Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: health – Page 290

Science is enabling women to have children later in life as new technologies transform IVF success rates. But an increasingly globalised IVF trade also poses dangers.

Science is changing how and when families are made. Women are going to be able to have both career and family in a way that we’ve never seen before. New technologies are transforming IVF success rates. AI allows us to look at features of the embryo invisible to the human eye.

Dawn and her husband, Mike, who is 66 are proud first-time parents in Nova Scotia, Canada. They married in 1977 and tried for a baby for decades. Attempts to conceive naturally and to adopt failed. So five years ago Dawn turned to IVF and donor eggs for help.

In Canada, as in America, industry guidelines discourage embryo transfers to women over 55 who face a higher risk of prenatal health conditions including pre-eclampsia, hypertension and diabetes. Dawn considered surrogacy. She looked abroad to developing countries with less restrictive guidelines and legislation.

Continue reading “How science is changing the nature of families | The Economist” | >

Cuba is the most sustainably developed country in the world, according to a new report launched on November 29. The socialist island outperforms advanced capitalist countries including Britain and the United States, which has subjected Cuba to a punitive six-decades-long economic blockade. The Sustainable Development Index (SDI), designed by anthropologist and author Dr Jason Hickel, calculates its results by dividing a nation’s “human development” score, obtained by looking at statistics on life expectancy, health and education, by its “ecological overshoot”, the extent to which the per capita carbon footprint exceeds Earth’s natural limits. [block: views=node_blocks-related].

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The Supreme Court of the U.S. finds John Rockefeller and his Trust guilty of corruption, illegal business practices and racketeering. As a result of this decision, the entire Rockefeller Standard Oil-Trust, the world’s largest corporation of its time, was sentenced to be dismantled. But Rockefeller was already above the Supreme Court and did not care about this decision.

In order to disperse public and political pressure on him and other robber-barons, Rockefeller uses a trick called “philanthropy”, whereby the illegal gains from his robber-practices in the oil business are used to launch the Rockefeller Foundation. This tax haven was used to strategically take over the health care sector in the U.S…

The Rockefeller Foundation was the front organization for a new global business venture of Rockefeller and his accomplices. This new venture was called the pharmaceutical investment business. Donations from the Rockefeller Foundation went only to medical schools and hospitals. These institutions had become missionaries of a new breed of companies: the manufacturers of patented, synthetic drugs.

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Maintaining five healthy habits—eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, keeping a healthy body weight, not drinking too much alcohol, and not smoking—at middle-age may increase years lived free of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

People who practice healthy habits at age 50 lived more years free of chronic diseases compared to those who did not practice any of these habits. Women who practiced all five habits gained about ten years of disease-free life, and men who did so gained about eight years. A healthy lifestyle not only improves lifespan (overall life expectancy) but also healthspan (healthy or disease-free life expectancy).

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Location: Manhattan, KS

NBAF - National Agor-Defense Facility

The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) will be a state-of-the-art biocontainment laboratory for the study of diseases that threaten both America’s animal agricultural industry and public health. DHS S&T is building the facility to standards that fulfill the mission needs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) which will own, manage and operate (PDF, 16 pgs., 165 KB) the NBAF once construction and commissioning activities are complete. The NBAF will strengthen our nation’s ability to conduct research, develop vaccines, diagnose emerging diseases, and train veterinarians. DHS S&T will leverage the facility as a national asset to fulfill homeland security mission needs.

The United States currently does not have a laboratory facility with maximum biocontainment (BSL-4) space to study high-consequence zoonotic diseases affecting large livestock. The NBAF will be the first laboratory facility in the U.S. to provide BSL-4 laboratories capable of housing cattle and other large livestock. The NBAF will also feature a vaccine development module. For more information about the facility and intended use of its state-of-the-art features, please visit the USDA NBAF Program website.

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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Given the option, would you avoid the gym altogether and simply pop a pill or drink a supplement that brings about the same benefits as a workout? It sounds farfetched, but the idea of lounging around all day yet still enjoying the health benefits of an intense workout may soon be possible. While there are still many details to be worked out, researchers at the University of Michigan say that the naturally occurring protein Sestrin appears to mimic the effects of exercise on both flies and mice in experimental trials.

These findings could have far reaching implications across the fitness, medical, and scientific fields. For instance, Sestrin could conceivably help individuals unable to work out due to old age or health problems maintain their muscles.

“Researchers have previously observed that Sestrin accumulates in muscle following exercise,” explains Myungjin Kim, Ph.D., a research assistant professor in the Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, in a release.

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One day, soldiers could cool down on the military battlefield—preventing heat stroke or exhaustion—by using “wearable air conditioning,” an on-skin device designed by engineers at the University of Missouri. The device includes numerous human health care applications such as the ability to monitor blood pressure, electrical activity of the heart and the level of skin hydration.

The findings are detailed in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Unlike similar products in use today or other related concepts, this breathable and waterproof device can deliver personal air conditioning to a through a process called passive cooling. Passive cooling does not utilize electricity, such as a fan or pump, which researchers believe allows for minimal discomfort to the user.

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