Lifeboat Foundation

Organic electronic devices, which are made of small molecules or polymers (i.e., substances composed primarily or completely of similar units bound together) are known to have several advantageous properties. In fact, organic electronics have relatively low production costs, they are easy to integrate with other systems and they enable good device flexibility.

Despite their advantages, most organic optoelectronics devices do not perform as well as devices built on rigid substrates. This is primarily due to the lack of existing flexible electrodes that can simultaneously provide low resistance, high transparency and smooth surfaces.

With this in mind, researchers at Nankai University in China have recently set out to create new organic electrodes for flexible photovoltaics, devices that can be used to capture sunlight and convert it into electricity. The electrodes they developed, presented in a paper published in Nature Electronics, were built using water-processed silver nanowires and a polyelectrolyte.

Synthetic protocells can be made to move toward and away from chemical signals, an important step for the development of new drug-delivery systems that could target specific locations in the body. By coating the surface of the protocells with enzymes—proteins that catalyze chemical reactions—a team of researchers at Penn State was able to control the direction of the protocell’s movement in a chemical gradient in a microfluidic device. A paper describing the research appears November 18, 2019 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

“The futuristic vision is to have drugs delivered by tiny ‘bots’ that can transport the drug to the specific location where it is needed,” said Ayusman Sen, the Verne M. Willaman Professor of Chemistry at Penn State and the leader of the research team. “Currently, if you take an antibiotic for an infection in your leg, it diffuses throughout your entire body. So, you have to take a higher dose in order to get enough of the antibiotic to your leg where it is needed. If we can control the directional movement of a drug-delivery system, we not only reduce the amount of the drug required but also can increase its speed of delivery.”

One way to address controlling direction is for the drug-delivery system to recognize and move towards specific chemical signals emanating from the infection site, a phenomenon called chemotaxis. Many organisms use chemotaxis as a survival strategy, to find food or escape toxins. Previous work had shown that enzymes undergo chemotactic movement because the reactions they catalyze produce energy that can be harnessed. However, most of that work had focused on positive chemotaxis, movement towards a chemical. Until now, little work had been done looking at negative chemotaxis. “Tunable” chemotaxis—the ability to control movement direction, towards and away from different chemical signals—had never been demonstrated.

Excitons are quasiparticles made from the excited state of electrons and—according to research being carried out EPFL—have the potential to boost the energy efficiency of our everyday devices.

It’s a whole new way of thinking about electronics. Excitons—or quasiparticles formed when electrons absorb light—stand to revolutionize the building blocks of circuits. Scientists at EPFL have been studying their extraordinary properties in order to design more energy-efficient electronic systems, and have now found a way to better control excitons moving in semiconductors. Their findings appear today in Nature Nanotechnology.

Quasiparticles are temporary phenomena resulting from the interaction between two particles within solid matter. Excitons are created when an electron absorbs a photon and moves into a higher energy state, leaving behind a hole in its previous energy state (called a “valence band” in band theory). The electron and electron hole are bound together through attractive forces, and the two together form what is called an exciton. Once the electron falls back into the hole, it emits a photon and the exciton ceases to exist.

The characteristics of a new, iron-containing type of material that is thought to have future applications in nanotechnology and spintronics have been determined at Purdue University.

The native material, a topological insulator, is an unusual type of three-dimensional (3D) system that has the interesting property of not significantly changing its crystal structure when it changes electronic phases—unlike water, for example, which goes from ice to liquid to steam. More important, the material has an electrically conductive surface but a non-conducting (insulating) core.

However, once iron is introduced into the native material, during a process called doping, certain structural rearrangements and magnetic properties appear which have been found with high-performance computational methods.

A spot of sunshine is all it could take to get your washing done, thanks to pioneering nano research into self-cleaning textiles.

Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a cheap and efficient new way to grow special nanostructures—which can degrade organic matter when exposed to light—directly onto textiles.

The work paves the way towards nano-enhanced textiles that can spontaneously clean themselves of stains and grime simply by being put under a light bulb or worn out in the sun.

