Lifeboat Foundation

An international team of scientists led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has launched a comprehensive overview of all proteins expressed in the brain, published today in the journal Science. The open-access database offers medical researchers an unprecedented resource to deepen their understanding of neurobiology and develop new, more effective therapies and diagnostics targeting psychiatric and neurological diseases.

The brain is the most complex organ, both in structure and function. The new Brain Atlas resource is based on the analysis of nearly 1,900 brain samples covering 27 brain regions, combining data from the human brain with corresponding information from the brains of the pig and mouse. It is the latest database released by the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) program which is based at the Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) in Sweden, a joint research centre aligned with KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm University and Uppsala University. The project is a collaboration with the BGI research centre in Shenzhen and Qingdao in China and Aarhus University in Denmark.

“As expected, the blueprint for the brain is shared among mammals, but the new map also reveals interesting differences between human, pig and mouse brains,” says Mathias Uhlén, Professor at the Department of Protein Science at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Visiting professor at the Department of Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet and Director of the Human Protein Atlas effort.

A new joint study by Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Weizmann Institute of Science researchers has yielded an innovative method for bolstering memory processes in the brain during sleep.

The method relies on a memory-evoking scent administered to one nostril. It helps researchers understand how sleep aids memory, and in the future could possibly help to restore memory capabilities following brain injuries, or help treat people with post–traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for whom memory often serves as a trigger.

The new study was led by Ella Bar, a Ph.D. student at TAU and the Weizmann Institute of Science. Other principal investigators include Prof. Yuval Nir of TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience, as well as Profs. Yadin Dudai, Noam Sobel and Rony Paz, all of Weizmann’s Department of Neurobiology. It was published in Current Biology on March 5.

Powerful antibiotics and widespread sanitation practices have expanded lifespans across the industrialized world. But they have also come at a cost. Our microbiomes, or the trillions of microbes collectively working in our bodies to help regulate our immune system and food digestion, have lost much of its health-promoting bacteria because of our modern lifestyles and sanitation practices.

Scientists across the world are now looking to the planet’s few remaining pre-industrialized societies to see what industrialized guts have lost–and in doing so, could fundamentally change the way scientists think about germs. Thomas Morton heads to the Central African Republic to see this emerging field of microbiome science.

Continue reading “The Hunt for a Better Gut Bacteria in Central Africa” »

Humans and rodents have similar brain structures that regulate empathy, suggesting the behavior is deeply rooted in mammal evolution.

The researchers are hoping the extremely light material could be used to construct lightweight exoskeletons and shape-shifting “Terminator 2”-style robots, New Scientist reports.

Glass Beads

Continue reading “Scientists Want to Build Robots out of Floating Liquid Metal” »

Another year, another wacky Goodyear tire concept.

Early Bird ends TOMORROW!

Have you got your tickets yet? If not, then you just have a few hours to do so and save €200. Early Bird ends tomorrow 11:59 pm CET (15:00pm Pacific).

Accelerating rejuvenation therapies to repair the damage of aging.

Continue reading “Undoing Aging 2020” »

Hype or hyper-exciting? Kate Batz of Longevity. Capital shares her views on the Longevity landscape and its investment potential: pragmatic optimism, but full of opportunity.

Should we be forced to die? Live? We’re going to dig into some deep questions about health and longevity in our discussion this week with the CEO of BioViva Sciences, Elizabeth Parrish. BioViva is dedicated to improving healthy human longevity through bioinformatics used in health predictions and recommendations, precision medicine, and the discovery of novel biomarkers by applying state of the art computational methods on vast collections of biological data.