“…consider Robert Nozick’s thought-experiment in conjunction with Felipe De Brigard’s inverse experience machine argument: “If you like it, does it matter if it’s real?”
Does Nozick’s experience machine prove anything?
Continue reading “David Pearce — Experience Machines and Hedonic Treadmills” »
Researchers claim to have 3D-printed skin that’s alive and has blood vessels. The new technique could greatly accelerate the healing process for patients who require skin grafts, such as burn victims. In an animal trial phase, the printed skin even connected to a mouse’s own blood vessels.
This could be a game changer for burn victims.
A new study from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine shows that selectively removing senescent cells—cells that no longer divide—from brains with a form of Alzheimer’s disease can reduce brain damage and inflammation and slow the pace of cognitive decline. These findings, say researchers, add to evidence that senescent cells contribute to the damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease.
“Our results show that eliminating these cells may be a viable route to treat Alzheimer’s disease in humans,” says Mark Mattson, a professor of neuroscience at the School of Medicine and a senior investigator in the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging.
A report on the work was published April 1 in Nature Neuroscience.
Focused ultrasound (FUS) can be used to help drugs pass from the bloodstream into the brain, but the technique’s effectiveness depends on the ultrasound pressure and the size of the drug molecules. Michael Valdez and colleagues at the University of Arizona measured how thoroughly differently sized molecules diffused into mouse brains under a range of ultrasound intensities, and found that the largest molecules could not be delivered under any safe FUS regime. The results set a limit on the types of drugs that might one day be used to treat neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease (Ultrasound Med. Biol. 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2019.08.024).
Usually, the brain is isolated from substances circulating in the bloodstream by the blood–brain barrier (BBB), a semipermeable layer of cells that permits only certain molecules to pass. This restricts the range of drugs that can be used in the brain to small, hydrophobic molecules (such as alcohol and caffeine), other small drugs like psychotropics and some antibiotics. Extending that range would open the door to new therapeutic possibilities, says Theodore Trouard, who led the team. “The ability to temporarily and safely open the BBB to allow drugs into the brain would help address a number of neurological diseases for which there is currently no effective treatment.”
Previous research has shown that such opening can be achieved by focusing an ultrasound beam in the brain while gas microbubbles circulate in the blood. The microbubbles – perfluorocarbon-filled lipid shells about 1 µm across – are inert while they move around the body, but rapidly expand and contract in the local pressure fluctuations caused by the ultrasound field. Mechanical forces exerted by this phenomenon create temporary gaps in the layer of cells that make up the BBB, giving larger molecules a chance to breach the brain’s defences.
Authorities in China have approved a drug for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, the first new medicine with the potential to treat the cognitive disorder in 17 years.
The seaweed-based drug, called Oligomannate, can be used for the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s, according to a statement from China’s drug safety agency. The approval is conditional however, meaning that while it can go on sale during additional clinical trials, it will be strictly monitored and could be withdrawn should any safety issues arise.
In September, the team behind the new drug, led by Geng Meiyu at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said they were inspired to look into seaweed due to the relatively low incidence of Alzheimer’s among people who consume it regularly.
When the first smartphones arrived, few people understood how they would change our reality. Today, our internet-connected mobile device maps our travel, manages our finances, delivers our dinner, and connects us to every corner of human knowledge. In less than a generation, it has become almost an extension of our central nervous system — so indispensable that we can’t imagine leaving home without it to guide us.
We are about to embark on another journey even more important to every individual and to human society. We are entering the age of genomics, an amazing future that will dramatically improve the health outcomes of people across the planet. Soon, we won’t be able to imagine a time when we left home without knowledge of our genome to guide us.
Continue reading “How we Benefit from Getting our Genomes Sequenced” »
With ageing, intrinsic haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) activity decreases, resulting in impaired tissue homeostasis, reduced engraftment following transplantation and increased susceptibility to diseases. However, whether ageing also affects the HSC niche, and thereby impairs its capacity to support HSC function, is still widely debated. Here, by using in-vivo long-term label-retention assays we demonstrate that aged label-retaining HSCs, which are, in old mice, the most quiescent HSC subpopulation with the highest regenerative capacity and cellular polarity, reside predominantly in perisinusoidal niches. Furthermore, we demonstrate that sinusoidal niches are uniquely preserved in shape, morphology and number on ageing. Finally, we show that myeloablative chemotherapy can selectively disrupt aged sinusoidal niches in the long term, which is linked to the lack of recovery of endothelial Jag2 at sinusoids. Overall, our data characterize the functional alterations of the aged HSC niche and unveil that perisinusoidal niches are uniquely preserved and thereby protect HSCs from ageing.
Mark H. says he was abducted by aliens. He clearly remembers awakening one night, unable to move anything but his eyes. He saw flashing lights, heard buzzing sounds, experienced feelings of levitation, and felt electric tingling sensations. Most terrifying were the nonhuman figures he saw by his bed.
Mark believes they were aliens.
Later, he underwent hypnosis to try to recall exactly what had happened to him. Under hypnosis, Mark remembered being whisked through an open window to a large spaceship. He was very frightened when aliens took him into some kind of medical examining room. There he had sex with one of them.
As an experiencer, I believe most claims are real. Whether they were man-made or actual exterrestials or exterrestials that work with us it is still a very common phenomenon. There have been several sightings essentially where even the person’s shoes were the only things left. Looking from common science fiction even it is a possibility that Emelia Airhart was teleported by aliens somewhere in the galaxy and can be referenced from the reports on star trek the tv show. There are several missing people that even today with good forensics that hardly anyone can find and the oddity of it all essentially says that essentially there were no traces left like literally none not even DNA. Looking through police records sure there are cold cases but most are solved but there are several cases that even the highest technologies of forensics have not solved. There are several cold cases all around the globe that were not ordinary ones they were, in fact, alien signs. But eventually, with quantum radar we could scan the entire universe to eventually find traces and digitize them finding a sorta batman style way of like forensics but you would need massive hardware but eventually, you could find them or anything in time. If they found Emelia Airhart they will find anyone else if these exist on this universe or even the multiverse if they physically exist. Then they would actually prove that aliens do actually exist aswell. Really nothing is impossible only improbable. Believing in aliens is not as far fetched as it seems. Most of their technology is science-based anyway it is just exotic physics.
The site of the 1973 alleged abduction is getting a historical marker.
Diabetes is one of the leading health problems in our modern world and requires the careful management of a patient’s insulin levels. New research from Tufts University may make that process a little easier. In mouse tests, the team implanted beta cells that produce more insulin on demand, when they’re activated by blue light.
At the heart of both types of diabetes is insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar levels, allowing cells in the body to properly use it as energy. In type I diabetes, beta cells in the pancreas don’t produce enough insulin, sometimes because the immune system destroys those vital beta cells. In type II diabetes, a patient’s cells stop responding to insulin, or the pancreas can’t keep up with demand, meaning blood glucose levels spike to dangerous highs.
Managing the condition requires constant monitoring of blood sugar levels and boosting insulin levels as needed, either by directly injecting the hormone or through drugs that amplify the beta cells’ production of it.
