Lifeboat Foundation

What non-invasive methods can be developed to kill viruses on site? This is what a recent study published in ACS Nano hopes to address as a team of international researchers have developed a silicon surface containing nanospikes capable of preventing viruses from replicating or killing them entirely. This study holds the potential to help develop a passive way of mitigating the spread of viruses within a myriad of environments, including scientific laboratories and healthcare facilities.

“Our virus-killing surface looks like a flat black mirror to the naked eye but actually has tiny spikes designed specifically to kill viruses,” said Dr. Natalie Borg, who is a senior lecturer in the STEM | Health and Biomedical Sciences at RIMT University and a co-author on the study. “This material can be incorporated into commonly touched devices and surfaces to prevent viral spread and reduce the use of disinfectants.”

For the study, researchers at the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication took inspiration from insects, some of which possess their own version of nanospikes on their wings that can damage fungi and bacteria. To produce the nanospikes, the team blasted smooth silicon wafers with ions, resulting in nanospikes measuring 290 nanometers in height and 2 nanometers thick, the latter of which is 30,000 times thinner than a human hair. They then tested their new material on the hPIV-3 virus, which is responsible for causing pneumonia and bronchitis, finding their nanospikes exhibited a 96 percent success rate in either preventing the virus from replicating or shredding them to pieces completely.

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence make it increasingly harder to detect deepfake voices, and the solution might actually come from AI itself.

Scientists at Klick Labs were inspired by their clinical studies using vocal biomarkers to help enhance health outcomes and created an audio deepfake detection method that taps into signs of life like breathing patterns and micropauses in speech.

The future is going to be so lazy, yet so cut.

As next-generation weight-loss treatments like Wegovy and Zepbound continue to fly off the shelves, scientists are busy working on a medicine that could mimic the effects of exercise.

As explained in an American Chemical Society press release, trials thus far on SLU-PP-332, the potentially groundbreaking compound in question, show that it seems “capable of mimicking the physical boost of working out.”

Continue reading “Scientists Working on Pill You Can Take Instead of Exercising” »

A supplement scientist who researches the claims products make for a living shares the four he takes for heart health and inflammation daily.

Because we live in a dystopian healthcare hell, AI chip manufacturer Nvidia has announced a partnership with an AI venture called Hippocratic AI to replace nurses with freaky AI “agents.”

These phony nursing robots cost hospitals and other health providers $9 an hour, a fee that barely falls above the US minimum hourly wage, and far below the average hourly wage for registered nurses (RNs.)

Continue reading “Nvidia Announces AI-Powered ‘Agents’ to Replace Nurses in Hospitals” »

“Cannabis vapes are newly regulated products in Canada, so we don’t yet have much scientific data about them,” said Dr. Andrew Waye. “This is an opportunity for us to look at some of the questions concerning the risks and unknowns of cannabis vapes.”

Do vapes pose health risks on par with the very tobacco and cannabis products it’s using to safeguard against? This is what a recent study presented at the ACS (American Chemical Society) Spring 2024 meeting hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the potential health risks that vaping devices could pose, specifically pertaining to the vaping liquids that possess toxic metal nanoparticles, with both regulated and unregulated vaping devices. This study holds the potential to help researchers, medical professionals, and the public better understand the long-term health risks by vaping, which until now have been deemed a “safer” alternative to smoking cigarettes or cannabis.

Biosensing technology developed by engineers has made it possible to create gene test strips that rival conventional lab-based tests in quality. When the pandemic started, people who felt unwell had to join long queues for lab-based PCR tests and then wait for two days to learn if they had the COVID-19 virus or not.

In addition to significant inconvenience, a major drawback was the substantial and expensive logistics needed for such laboratory tests, while testing delays increased the risk of disease spread.

Now a team of bio]medical engineers at UNSW Sydney have developed a new technology offering test strips which are just as accurate as the lab-based detection. And according to research published today in Nature Communications, it’s not just public health that the technology may benefit.

A novel approach in the field of Alzheimer’s research is emerging that could potentially transform how we tackle this debilitating disease. Recent studies have revealed a paradigm shift in understanding Alzheimer’s pathology, emphasizing the importance of targeting the early-stage aggregation of the pathogenic amyloid beta (A-beta) protein, specifically focusing on its soluble oligomeric form.

Over the past three decades, conventional treatments for Alzheimer’s have largely been ineffective, primarily due to their focus on combating the fibrillar form of A-beta. However, emerging research suggests that it is the soluble oligomeric form of A-beta that poses the greatest threat to neuronal health, leading to cognitive decline and neurotoxicity.

A recent breakthrough in Alzheimer’s treatment has come from the development of an antibody capable of recognizing both oligomeric and fibrillar forms of A-beta, offering newfound hope to the field. This innovative therapy has demonstrated promising results in delaying disease progression by up to 36% in individuals with early-to-mild cognitive impairment.

Human brains preserve in diverse environments for at least 12 000 years—new research in Proceedings B this week: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2023.

Soft tissue preservation in the geological record is relatively rare, and when an archaeologist digs a human skull out of the…

The brain is thought to be among the first human organs to decompose after death. The discovery of brains preserved in the archaeological record is therefore regarded as unusual. Although mechanisms such as dehydration, freezing, saponification, and tanning are known to allow for the preservation of the brain on short time scales in association with other soft tissues (≲4000 years), discoveries of older brains, especially in the absence of other soft tissues, are rare. Here, we collated an archive of more than 4,400 human brains preserved in the archaeological record across approximately 12 000 years, more than 1,300 of which constitute the only soft tissue preserved amongst otherwise skeletonized remains. We found that brains of this type persist on time scales exceeding those preserved by other means, which suggests an unknown mechanism may be responsible for preservation particular to the central nervous system. The untapped archive of preserved ancient brains represents an opportunity for bioarchaeological studies of human evolution, health and disease.

Continue reading “Human brains preserve in diverse environments for at least 12 000 years” »