Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: health – Page 134

The rising prevalence of antibiotic resistant microbial pathogens presents an ominous health and economic challenge to modern society. The discovery and large-scale development of antibiotic drugs in previous decades was transformational, providing cheap, effective treatment for what would previously have been a lethal infection. As microbial strains resistant to many or even all antibiotic drug treatments have evolved, there is an urgent need for new drugs or antimicrobial treatments to control these pathogens. The ability to sequence and mine the genomes of an increasing number of microbial strains from previously unexplored environments has the potential to identify new natural product antibiotic biosynthesis pathways. This coupled with the power of synthetic biology to generate new production chassis, biosensors and “weaponized” live cell therapeutics may provide new means to combat the rapidly evolving threat of drug resistant microbial pathogens. This review focuses on the application of synthetic biology to construct probiotic strains that have been endowed with functionalities allowing them to identify, compete with and in some cases kill microbial pathogens as well as stimulate host immunity. Weaponized probiotics may have the greatest potential for use against pathogens that infect the gastrointestinal tract: Vibrio cholerae, Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium perfringens and Clostridioides difficile. The potential benefits of engineered probiotics are highlighted along with the challenges that must still be met before these intriguing and exciting new therapeutic tools can be widely deployed.

The discovery and application of antibiotic drugs is among the most significant accomplishments of medical science. Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin (Fleming, 1929) and subsequent discovery and development of multiple classes of natural product antibiotics have been transformational to modern society. These compounds have yielded cheap and effective treatments for diseases caused by common bacterial infections that would previously have proven fatal. The advent of effective antibiotic drugs has made it possible to survive complex surgical procedures like open heart surgery and organ transplants and extended the average human life-span (Riley, 2005; Kaviani et al., 2020). The benefits of readily available antibiotic drugs have extended into agriculture and aquaculture, making it possible to increase productivity of farmed animals (Park et al., 1994; Patel et al., 2020).

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Exercise gives your brain a “bubble bath of neurochemicals,” says Wendy Suzuki, a professor of neural science.

Up next, Forensic accountant explains why fraud thrives on Wall Street.
► https://youtu.be/GHKyDYtKGEg.

Exercise can have surprisingly transformative impacts on the brain, according neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki. It has the power not only to boost mood and focus due to the increase in neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and noradrenaline, but also contributes to long-term brain health. Exercise stimulates the growth of new brain cells, particularly in the hippocampus, improving long-term memory and increasing its volume. Suzuki notes that you don’t have to become a marathon runner to obtain these benefits — even just 10 minutes of walking per day can have noticeable benefits. It just takes a bit of willpower and experimentation.

0:00 My exercise epiphany.
1:35 What is “runner’s high”?
2:40 The hippocampus & prefrontal cortex.
3:32 Neuroplasticity: It’s never too late to move your body.

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/how-the-…escription.

About Wendy Suzuki:

Continue reading “The #1 way to strengthen your mind is to use your body | Wendy Suzuki” | >

More often than not, studies of human biology are conducted when the body is under duress from infection or disease. Now, as part of a larger effort to delineate what “healthy” looks like, two Stanford Medicine teams have unfurled detailed molecular maps of healthy human intestinal and placental tissues. The maps, which capture cell types, cell quantity and other cellular nuances, are just two of a collection of maps that will establish a cellular baseline for the majority of the human body, including where cells in certain tissues congregate, how tissues develop during pregnancy and how cell-to-cell interactions drive human biology.

The studies, which published in Nature on July 19, are part of a larger effort spearheaded by the Human Biomolecular Atlas Program — called HuBMAP — funded by the National Institutes of Health. It aims to fill gaps in our knowledge of how the human body works when it’s in tip-top shape. Dozens of teams from the United States and Europe contribute to the HuBMAP consortium.

“In research, we have a habit of studying things that are abnormal without really understanding what normal looks like,” said Michael Angelo, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of pathology who is also the co-chair of the HuBMAP steering committee. “That’s created a big gap in our knowledge. HuBMAP is the only effort that is systematically focusing on the spatial architecture of these tissues.”

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Researchers have found that people with obstructive sleep apnea have an increased cardiovascular risk due to reduced blood oxygen levels, largely explained by interrupted breathing. Obstructive sleep apnea has long been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular issues, including heart attack, stroke, and death, but the findings from this study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, show the mechanism mostly responsible for the link.

“These findings will help better characterize high-risk versions of obstructive ,” said Ali Azarbarzin, Ph.D., a study author and director of the Sleep Apnea Health Outcomes Research Group at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston. “We think that including a higher-risk version of obstructive sleep apnea in a would hopefully show that treating sleep apnea could help prevent future cardiovascular outcomes.”

Researchers reviewed data from more than 4,500 middle-aged and older adults who participated in the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men Study (MrOS) and the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), and sought to identify features of obstructive sleep apnea that could explain why some people were more likely than others to develop cardiovascular disease or related death.

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Reduction in blood oxygen levels, largely attributed to blocked airways, emerges as a leading factor.

Researchers have found that people with obstructive sleep apnea have an increased cardiovascular risk due to reduced blood oxygen levels, largely explained by interrupted breathing. Obstructive sleep apnea has long been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular issues, including heart attack, stroke, and death, but the findings from this study, partially supported by the National Institutes of Health and published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, show the mechanism mostly responsible for the link.

“These findings will help better characterize high-risk versions of obstructive sleep apnea,” said Ali Azarbarzin, Ph.D., a study author and director of the Sleep Apnea Health Outcomes Research Group at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston. “We think that including a higher-risk version of obstructive sleep apnea in a randomized clinical trial would hopefully show that treating sleep apnea could help prevent future cardiovascular outcomes.”

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Transparent and flexible displays, which have received a lot of attention in various fields including automobile displays, bio–health care, military, and fashion, are in fact known to break easily when experiencing small deformations. To solve this problem, active research is being conducted on many transparent and flexible conductive materials such as carbon nanotubes, graphene, silver nanowires, and conductive polymers.

A joint research team led by Professor Kyung Cheol Choi from the KAIST School of Electrical Engineering and Dr. Yonghee Lee from the National Nano Fab Center (NNFC) announced the successful development of a water-resistant, transparent, and flexible OLED using MXene nanotechnology. The material can emit and transmit light even when exposed to water.

This research was published as a front cover story of ACS Nano under the title “Highly Air-Stable, Flexible, and Water-Resistive 2D Titanium Carbide MXene-Based RGB Organic Light-Emitting Diode Displays for Transparent Free-Form Electronics.”

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A British aerospace startup is working on a fusion rocket it says will slash the amount of time it takes astronauts to travel to Mars and beyond — allowing humans to explore places that are currently far out of reach.

The challenge: Long-term exposure to microgravity and cosmic radiation can cause serious health issues for astronauts. That means NASA needs to keep its future Mars missions short enough that astronauts come home healthy — less than 4 years should work.

Using our current rocket propulsion technology, though, it’s going to take seven months just to get astronauts to Mars. Factor in the amount of time to get back to Earth, and nearly a third of a Mars astronaut’s mission is just going to be dedicated to the commute.

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