Lifeboat Foundation

Gensight Biologics, a company researching – among other things – the movement of mitochondrial genetic information to the nucleus to treat hereditary genetic diseases (a strategy that could also have an impact on aging according to the SENS Research Foundation), has recently released data for its latest trial of GS010, a therapy against the blindness-causing genetic disease LHON.

Note: Patrick Deane holds shares in Gensight Biologics (EPA: SIGHT).

Would you be brave enough to climb into the cockpit…?

An algae-powered bioreactor, called the Photobioreactor, arrived at the International Space Station on May 6 and represents a major step toward so-called closed-loop life-support systems, which could one day sustain space crews during long-duration missions to the moon and Mars.

Researchers at the University of Washington have used machine learning to teach an AI system to identify when someone is having a cardiac arrest. The system learned to identify agonal breathing, which occurs when someone gasps for breath during cardiac arrest, with a high degree of accuracy. The technology can be embedded into a variety of listening devices, such as smart speakers or smartphones, to alert authorities and loved ones to someone having a heart attack while they sleep.

Approximately half a million Americans die from cardiac arrest annually. Cardiac arrests often happen while someone is at home in bed. This is particularly dangerous, as there is likely to be no-one around, or no-one awake, to help.

Now, researchers have developed an AI system that can work through smart speakers or a smartphone to monitor for signs of a cardiac arrest while someone sleeps. The system listens for something called agonal breathing, which occurs in about 50% of people who experience a cardiac arrest, and patients who demonstrate this characteristic gasping often have a better chance of surviving.

Genes get shuffled and re-dealt with every new generation, meaning many are relatively recent. But while exploring the “dark heart” of the human genome, geneticists have now found some of the most ancient pieces of DNA, inherited from Neanderthals and an as-yet-unknown human relative, which may be affecting our sense of smell to this day.

Over 30 years ago, a molecule with incredible anti-cancer properties was discovered in sea sponges. However, it was so structurally complex scientists have been unable to synthesize it in large enough quantities to be able to test it in humans. Now a team of scientists has finally made a landmark breakthrough, achieving total synthesis of the molecule in volumes large enough to proceed to clinical trials.

Researchers at the University of Chicago published a novel technique for improving the reliability of quantum computers by accessing higher energy levels than traditionally considered. Most prior work in quantum computation deals with “qubits,” the quantum analogue of binary bits that encode either zero or one. The new work instead leverages “qutrits,” quantum analogues of three-level trits capable of representing zero, one or two.

The UChicago group worked alongside researchers based at Duke University. Both groups are part of the EPiQC (Enabling Practical-scale Quantum Computation) collaboration, an NSF Expedition in Computing. EPiQC’s interdisciplinary research spans from algorithm and software development to architecture and hardware design, with the ultimate goal of more quickly realizing the enormous potential of quantum computing for scientific discovery and computing innovation.

A group of astronomers led by Crystal Martin and Stephanie Ho of the University of California, Santa Barbara, has discovered a dizzying cosmic choreography among typical star-forming galaxies; their cool halo gas appears to be in step with the galactic disks, spinning in the same direction.

The researchers used W. M. Keck Observatory to obtain the first-ever direct observational evidence showing that corotating halo gas is not only possible, but common. Their findings suggest that the whirling gas halo will eventually spiral in towards the disk.

“This is a major breakthrough in understanding how galactic disks grow,” said Martin, Professor of Physics at UC Santa Barbara and lead author of the study. “Galaxies are surrounded by massive reservoirs of gas that extend far beyond the visible portions of galaxies. Until now, it has remained a mystery how exactly this material is transported to galactic disks where it can fuel the next generation of star formation.”

In a small, recent human trial, a naturally occurring compound called urolithin A has yielded positive results and appears to slow down part of the aging process that is related to the production of energy in our cells.

What is urolithin A?

Urolithin A is the end product created when bacteria in the gut break down ellagitannins, which are polyphenols found in fruits such as pomegranates, strawberries, walnuts, and raspberries. The substance does not appear naturally in its end form, so we normally rely on the beneficial bacteria in the microbiome, our internal ecology of gut bacteria, to convert the polyphenols into urolithin A.