TABLE OF CONTENTS —————
0:00–17:57 : Introduction (Meaning of Life)
17:58–37:45 CHAPTER 1: Longevism and Life Extension
—————————————————————————————–
WHY DOES AGING HAPPEN?
—————————————————————————————–
37:46–54:39 CHAPTER 2 : Gerontonology and Aging a. Free Radical Theory of Aging b. Waste Accumulation Theory of Aging c. Stem Cell Theory of Aging d. DNA Damage Theory of Aging.
—————————————————————————————–
HOW DO WE CURE AGING?
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54:39–1:08:39 : CHAPTER 3 :The Biochemical Solution (#1)
a. mitoSENS
b. oncoSENS
c. lysoSENS
d. amyloSENS
e. apoptoSENS
f. repliSENS
g. glycoSENS
1:08:40–2:13:12 CHAPTER 4 : The Physiological Solution (#2)
a. Parabiosis and Biovampirism b. Regeneration and Stem Cells c. Lab Grown Organs and Bioprinting d. Head Transplants and Doppleganger Bodies.
2:13:12–2:33:19 CHAPTER 5 : The Genetic Solution (#3)
a. TALEN genetic engineering b. Zinc-Finger gene tailoring c. CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing.
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WILL WE CURE AGING GENETICALLY?
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2:33:20–2:49:58 : CHAPTER 6 : Genomics and DNA
2:49:59–3:05:48 : CHAPTER 7 : Transcriptomics and RNA
3:05:49–3:22:08 : CHAPTER 8 : Proteomics and TNA
3:22:09–3:39:38 : CHAPTER 9 : Xenobiology and XNA
a. alien proteins b. alien base pairs c. alien DNA
3:39:39–3:54:58 : CHAPTER 10 : Vectors and Gene Therapy (Gene Editing #1)
3:54:59–4:14:57 : CHAPTER 11 : Synthetic Biology (Gene Editing #2)
4:14:58–4:32:14 : CHAPTER 12 : Chimeras, Rianths, and Splices (Gene Editing #3)
4:32:15–4:48:35 : CHAPTER 13 : Ouroborology and Immortal Chimeras (Gene Editing #4)
4:48:36-:5:03:52 : CHAPTER 14 : Kleptoplasty and Photosynthesis (Gene Editing #5)
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HOW TO SURVIVE UNTIL AGING IS CURED
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5:03:53–5:14:27 : CHAPTER 15 : Survive to the Singularity a. the breakeven point b. longevity escape velocity c. the longevity dividend.
5:14:28–5:30:16 : CHAPTER 16 : Centennarians and Blue Zones (Survival Method #0)
a. loma linda b. ikaria c. sardinia d. okinawa.
5:30:17–5:42:26 : CHAPTER 17 : Risk Aversion and Micromorts (Survival Method #1)
a. micromorts
b.microlives
5:42:27–5:58:18 : CHAPTER 18 : Nutraceuticals and Geroprotectors (Survival Method #2)
a. rapamycin b. metformin c. selegilene d. nicotinamide riboside e. resverratrol.
5:58:19–6:12:51 : CHAPTER 19 : Caloric Restriction (Survival Method #3)
a. endocrine b. epigenetic c. genetic
6:12:52–6:51:57 : CHAPTER 20 : Cryonics & Cryogenics (Survival Method #4)
a. the efficacy question b. the cost question c. the resurrection question d. the identity question e. the legal question f. the catastrophe question g. the culture question.
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CAN WE BE IMMORTAL WITHOUT CURING AGING?
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_______________________________________________________
6:51:58–7:04:08 : CHAPTER 21 : Genetic Immortality — Test Tube Babies
7:04:09–7:24:02 : CHAPTER 22 : Genetic Immortality — Designer Babies
7:24:03–7:41:55 : CHAPTER 23 : Genetic Immortality — Clone Babies
7:41:56–7:53:08 : CHAPTER 24 : Genetic Immortality — Artificial Wombs
7:53:08–7:53:09 CHAPTER 25 : Immortalism and Ethics a. the crime argument b. the natural argument c. the boredom argument d. the inequality argument e. the overpopulation argument f. the gerontocracy argument g. the economic argument h. EPILOGUE

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A British engineer has found a way to filter unwanted cells from blood using magnets — and his tool could be used in clinical trials as soon as next year.

Thanks to existing research, biochemical scientist George Frodsham knew it was possible to force magnetic nanoparticles to bind to specific cells in the body. But while other researchers did so primarily to make those cells show up in images, he wondered whether the same technique might allow doctors to remove unwanted cells from the blood.

“When someone has a tumour you cut it out,” he told The Telegraph. “Blood cancer is a tumour in the blood, so why not just take it out in the same way?”

Deadly conditions like leukaemia, sepsis and malaria could be drawn from the body using magnets, after a British engineer designed a blood filtering system which sieves away disease.

Dr George Frodsham, came up with the idea while studying how magnetic nanoparticles can be made to bind to cells in the body, to allow, for example those cells to show up on scanners.

But he realised that if it was possible to magnetise cells for imaging, it should also be possible to then suck them out of the blood.