Lifeboat Foundation

Every cuckoo is an adopted child—raised by foster parents, into whose nest the cuckoo mother smuggled her egg. The cuckoo mother is aided in this subterfuge by her resemblance to a bird of prey. There are two variants of female cuckoos: a gray morph that looks like a sparrowhawk, and a rufous morph. Male cuckoos are always gray.

“With this mimicry, the bird imitates dangerous predators of the host birds, so that they keep their distance instead of attacking,” says Professor Jochen Wolf from LMU Munich.

Together with researchers at CIBIO (Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Portugal), the evolutionary biologist has investigated the genetic foundations of the variant coloring, which is limited to females and emerged over the long evolutionary arms race between host and cuckoo. The research is published in the journal Science Advances.

Using DNA and proteins, scientists have created new synthetic cells that act like living cells. Blurring the line between artificial and living materials, these cells can be reprogrammed to perform multiple functions, opening the door to new synthetic biology tech that goes beyond nature’s abilities.

Cells get their structure and stability from their cytoskeleton, a crosslinked framework of proteins that encases and protects other components. Depending on the type of cell, this cytoskeleton can be flexible to different degrees and respond in different ways to their environment, giving cells their specialized abilities.

For the new study, scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill developed synthetic, self-assembling cytoskeletons, built out of DNA, peptides and other genetic material.

Lack of genetic variation is never good for species survival.

A New Jersey woman is the second living recipient of a pig kidney.

Scientists champion global genomic surveillance using the latest technologies and a ‘One Health’ approach to protect against novel pathogens like avian influenza and antimicrobial resistance, catching epidemics before they start.

The COVID-19 pandemic turned the world upside down. In fighting it, one of our most important weapons was genomic surveillance, based on whole genome sequencing, which collects all the genetic data of a given microorganism. This powerful technology tracked the spread and evolution of the virus, helping to guide public health responses and the development of vaccines and treatments.

But genomic surveillance could do much more to reduce the toll of disease and death worldwide than just protect us from COVID-19. Writing in the journal Frontiers in Science, an international collective of clinical and public health microbiologists from the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) calls for investment in technology, capacity, expertise, and collaboration to put genomic surveillance of pathogens at the forefront of future pandemic preparedness.

Cognitive decline and dementia already affect more than 55 million people worldwide. This number is projected to skyrocket over the next few decades as the global population ages.

There are certain risk factors of cognitive decline and dementia that we cannot change – such as having a genetic predisposition to these conditions. But other risk factors we may have more power over – with research showing certain modifiable lifestyle habits, such as smoking, obesity and lack of exercise, are all linked to higher risk of dementia.

What role nutrition plays in preventing cognitive decline and dementia has also been the focus of scientific research for quite some time.

Thsi is a year old. But at 27 minutes David gets asked a couple fo “when” questions.

Dr. David Sinclair presents the progress of epigenetic reprogramming and rejuvenation in this video. He’s also answering questions on when he thinks the rejuvenation therapy be available in the Q\&A session at the end of the presentation.

Continue reading “Will Rejuvenation Therapy Be Available In Our LIFETIME? Gene Therapy VS Small Molecules” »

The International Space Station has long been known as a unique — and uniquely gross — environment. But according to a new NASA study, it has stuff growing on it that is straight-up alien, too.

In a press release, NASA said that when scientists from the Jet Propulsion Lab looked at samples of the drug-resistant Enterobacter bugandensis bacteria found on the orbital outpost, they found that the strains had mutated into something that literally doesn’t exist on Earth.

“Study findings indicate that under stress, the ISS isolated strains were mutated and became genetically and functionally distinct compared to their Earth counterparts,” the press release reads. “The strains were able to viably persist in the ISS over time in significant abundances.”

A multi-institutional team of geneticists and genomic and genotyping specialists in Japan has sequenced the genomes of thousands of Japanese people from across the country, looking to settle the debate surrounding the ancestry of the Japanese people.