Lifeboat Foundation

Heart injury could be a common condition in patients hospitalized with Covid-19, according to a new study that also shows it’s linked to a greater risk of death among those patients.

The study, published in the medical journal JAMA Cardiology on Wednesday, found that among a group of Covid-19 patients hospitalized in Wuhan China, 19.7% suffered cardiac injury, which was found to be a risk factor for dying in the hospital.

Cardiac injury, also referred to as myocardial injury, occurs when there is damage to the heart muscle, and such damage can occur when blood flow to the heart is reduced — which is what causes a heart attack.

People often criticize AI tested in “toy cases,” or datasets that may have limited significance in the real world. With COVID-19, that’s no longer the case.

:ooooo.

Unlocking the full potential of cannabis for agriculture and human health will require a co-ordinated scientific effort to assemble and map the cannabis genome, says a just-published international study led by University of Saskatchewan researchers.

In a major statistical analysis of existing data and studies published in the Annual Review of Plant Biology, the authors conclude there are large gaps in the scientific knowledge of this high-demand, multi-purpose crop.

Continue reading “Mapping the cannabis genome to improve crops and health” »

O,.,o.

Stanford scientists may have found a way to essentially return older cells to a more youthful state. The adult cells are treated with a mix of proteins from early embryonic development, which removes many of the molecular signs of aging. The cells closely resembled younger ones, and in mouse tests, older animals regained the muscle strength of youth.

Stem cells have the remarkable ability to differentiate into basically any other type of cell in the body. That’s not only important for healthy development of embryos, but it opens an intriguing possible treatment for replenishing lost cells to repair damage to organs and tissues.

Continue reading “Stem cell technique winds back aging in human cells” »

Researchers have developed the first computational model of a human cell and simulated its behavior for 15 minutes—the longest time achieved for a biological system of this complexity. In a new study, simulations reveal the effects of spatial organization within cells on some of the genetic processes that control the regulation and development of human traits and some human diseases.

The study, which produced a new computational platform that is available to any researcher, is published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.

“This is the first program that allows researchers to set up a virtual human cell and change chemical reactions and geometries to observe cellular processes in real time,” said Zhaleh Ghaemi, a research scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and lead author of the study.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) — The father of a two-month-old infant in Shanghai has created a custom-built pod complete with an air purification system to keep his baby safe from the coronavirus outbreak.

Cao Junjie, 30, refashioned a cat carrier to make the sealable pod that includes an air-quality monitor displaying the concentration of carbon dioxide inside.

“Because of the epidemic, I spent a month making this baby safety pod for my kid … It can provide a safe and comfortable environment for the baby,” Cao told Reuters on Wednesday.

I believe people are dying because the response to this is surreal. You can spend over $1.5 Trillion on an F-35 that has been grounded more times than grass, yet this is happening 😳. Cheap test kits were offered by startups, nanotech protective gear was offered by an Israeli startup. Yet for some reason bailing out Mar a Lago makes more sense.

The shortage of safety gear at one Manhattan hospital is so dire that desperate nurses have resorted to wearing trash bags — and some blame the situation for the coronavirus death of a beloved colleague.

The Defense Department will provide 5 million medical-grade air-filtering masks — 1 million of them available immediately — as well as 2,000 ventilators as it steps up its role in the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said.

The Pentagon can also make the Navy’s two hospital ships available on the East and West coasts, Esper told reporters Tuesday. But he emphasized that the ships and other military resources would best be able to treat some trauma cases to make room for coronavirus patients at civilian hospitals that are properly equipped to handle infections.

“They don’t have necessarily the space, the segregated spaces, you need to deal with infectious diseases,” Esper said at the Pentagon. “So one of the ways by which you could use either field hospitals, the hospital ships or things in between, is to take the pressure off of civilian hospitals when it comes to trauma cases, is to open up civilian hospital rooms for infectious diseases.”

The Curious Case of Sickle-Cell Anemia

Even those uninterested in biology have likely heard of the disorder. Sickle-cell anemia holds the crown as the first genetic disorder to be traced to its molecular roots nearly a hundred years ago.

The root of the disorder is a single genetic mutation that drastically changes the structure of the oxygen-carrying protein, beta-globin, in red blood cells. The result is that the cells, rather than forming their usual slick disc-shape, turn into jagged, sickle-shaped daggers that damage blood vessels or block them altogether. The symptoms aren’t always uniform; rather, they come in “crisis episodes” during which the pain becomes nearly intolerable.