Lifeboat Foundation

People in the earliest stage of Alzheimer’s disease—after brain changes have begun but before cognitive symptoms become apparent—harbor an assortment of bacteria in their intestines that differs from the gut bacteria of healthy people, according to a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The findings, published June 14 in Science Translational Medicine, open up the possibility of analyzing the gut bacterial community to identify people at higher risk of developing dementia, and of designing microbiome-altering preventive treatments to stave off cognitive decline.

“We don’t yet know whether the gut is influencing the brain or the brain is influencing the gut, but this association is valuable to know in either case,” said co-corresponding author Gautam Dantas, Ph.D., the Conan Professor of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine. “It could be that the changes in the gut microbiome are just a readout of pathological changes in the brain. The other alternative is that the gut microbiome is contributing to Alzheimer’s disease, in which case altering the gut microbiome with probiotics or fecal transfers might help change the course of the disease.”

3. Discuss the impact of the metaverse and revise your strategy. Make sure your managers evaluate the usefulness of metaverse tools in business processes. This will help you decide whether to keep using certain solutions or switch to others. Note that it’s okay to change your KPIs on the go based on how the metaverse impacts your team’s productivity, job satisfaction, issue resolution and so on.

With trendy technologies like the metaverse, it’s important to determine the real benefits you can get and ensure they’re worth the cost. Keep in mind that metaverse platforms are not the holy grail.

All in all, project management is still 90% about communication with clients and employees. It’s best to stay focused on keeping this communication efficient. While being open to adopting new technologies like the metaverse, you should treat them as additional tools rather than making them a priority for your PMs.

Scientists have developed a pill-shaped, swallowable camera that can be controlled by physicians once ingested to help doctors diagnose digestive issues.

Ingestible pill-shaped endoscopes are not a new idea. Last year, PetaPixel reported on the Pillcam which is just such a device, but it had limitations just like all other swallowable pill cameras: doctors can’t control it once it is ingested.

Continue reading “Remote-Controlled Pill Camera Can Help Diagnose Digestive Issues” »

It is June 2022, and a flying machine that looks like a cross between a prehistoric beast and a spaceship is about to take off. Named the Zephyr S, it has long spindly wings the length of an airliner’s. Together with its small, thin body and head, these make it resemble a pterodactyl. Its shimmering tinfoil-like solar panels and lightweight skeletal frame are more like something you’d see on a craft meant for space.

Its mission for the US Army is a secret, but clearly on its manufacturer’s mind is the desire to shatter a few records, particularly that for the longest flight duration for any type of airplane, which has stood for 63 years. In 1959 two men flew a four-seat Cessna light aircraft for 64 days, 22 hours and 19 minutes, refuelling in-flight from a truck.

British aviation pioneer Chris Kelleher designed the first Zephyr in 2002. His vision was of an uncrewed aircraft capable of “eternal flight” in the stratosphere. He foresaw that solar power and lightweight materials would lead to aircraft capable of staying aloft for months, or even years. The Zephyr S is the first production model.

Continue reading “Stratoplanes: The aircraft that will fly at the edge of space” »

I’ve found a lot of reasons – from finding components that are overheating (which can indicate faulty components), identifying overheating wires and connectors (which can indicate damaged wires or connectors), diagnosing issues with HVAC, find draughts at home, and much, much more.

Also: This $10 gadget is my favorite repair tool of all time

Continue reading “Are smartphone thermal cameras sensitive enough to uncover PIN codes?” »

While the advent of immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment, its use in the treatment of glioblastoma (GBM) has been less successful. Most studies using immunotherapy in GBM have been negative and the reasons for this are still being studied. In clinical practice, interpreting response to immunotherapy has been challenging, particularly when trying to differentiate between treatment-related changes (i.e., pseudoprogression) or true tumor progression. T cell tagging is one promising technique to noninvasively monitor treatment efficacy by assessing the migration, expansion, and engagement of T cells and their ability to target tumor cells at the tumor site.

The team, led by Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, developed the embryo model without eggs or sperm, and instead used stem cells – the body’s master cells, which can develop into almost any cell type in the body.

The researchers mimicked natural processes in the lab by guiding the three types of stem cells found in early mammalian development to the point where they start interacting. By inducing the expression of a particular set of genes and establishing a unique environment for their interactions, the researchers were able to get the stem cells to ‘talk’ to each other.

Researchers have created model embryos from mouse stem cells that form a brain, a beating heart, and the foundations of all the other organs of the body.

Join top executives in San Francisco on July 11–12, to hear how leaders are integrating and optimizing AI investments for success. Learn More

Walmart, Meta and LinkedIn are three companies currently testing internal generative AI options for employees that are safe for the use of company data, either in the form of generative AI “playgrounds” that offer a variety of models to choose from, or in the case of Meta, its own in-house internal chatbot.

These examples stand in contrast to companies that have banned the use of public generative AI tools like ChatGPT, including Goldman Sachs, Amazon and Verizon.

Denmark was in full chaotic collapse in the early 19th century. Why was its art so beautifully serene?