Lifeboat Foundation

Heart attacks are the world’s leading cause of death, yet the few treatments available are often expensive and inaccessible. Although that’s been the case for years, the World Health Organization warned back in 2020 heart disease numbers were still on the rise.

Verve Therapeutics says altering human genomes to prevent the buildup of bad cholesterol might be the answer, and is creating what CEO Sekar Kathiresan says may be a permanent solution to heart disease. The company is backed by Google Ventures, according to a report about the breakthrough published Friday in Bloomberg. Verve also counts a Harvard medical professor and an award-winning medical expert among its cofounders.

“We’re on the cusp of potentially transforming that model to a one-and-done treatment,” Kathiresan told the business publication.

In a study printed in PNAS, researchers have shown that telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) can be given to cells in living mice through a viral vector, taking the idea of life-extending gene therapies from science fiction to reality.

Why a cytomegalovirus?

The human cytomegalovirus (CMV) is widely known as an endemic virus that, while usually asymptomatic, is known to cause with harmful effects in babies and older adults. However, some of its properties make this virus suitable for delivering gene therapies. As cytomegaloviruses can carry large genetic payloads and don’t overwrite the DNA of their host cells [1], replacing the genes of these viruses with beneficial DNA may be safer than approaches with more potential off-target effects; development in this area is ongoing, and a phase 1 human clinical trial has already been conducted [2].

R&D & Innovation For U.S. Security & Resilience — Kathryn Coulter Mitchell, Acting Under Secretary for Science and Technology, DHS Science and Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security.

Kathryn Coulter Mitchell (https://www.dhs.gov/person/kathryn-coulter-mitchell), is Acting Under Secretary for Science and Technology (S&T), at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where as the science advisor to the Homeland Security Secretary, she heads the research, development, innovation and testing and evaluation activities in support of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) operational Components and first responders across the nation.

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The digital device you are using to view this article is no doubt using the bit, which can either be 0 or 1, as its basic unit of information. However, scientists around the world are racing to develop a new kind of computer based on the use of quantum bits, or qubits, which can simultaneously be 0 and 1 and could one day solve complex problems beyond any classical supercomputers.

A research team led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, in close collaboration with FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Wei Guo, has announced the creation of a new qubit platform that shows great promise to be developed into future quantum computers. Their work is published in the journal Nature.

“Quantum computers could be a revolutionary tool for performing calculations that are practically impossible for classical computers, but there is still work to do to make them reality,” said Guo, a paper co-author. “With this research, we think we have a breakthrough that goes a long way toward making qubits that help realize this technology’s potential.”

Lasers support certain structures of light known as “eigenmodes.” An international collaboration of experts in gravitational waves.

Gravitational waves are distortions or ripples in the fabric of space and time. They were first detected in 2015 by the Advanced LIGO detectors and are produced by catastrophic events such as colliding black holes, supernovae, or merging neutron stars.

Stem cell therapies are showing huge promise in a lot of areas, but one application that has scientists particularly excited is in next-generation treatments for Parkinson’s disease. A team experimenting in this area has demonstrated how implanting carefully cultivated stem cells into rats can bring about remarkable recovery from motor symptoms typical of the disease, and are now setting their sights on upcoming human trials.

Parkinson’s disease is considered a prime target for innovative stem ell therapies because the condition can be traced back to the deterioration of a particular type of cell in a particular region of the brain. The neurons in the substantia nigra, a structure in the midbrain, are responsible for producing dopamine, which helps control movement, among other things.

The loss of these neurons is what contributes to motor symptoms in Parkinson’s patients, so using stem cell therapies to replace them is a very appealing idea, and one that has started to migrate from animal testing to humans. In a world-first trial undertaken in Japan in 2018, Parkinson’s patients had stem-cell-derived precursor cells implanted into their brains where they matured into the dopamine-producing neurons, with a number of subjects reported to be doing well.

A lesson from the Ukraine war is the resiliency provided by large proliferated constellations, said Gen. David Thompson.

WASHINGTON — During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing May 11, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked Space Force officials if any lessons could be drawn from the war in Ukraine about the role of commercial satellites in armed conflicts.

One lesson is the resiliency provided by large proliferated constellations, said Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations of the U.S. Space Force.

A recently discovered backdoor malware called BPFdoor has been stealthily targeting Linux and Solaris systems without being noticed for more than five years.

BPFdoor is a Linux/Unix backdoor that allows threat actors to remotely connect to a Linux shell to gain complete access to a compromised device.

The malware does not need to open ports, it can’t be stopped by firewalls, and can respond to commands from any IP address on the web, making it the ideal tool for corporate espionage and persistent attacks.

Elon Musk’s intervention demonstrates how satellite internet could route around war or censorship far beyond Ukraine.