Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists used to perform experiments by stirring biological and chemical agents into test tubes.

Nowadays, they automate research by using microfluidic chips the size of postage stamps. In these tiny devices, millions of microscopic particles are captured in droplets of water, each droplet serving as the “test tube” for a single experiment. The chip funnels these many droplets, one at a time, through a tiny channel where a laser probes each passing droplet to record thousands of experimental results each second.

Continue reading “To make particles flow more efficiently, put an obstacle in their way” »

To combat this, Li and his team at Harvard have designed their solid-state battery with a multilayer approach that stacks its materials of varying stabilities between the anode and cathode. Much like a sandwich. This multi-material battery sandwich helps alleviate the penetration of lithium dendrites by controlling and containing them rather than preventing them altogether.

As you can see from the image above, the Harvard team has simplified its battery design to a form that’s more our speed. In this case, a BLT sandwich. The top slice of bread represents the lithium-metal anode, followed by lettuce appropriately representing a coating of graphite. The two layers of tomatoes represent the first electrolyte, protecting the delicious middle layer of bacon as the second electrolyte. Everything sits upon the bottom slice of bread, or the cathode. Is anyone else suddenly hungry for batteries?

In this design, dendrites are able to grow through the graphite (lettuce) and first electrolyte (tomato) but are halted when they reach the second electrolyte (bacon), thus preventing the dendrites from shorting the entire battery. This multilayer approach provokes chemistry that makes the second electrolyte too tight for the dendrites to penetrate. Furthermore, the Harvard researchers say this same chemistry can backfill the holes made by dendrites, essentially making the solid-state battery self-healing. Is there anything better than a sandwich that can regenerate itself? Honestly.

Nuclear Nonproliferation, Cooperative Threat Reduction and WMD Terrorism — Dr. Natasha Bajema, Director, Converging Risks Lab, The Council on Strategic Risks.

Dr. Natasha Bajema, is a subject matter expert in nuclear nonproliferation, cooperative threat reduction and WMD terrorism, and currently serves as Director of the Converging Risks Lab, at The Council on Strategic Risks, a nonprofit, non-partisan security policy institute devoted to anticipating, analyzing and addressing core systemic risks to security in the 21st century, with special examination of the ways in which these risks intersect and exacerbate one another.

Continue reading “Dr. Natasha Bajema — Dir., Converging Risks Lab, Council on Strategic Risks — WMD Threat Reduction” »

Only one in three fertilizations leads to a successful pregnancy. Many embryos fail to progress beyond early development. Cell biologists at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen (Germany), together with researchers at the Institute of Farm Animal Genetics in Mariensee and other international colleagues, have now developed a new model system for studying early embryonic development. With the help of this system, they discovered that errors often occur when the genetic material from each parent combines immediately after fertilization. This is due to a remarkably inefficient process.

Human somatic cells typically have 46 chromosomes, which together carry the genetic information. These chromosomes are first brought together at fertilization, 23 from the father’s sperm, and 23 from the mother’s egg. After fertilization, the parental chromosomes initially exist in two separate compartments, known as pronuclei. These pronuclei slowly move towards each other until they come into contact. The pronuclear envelopes then dissolve, and the parental chromosomes unite.

The majority of human embryos, however, end up with an incorrect number of chromosomes. These embryos are often not viable, making erroneous genome unification a leading cause of miscarriage and infertility.

Some thoughts about the genetic code aliens would use in the 2nd part of the series: The Science of Aliens:

Alien life would likely have different biochemistry, which may change the way it reproduces.

Do you like unusual clocks? We’re sure you’ll love this one!😍

This experiment is not included in the MEL Chemistry subscription and should be performed only by professionals–we just love showing you the beauty of chemistry💙 For cool and safe experiments to do at home, sign up for MEL Science here: https://mel.sc/s0X/

7:01 they talk about Church’s comments of ending aging by 2030. Also this appears to be a part one.

In this video Professor Church talks about his theory of aging and touches on his ideas on the future of aging.

Continue reading “My Theory & The Future Of Aging | Prof George Church Interview Series Episode 1” »

For the first time, a spacecraft on another planet has recorded the sounds of a separate spacecraft. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used one of its two microphones to listen as the Ingenuity helicopter flew for the fourth time on April 30, 2021. A new video combines footage of the solar-powered helicopter taken by Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z imager with audio from a microphone belonging to the rover’s SuperCam laser instrument.

The laser zaps rocks from a distance, studying their vapor with a spectrometer to reveal their chemical composition. The instrument’s microphone records the sounds of those laser strikes, which provide information on the physical properties of the targets, such as their relative hardness. The microphone can also record ambient noise, like the Martian wind.

Continue reading “Perseverance Mars rover captures video, audio of fourth Ingenuity flight” »

Many people with diabetes endure multiple, painful finger pricks each day to measure their blood glucose. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Sensors have developed a device that can measure glucose in sweat with the touch of a fingertip, and then a personalized algorithm provides an accurate estimate of blood glucose levels.

According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 34 million children and adults in the U.S. have diabetes. Although self-monitoring of blood glucose is a critical part of diabetes management, the pain and inconvenience caused by finger-stick blood sampling can keep people from testing as often as they should.

The researchers made a touch-based sweat glucose sensor with a polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel on top of an electrochemical sensor, which was screen-printed onto a flexible plastic strip. When a volunteer placed their fingertip on the sensor surface for 1 minute, the hydrogel absorbed tiny amounts of sweat. Inside the sensor, glucose in the sweat underwent an enzymatic reaction that resulted in a small electrical current that was detected by a hand-held device.