Lifeboat Foundation

Acarbose and Metformin are commonly used to treat type 2 diabetes, but now they are also being tested for anti-aging effects, and according to the researchers these two FDA approved drugs have big promise.

In mice testing Acarbose and Metformin were demonstrated to increase health, lifespan, and longevity of the animals. These two drugs are now being tested in monkeys that have a similar physiology, reproductive system, and aging pattern as humans, in research being conducted at Texas Biomedical Research Institute which is supported by a pilot grant provided by the San Antonio Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center.

“I think this type of research can change what life is like for geriatric people,” said Corinna Ross, Ph.D, Associate Professor, Southwest National Primate Research Center at Texas BioMed.

Lifespan.io

 A new study published in mSystems, a journal from the American Society for Microbiology, shows that the skin and mouth microbiomes are better predictors of age than the gut microbiome.

A very broad study

Continue reading “Skin and Mouth Biomarkers More Predictive Than Gut” »

The FDA has cleared the world’s first portable MRI system, designed to be wheeled to a hospital bedside for scanning a patient’s head and brain.

Developed by Hyperfine Research for people age two and older, the point-of-care imaging system weighs about one-tenth that of a conventional, fixed MRI system. About three feet wide and five feet tall, the device fits in an elevator and runs off an everyday power outlet to create both clinical contrast images and 3D renders.

“More than 40 years after its first use, MRI remains a marvel. Unfortunately, it also remains inaccessible,” Hyperfine Chief Medical Officer Khan Siddiqui said in a statement. “It’s time that MRI made the jump to point of need just like X-ray and ultrasound have before it.”

The space industry is in the midst of a widespread transformation, as the last decade has seen several young, private companies seek to profit in areas historically dominated by governmental interests. Among these areas is lunar mining, which represents a crucial step for the development of the space economy by enabling the utilization of lunar resources. Though significant opportunities exist for wealth creation and societal benefits, it will require sustained multibillion-dollar investment to develop a vibrant lunar mining industry.

Exploration is the essential first step for any mining endeavor, terrestrially or otherwise, but with the technical challenges of lunar mining largely solved, access to capital has become the prevailing constraint. While the uncertainty of operating in space is the commonly used explanation for capital constraints, in reality, terrestrial explorers have seen funding steadily decline for a decade, with investors favoring lower risk, passive exposure to the mining sector. For lunar mining firms seeking to attract capital for exploration, this essay details the incompatibility of traditional investment options, the financing strategies developed by the similarly cash-strapped terrestrial mining industry, and how prospective lunar miners should capitalize on emerging trends in project finance.

A research team led by professors from the University of Pittsburgh Department of Physics and Astronomy has announced the discovery of a new electronic state of matter.

Jeremy Levy, a distinguished professor of condensed matter physics, and Patrick Irvin, a research associate professor are coauthors of the paper “Pascal conductance series in ballistic one-dimensional LaAIO₃/SrTiO₃ channels.” The research focuses on measurements in one-dimensional conducting systems where electrons are found to travel without scattering in groups of two or more at a time, rather than individually.

Continue reading “Study uncovers new electronic state of matter” »

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Virgin Galactic’s spaceship VSS Unity, tucked under the wing of its special carrier aircraft, took a long-awaited ferry flight Thursday from Southern California to its new home in the New Mexico desert, where it will undergo final testing in preparation for commercial operations that will carry tourists on hops into space.

The mothership, named Eve, took off from Mojave Air & Space Port and circled over the Mojave Desert before turning east toward Spaceport America in southern New Mexico. The flight lasted more than three hours, giving pilots a chance to evaluate the spaceship at high altitude and cold temperatures for a prolonged period of time.

The move to New Mexico marks a significant milestone toward commercial flights, which the company anticipates this year.

The generation of a chemical system capable of replication and evolution is a key objective of synthetic biology. This could be achieved by in vitro reconstitution of a minimal self-sustaining central dogma consisting of DNA replication, transcription and translation. Here, we present an in vitro translation system, which enables self-encoded replication and expression of large DNA genomes under well-defined, cell-free conditions. In particular, we demonstrate self-replication of a multipartite genome of more than 116 kb encompassing the full set of Escherichia coli translation factors, all three ribosomal RNAs, an energy regeneration system, as well as RNA and DNA polymerases. Parallel to DNA replication, our system enables synthesis of at least 30 encoded translation factors, half of which are expressed in amounts equal to or greater than their respective input levels. Our optimized cell-free expression platform could provide a chassis for the generation of a partially self-replicating in vitro translation system.

BF16, the new number format optimized for deep learning, promises power and compute savings with a minimal reduction in prediction accuracy.

BF16, sometimes called BFloat16 or Brain Float 16, is a new number format optimised for AI/deep learning applications. Invented at Google Brain, it has gained wide adoption in AI accelerators from Google, Intel, Arm and many others.

The idea behind BF16 is to reduce the compute power and energy consumption needed to multiply tensors together by reducing the precision of the numbers. A tensor is a three-dimensional matrix of numbers; multiplication of tensors is the key mathematical operation required for AI calculations.

Wall Street’s Biotech Investment Wizard — On this most recent ideaXme (http://radioideaxme.com/) episode, I was honored to be joined by my friend, and biotech / pharma / healthcare investment banker extraordinaire, Frederick Frank, to talk about his 50-year career history behind the industry’s mega-deals — #Ideaxme #Biopharma #Biotech #WallStreet #Mergers #Acquisitions #VentureCapital #Genentech #Roche #BristolMyersSquibb #PrivateEquity #Health #Wellness #Longevity #Regeneration #LifeExtension #Aging #IraPastor #Bioquark #Regenerage

Ira Pastor, ideaXme exponential health ambassador, interviews Fred Frank, Founder and Chair of Evolution Life Science Partners, an investment bank focused on the needs of life sciences and healthcare companies.

Continue reading “Biotech’s Wizard Of Wall Street : Fred Frank At The Forefront of Investment” »