Lifeboat Foundation

Chinese scientists have devised a technique to coat everyday materials like paper and plastic with liquid metal, potentially creating “smart devices.” The method, which involves adjusting pressure rather than using a binding material, successfully enables the liquid metal to adhere to surfaces, a previously challenging task due to high surface tension.

Everyday materials such as paper and plastic could be transformed into electronic “smart devices” by using a simple new method to apply liquid metal to surfaces, according to scientists in Beijing, China. The study, published June 9 in the journal Cell Reports.

<em>Cell Reports</em> is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that published research papers that report new biological insight across a broad range of disciplines within the life sciences. Established in 2012, it is the first open access journal published by Cell Press, an imprint of Elsevier.

SpaceX set to bring child prodigy on board as a software engineer for its Starlink division in July. Take a look!

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We often discuss cybernetic, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and hybrids of them, but what truly is synthetic life? And what is it like?

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The limited ability of microrobots to assist drugs in entering cells hinders their therapeutic efficacy. To address this, a research team, reporting in Cyborg and Bionic Systems, has introduced the cancer-targeting molecule folic acid (FA) to microrobots to promote drug uptake by cancer cells via receptor-ligand-mediated endocytosis. This results in a drug delivery system that can locate lesion areas with magnetic fields and deliver loaded drugs into the cytoplasm through endocytosis.

Untethered microrobots have shown remarkable achievements in various fields such as minimally invasive surgery, drug delivery, environmental remediation, and tissue engineering. Magnetic field actuation is a widely used method due to its good biosafety, deeper tissue penetration, and high temporal and spatial control.

However, practical problems arise when microrobots delivering drugs may only be able to deliver the drugs to the area around the cells but cannot assist the drugs to enter the cells. This limitation could potentially reduce the effectiveness of the treatment since the drugs may not reach the intended targets within the cells.

Northwestern Medicine investigators have developed a novel nanoparticle treatment for glioblastoma, according to a study published in Nature Communications.

Glioblastoma, the most common type of primary brain cancer, is one of the most complex, deadly and treatment-resistant cancers, according to the National Brain Tumor Society. The five-year survival rate for glioblastoma patients hovers near 7% and has remained unchanged for decades.

Previous Northwestern Medicine research has shown that glioblastoma tumors accumulate large numbers of immunosuppressive tumor-associated myeloid cells (TAMCs), which impairs the immune system’s ability to fight the tumor and reduces the effectiveness of radiation and chemotherapy.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are considered ideal electrochemical energy storage materials due to their high electrical conductivity, large theoretical surface area, and good chemical stability.

However, CNTs tend to aggregate due to strong van der Waals forces, which reduces their electrochemically active area. This problem is even worse for single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) due to their high length-to-diameter ratio.

Recently, a joint research team led by Dr. Wang Xiao from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dr. Zhu Sheng from Shanxi University, and Prof. Li Yan from Peking University has encapsulated polyoxometalate guest molecules within SWNTs (with a diameter of approximately 1.4 nm) to enhance the electrochemical energy storage of CNTs.

The fact that our immune systems capture and destroy nanoparticles and the drugs they carry has been a problem in the field of nanomedicine for some time. But, in the fight against cancer, researchers are now attempting to exploit this problem to their advantage.

Researchers around the world are seeking to identify techniques that use nanoparticles in the treatment of disease. Such particles are about 100 nanometers—one thousandth of a millimeter—in diameter, and within them researchers are inserting large numbers of even smaller drug molecules.

Optimism for this approach in the treatment of various forms of cancer has been particularly great.

Why does all of this matter? The unfortunate truth is that each of us will experience plenty of mental pain, misery, and frustration in our lifetimes. Mistaking the voice in our head for a thing and labeling it “me” brings us into conflict with the neuropsychological evidence that shows there is no such thing. This mistake — this illusory sense of self — is the primary cause of our mental suffering. When you can’t sleep at night, is it because you are worried about a stranger’s problems, or is it your problems that keep you up? For most of us, we worry about my work problems, my money problems, and my relationship problems. What would happen if we removed the “self” from these problems?

I am distinguishing mental suffering from physical pain. Pain occurs in the body and is a physical reaction—like when you stub your toe or break an arm. The suffering I speak of occurs in the mind only and describes things such as worry, anger, anxiety, regret, jealousy, shame, and a host of other negative mental states. I know it’s a big claim to say that all these kinds of suffering are the result of a fictitious sense of self. For now, the essence of this idea is captured brilliantly by Taoist philosopher and author Wei Wu Wei when he writes, “Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself — and there isn’t one.”

Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects roughly 2.5 million people worldwide and is a neurological disease affecting the brain and spinal cord. More specifically, MS is when the immune system attacks the body’s protective layer around nerve fibers known as myelin sheaths. The breakdown of myelin sheath leads to a disconnect between your brain and body. The immune cells responsible for myelin sheath deterioration include CD4+ T cells, or effector cells, which are part of the body’s first line of defense. In MS, the effector cells do not recognize that the myelin sheath is a normal part of the body. Therefore, the effector cells become the dominant cell type, trying to kill and get rid of the myelin sheath. The immune response will generate inflammation which destroys the myelin sheath leading to a disruption of signals along the nerves from the brain to the body.

A group of researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine recently published a therapy that controls the symptoms of MS. The goal of the therapy was to stop effector cells from attacking the myelin sheath and to promote the production of T regulatory cells-or T regs-which have been demonstrated to reduce autoimmune effects.

Dr. Giorgio Raimondi, PhD, MSc, Jordan Green, and others used three therapeutic agents to control MS symptoms. Researchers used microparticles, which are small, bioengineered spheres to deliver the agents. The first agent is a combination of two proteins which include Interleukin-2 (IL2) and an antibody that promotes T reg production. IL2 stimulates T cell expansion, while the antibody blocks specific parts of IL2 to specifically expand T regs compared to effector cells. The second agent includes a molecule that presents a protein specific to myelin so that the immune response will generate T regs specifically designed to protect the myelin sheath. Finally, the third agent is rapamycin, which is an immunosuppressant drug designed to reduce effector T cells.