Lifeboat Foundation

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A Paris-based startup has created a genetically engineered houseplant that can literally clean the air within your home. The plant builds off the natural purifying properties that houseplants already offer. So, while it adds some color to whatever room you put it in, it’s also actively keeping the air cleaner than 30 air purifiers.

The company, called Neoplants, modified both a pothos plant as well as its root microbiome to pump the plant’s natural air-cleaning properties up quite a bit. Called Neo P1, the genetically engineered houseplant recently hit the market, and you can purchase it right now.

Continue reading “New genetically engineered houseplant cleans air as efficiently as 30 air purifiers” »

Summary: The epigenetic clocks of those who indulged in unhealthy behaviors as teens were 1.7 to 3.3 years older than individuals who reported more healthy lifestyles as teens.

Source: eLife.

Biological aging results from damage to cells and tissues in the body that accumulates over time. The results of the study could lead to new ways of identifying young people at risk of developing unhealthy habits that are associated with accelerated biological aging and suggest interventions to prevent poor health outcomes later on.

Babies born with infantile-onset Pompe disease typically have enlarged hearts and weak muscles. But 1-year-old Ayla has a normal heart and walks.

A toddler is thriving after doctors in the U.S. and Canada used a novel technique to treat her before she was born for a rare genetic disease that caused the deaths of two of her sisters.

Ayla Bashir, a 16-month-old from Ottawa, Ontario, is the first child treated as a fetus for Pompe disease, an inherited and often fatal disorder in which the body fails to make some or all of a crucial protein.

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have discovered the missing puzzle piece in the mystery of how melanoma tumors control their mortality.

In a paper published in Science this week, Jonathan Alder, Ph.D. and his team describe how they discovered the perfect combination of genetic alterations that tumors use to promote explosive growth and prevent their own demise, a development that could change the way oncologists understand and treat melanoma.

“We did something that was, in essence, obvious based on previous basic research and connected back to something that is happening in patients,” said Alder, assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at Pitt’s School of Medicine.

A continuation of the enlightenment values that freed mankind of superstition.

Anders Sandberg discusses achieving a transhumanist utopia.

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Several proteins have been identified in hosts that interact with Ebola virus and primarily function to inhibit the production of viral genetic material in cells and prevent Ebola virus infection, according to a study led by the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.

Zaire ebolavirus or Ebola virus, an RNA virus pathogen that belongs to the filovirus family, causes outbreaks of severe disease in humans. This public health threat has produced outbreaks where reported case fatality rates ranged up to 90 percent.

The West Africa Ebola virus epidemic from 2013–2016 resulted in more than 28,000 infections and more than 11,000 deaths. Four outbreaks occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2017–2021 and Ebola virus reemerged in Guinea in 2021.

The human genome has just over 20,000 genes coding for proteins. Yet, it produces at least ten times that many different non-coding RNA molecules, which can often take on more than one shape. At least some of this RNA structurome is functional in physiology or pathophysiology.

In an invited review for Nature Reviews Genetics, Danny Incarnato, a molecular geneticist from the University of Groningen (The Netherlands), and his colleague Robert C. Spitale from the University of Irvine in California (USA) describe ways to develop the, as yet, largely untapped potential of RNA structures.

RNA is perhaps best known as the intermediate between genome and protein synthesis: messenger RNA molecules copy the genetic code of a gene in the cell’s nucleus and transport it to the cytoplasm, where ribosomes translate the code into a protein. However, RNA is also a key regulator of almost every cellular process and the structures that are adopted by RNA molecules are thought to often be key to their functions.

Based on marketing activation events the company ran over the summer in Seattle, Austin, and Palo Alto, the outlook for their first product looks pretty rosy. They gave away bags of salad (which were clearly labeled as being gene-edited) consisting of red-and green-leaf mustard greens, and asked people to complete a short survey about it. Adams estimated that more than 6,000 people tried the salads, and over 90 percent responded that they were “very motivated” or “somewhat motivated” to buy the product.

A New Green Revolution?

Continue reading “From Pitless Cherries to Softer Kale, This Startup Is Using CRISPR to Make Better Produce” »