Lifeboat Foundation

Richard Scolyer was fully engaged in the business of living when he suddenly received a death sentence. A person more alive would be hard to find. As an endurance athlete competing across the globe, he was in peak physical condition. As one of the world’s leading pathologists on melanoma whose pioneering research has saved thousands of lives, he was in demand. At 56, Prof Richard Scolyer was flying along. His life, he says, was “rich”. And then, on the morning of 20 May 2023, he found himself losing consciousness and convulsing on the floor in a hotel room in Poland, panicking and scared.

After this grand mal seizure, he went for an MRI scan at University hospital in Krakow. It found a mass in his temporal lobe. Scolyer knew immediately it had delivered very bad news.

Related: When I found out about the brain tumour that would kill me, I faced my worst fears – but I chose to take it on.

Mimicking high-level abstraction of the brain to achieve energy advantages is a fundamental issue in neuromorphic computing. Here, the authors fabricate an asynchronous chip and demonstrate a high-accuracy neuromorphic system with power consumption of 0.7mW.

Explore how University of Washington research on activating hypothalamic brain cells could unlock new anti-aging therapies and extend lifespan.

Metaphysics and the Matter with Things: Thinking with Iain McGilchrist was a collaborative conference put on by the Center for Process Studies (CPS) and the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in March of 2024. This three-day conference brought leading process thinkers across various disciplines, including physics, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and theology into critical dialogue with McGilchrist’s work in a collegial effort to assess, question, extend, and apply it. For more information on the conference and to purchase recordings, please visit https://ctr4process.org/mcgilchrist-conference/

Potential therapies could include precise genetic targeting of the GLUT4 pathway or dietary modifications to fine-tune glucose levels, ensuring an optimal environment for neurogenesis.

Stanford research uncovers glucose’s role in boosting neurogenesis, offering insights into brain aging interventions.

A team led by researchers at the University of Toronto has discovered that a group of cells located in the skin and other areas of the body, called neural crest stem cells, are the source of reprogrammed neurons found by other researchers.

Wearable devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers interact with parts of our bodies to measure and learn from internal processes, such as our heart rate or sleep stages.

Now, MIT researchers have developed wearable devices that may be able to perform similar functions for individual cells inside the body.

These battery-free, subcellular-sized devices, made of a soft polymer, are designed to gently wrap around different parts of neurons, such as axons and dendrites, without damaging the cells, upon wireless actuation with light. By snugly wrapping neuronal processes, they could be used to measure or modulate a neuron’s electrical and metabolic activity at a subcellular level.

Summary: Neural crest stem cells, a rare type found in skin and other tissues, are uniquely capable of reprogramming into different cell types, challenging the prevailing belief that any mature cell can be reprogrammed. The study reveals that cellular reprogramming is likely limited to these specialized stem cells rather than all mature cells.

Neural crest stem cells are present in skin, bone, and connective tissue, with a natural predisposition for transformation due to their origin in embryonic development. This finding could reshape strategies for stem cell therapies, emphasizing the role of neural crest cells in treating neurodegenerative diseases. The team hopes their work will refine cell reprogramming approaches and inspire further research into the specific potentials of stem cell types.

In his most recent book, neuroscientist and psychoanalyst Mark Solms tackles a philosophical puzzle: Why should we have consciousness? Why does life feel like something at all?