductors.

Semiconductors are used in high-tech applications from wearable electronics, communication systems and smartphones to medical and LED devices and solar panels.

“The challenge is that there are millions of possible material combinations, and testing them one by one in the laboratory or with complex computer simulations is extremely slow and expensive,” says Flinders University ARC Future Fellow Associate Professor Vi-Khanh Truong, lead author of a new article in ACS Materials Letters, titled “Bayesian optimization-guided discovery of gallium-containing semiconductors with targeted band gaps.”

Childhood trauma predicts higher risk of combined mental and physical illness in later life

Researchers modeled the specific dosage of trauma to highlight an escalating relationship between the sheer volume of trauma and later health vulnerabilities. Small amounts of childhood adversity corresponded to relatively modest increases in health risks. However, once a person’s trauma score passed four distinct adverse experiences, the upward trajectory of their health risk accelerated rapidly.

The researchers also investigated the stepping stones connecting early trauma to later disease onset. Using a statistical technique called mediation analysis, they looked for intermediate health issues that acted as bridges over the span of a lifetime. They found that developing either a single physical illness or isolated depression in early adulthood often served as an indirect pathway to combined disease in older age.

For individuals with the highest amounts of early trauma, early-onset depression played a particularly strong bridging role. An initial diagnosis of depression frequently paved the way for additional physical conditions as time went on. These findings align with biological theories suggesting that severe childhood stress permanently disrupts the body’s immune regulation and stress hormone pathways.

Scientists DOUBLED Mouse Lifespan With This Immune System Breakthrough

A biotech company just doubled the lifespan of mice without changing their diet and without editing their genes.

Instead, they trained the immune system to hunt down and destroy the cells that make the body age. Then they flooded the body with fresh stem cells to rebuild what was lost.

This isn’t science fiction. It’s longevity science happening right now.

Futurists Don’t Have Crystal Balls: How to Hire a Futurist Keynote Speaker

In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt assembled what was then the most credentialed group of forecasters in the world. He called it the Brain Trust.

He asked them to map the next 25 years.

They missed transistors. They missed atomic energy. They missed antibiotics. They missed faster-than-sound travel. They missed space probes. They missed World War II.

I have spent the last 16 years interviewing 300 of the most credentialed futurists alive. From Ray Kurzweil to Peter Diamandis to Marvin Minsky to Sir Martin Rees.

They agree on almost nothing.

That is my report from inside the room.

There is now a professional class that sells certainty about an inherently uncertain thing. Call it the crystal ball industry. The product is confidence. The buyer is the anxious executive. The medium is the keynote stage.

Continue reading “Futurists Don’t Have Crystal Balls: How to Hire a Futurist Keynote Speaker” | >

Cutting calories by 10% to 15% may boost healthy aging without extreme diets

Search the web, and you’ll find any number of biohacking techniques for promoting healthy lifespan, from taking cold baths to breathing pressurized oxygen to sleeping under a red light.

There’s a simpler path to healthy aging, and science from Tufts and elsewhere has shown that it really works: Just eat a little bit less. Cutting down on calorie intake by as little as 10–15% can lower the risk of developing age-related illnesses by improving cardiovascular health, lowering blood pressure, and improving glucose tolerance, among many other benefits. For some people, reaping these benefits can be as easy as giving up one large latte per day.

The work is published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Gold-coated optical fiber rapidly gathers microscopic targets for faster, more sensitive detection

Osaka Metropolitan University researchers have developed a light-driven technique that quickly amasses thousands of bacteria into a single spot, boosting detection speed and sensitivity. Their approach paves the way for earlier diagnosis of disease. The study is published in Communications Physics.

Many harmful bacteria, such as E. coli O157, can trigger severe ailments even at very low concentrations. Rapid detection of trace quantities of bacteria is essential to facilitate early diagnosis and prevent disease. The technique could also identify nanoparticles and other micro-and nanoscale entities that are also affecting the immune system and making the disease worse.

“Many conventional techniques are time consuming, require complex instrumentation, or are limited to collecting targets only near a surface or within a narrow focal region,” said Takuya Iida, professor at the Graduate School of Science and Research Institute for Light-induced Acceleration System (RILACS) at Osaka Metropolitan University and lead author of the study.

The oscillatory biology of sleep: Linkage to dementia

During wakefulness, neuromodulators operate largely independently to support behavior and cognition. By contrast, sleep reorganizes their activity into a coordinated brain rhythm. During sleep, the major neuromodulators—norepinephrine, acetylcholine, serotonin, and dopamine—exhibit synchronized fluctuations with a periodicity of ~50 seconds. These oscillations appear as recurrent bursts of fast (10 to 30 hertz) electroencephalography activity and are phase-coupled to cerebrospinal fluid flow. Neuromodulators are vasoactive agents and drive slow vasomotion, which provide the mechanical force that supports glymphatic clearance of metabolic waste. Disruption of neuromodulator signaling, as seen in psychiatric disorders, cardiovascular disease, aging, or with commonly prescribed drugs, impairs clearance of neurotoxic proteins, including amyloid-β and tau.

China’s lab-grown heart organoid could offer alternative to pacemakers

A team of scientists in Shanghai has developed a lab-grown biological pacemaker designed to mimic the heart’s natural rhythm control system. By working with human pluripotent stem cells, which can transform into many different types of tissue, the researchers created a three-dimensional sinoatrial node organoid capable of generating electrical impulses, the South China Morning Post reported.

To make the system more lifelike, the team linked the organoid to an artificial cardiac plexus, a network of nerves located near the base of the heart that helps regulate heartbeat activity. The achievement allowed researchers to recreate how the nervous system communicates with the heart, opening potential new paths for studying irregular heart rhythms and developing future treatments that could reduce reliance on electronic pacemakers.

The research, published in the journal Cell Stem Cell involved scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Fudan University. The team focused on the sinoatrial node, the tiny part of the heart responsible for controlling its rhythm. Although it plays a critical role in keeping the heart beating properly, the structure has been difficult for scientists to study because of its small size and hard-to-reach location inside the heart.

Optimize Brain Health And Longevity: Tommy Wood, MD, PhD

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Scientists create artificial egg to revive extinct giant bird

The South Island giant moa, a flightless bird that stood up to 12ft tall, last roamed New Zealand’s forests some 600 years ago. Yet the species may have taken a small, strange step back from extinction — thanks to an artificial egg made of silicone.

Colossal Biosciences, a Texan biotechnology firm, has developed a shell-less system it says is capable of supporting a bird embryo from early development through to the point of hatching.

So far the device has been used to produce baby chickens. The end goal, the company says, is to deploy a much larger version to resurrect the moa, whose eggs were about 80 times the volume of a farmyard hen’s.

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