Lifeboat Foundation

New view on mitochondrial DNA could put the brakes on mutations that drive diseases. Scientists perform landmark sequencing of mitochondrial DNA and discover surprising facts.

Summary: New view on mitochondrial DNA could help put the brakes on mutations that drive diseases. [Author: Brady Hartman. This article first appeared on LongevityFacts.]

DNA sequences between mitochondria inside a single cell are vastly different, reported scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. This discovery will help to illuminate the underlying mechanisms of diseases that start with mutations in mitochondrial DNA and provide clues about how patients might respond to specific treatments. The researchers published their findings in the journal Cell Reports this week.

Continue reading “Researchers Discover Key to Diseases in Mitochondrial DNA Mutations” »

A stunning new video has revealed a look inside the Wendelstein 7-X ‘stellarator’ fusion reactor – the largest of its kind in the world.

The video includes a compilation of footage from tests at the massive device, as scientists work to bring humanity closer to achieving ‘limitless’ energy by mimicking the conditions inside the sun.

Continue reading “Inside the ‘star in a jar’ reactor that could lead to limitless energy” »

Radioactive waste continues to pour from Exelon’s Illinois nuclear power plants more than a decade after the discovery of chronic leaks led to national outrage, a $1.2 million government settlement and a company vow to guard against future accidents, an investigation by a government watchdog group found.

Since 2007, there have been at least 35 reported leaks, spills or other accidental releases in Illinois of water contaminated with radioactive tritium, a byproduct of nuclear power production and a carcinogen at high levels, a Better Government Association review of federal and state records shows.

No fines were issued for the accidents, all of which were self-reported by the company.

Continue reading “Investigation: Radioactive leaks at Illinois nuclear plants” »

Scientists propose that quark fusion may be an energy source eight times more powerful than nuclear fusion.

NASA is set to begin testing a radical ‘nuclear engine’ that could provide power for astronauts on the Martian surface.

Dubbed the ‘Kilopower’ it would use a uranium rector the size of a toilet roll to create heat.

Continue reading “NASA ‘nuclear engines’ could provide power to the first humans on Mars” »

Researchers have found a way to prevent helium from weakening nuclear fusion reactors, potentially eliminating an obstacle to harnessing fusion energy.

This sort of thing is rapidly going mainstream, and de Grey, if still a fringe thinker, seems increasingly less so. At the very least, medical science has progressed to the point where “negligible senescence” — eternal youth, more or less — is something it might be a good idea to start talking about before it is suddenly upon us without our having thought through the implications. As with most of the other miracle technologies that have turned our lives inside out over the past 100 years — rampant automation, nuclear power, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and so on — this one, as Shukan Gendai points out, has its dark side.

Is death inevitable? True, everyone born before Aug. 4, 1900, has proved mortal (the world’s oldest-known living person, a Japanese woman named Nabi Tajima, was born on that date). But the past is only an imperfect guide to the future, as the effervescent present is ceaselessly teaching us.

Must we die? We ourselves probably must. But our children, our grandchildren — or if not them, theirs — may, conceivably, be the beneficiaries of the greatest revolution ever: the conquest of death.

Continue reading “On the quest for the holy grail for as long as we live” »

WATCH THE FIRST EPISODE NOW: http://bit.ly/2yuwDPF

Check out CNET’s channel: http://bit.ly/2gpeXdr

Continue reading “Dear Future (Trailer)” »

Researchers, building on findings from work involving the Large Hadron Collider, have found a theoretical new form of energy: quark fusion.