Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 684
Jan 31, 2019
Smart building materials to watch in 2019
Posted by Quinn Sena in categories: biotech/medical, habitats
Smart building materials are altering the fabric of the housebuilding industry. Housebuilders are already looking ahead to the days when homes will fix themselves, serve their residents and tell us how we can build them better.
SMART CONCRETE
While housebuilders gaze into the future, researchers have been turning to the past for inspiration. Over the last few years, the DNA of concrete has been decoded and rewritten by scientists to make the material that built the Roman Empire fit for the future.
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Jan 31, 2019
Understanding white blood cells’ defense mechanisms could lead to better treatments
Posted by Quinn Sena in category: biotech/medical
Experiencing a bacterial infection? You’re generally prescribed antibiotics by your doctor. But how exactly do those antibiotics and your white blood cells work in tandem to improve your infection?
“The human body’s first line of defense against bacteria are certain white blood cells called neutrophils,” says J. Scott VanEpps, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of emergency medicine at Michigan Medicine. “One of their weapons are neutrophil extracellular traps, also called NETs.”
The traps are microscopic networks of fibers made primarily of DNA that are produced by the neutrophils to capture bacteria. But how exactly they work, VanEpps notes, is still unclear.
Jan 31, 2019
Could targeting this enzyme slow aging and related diseases?
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: biotech/medical, life extension
Jan 31, 2019
Senescent Cells and Senolytics
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: biotech/medical, life extension
As your body ages, increasing amounts of your cells enter into a state of senescence. Senescent cells do not divide or support the tissues of which they are part; instead, they emit a range of potentially harmful chemical signals that encourage nearby cells to enter the same senescent state.
Their presence causes many problems: they degrade tissue function, increase levels of chronic inflammation, and can even eventually raise the risk of cancer. Today, we will talk about what senescent cells are, how they contribute to age-related diseases, and, perhaps most importantly, what science is hoping to do about the problem.
Jan 31, 2019
Translating Aging Research – Ending Age Related Diseases 2018
Posted by Nicholi Avery in categories: biotech/medical, life extension
Ending Age-Related Diseases — October 3, 2018.
This is a video from the Ending Age-Related Diseases 2018 conference, which was held earlier this year at the Cooper Union in New York City. The conference was designed to bring the worlds of research and investment together in one place and explore the progress and challenges that the industry faces in developing and funding therapies to end age-related disease.
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Jan 31, 2019
New Aging Clock Could Predict Your Future Lifespan
Posted by Steve Hill in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension
A new aging clock developed by Professor Steve Horvath and his research team takes measuring your biological age a step further and can accurately predict your future lifespan.
The epigenetic clock
As we age, our DNA experiences chemical changes called DNA methylation (DNAm); these changes are used as a way to measure age and are the basis of the epigenetic clock. As we age, the methylation patterns present on our DNA change, and researchers can measure these changes to work out how old an animal or person is.
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Jan 31, 2019
The Punishing Polar Vortex Is Ideal for Cassie the Robot
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI, transportation
This is not a story about how the polar vortex is bad—bad for the human body, bad for public transportation, bad for virtually everything in its path. This is a story about how one being among us is actually taking advantage of the historic cold snap: Cassie the bipedal robot. While humans suffer through the chill, this trunkless pair of ostrich-like legs is braving the frozen grounds of the University of Michigan, for the good of science.
“When we saw the announcement for the polar vortex, we started making plans to see how long we could operate in that kind of weather,” says roboticist Jessy Grizzle. “We were going to tie a scarf on her just so it looked cute, but we decided people would think that was keeping her warm and affecting the experiment, so we didn’t.”
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Jan 31, 2019
Nearly half of U.S. adults have heart or blood vessel disease, new report says
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: biotech/medical
A new report estimates that nearly half of all U.S. adults have some form of heart or blood vessel disease, a medical milestone that’s mostly due to recent guidelines that expanded how many people have high blood pressure.
The American Heart Association said Thursday that more than 121 million adults had cardiovascular disease in 2016. Taking out those with only high blood pressure leaves 24 million, or 9 percent of adults, who have other forms of disease such as heart failure or clogged arteries.
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