Lifeboat Foundation

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In a recent study published in eClinicalMedicine, researchers assess the use of fecal microbiota transplantation to enhance the efficacy of anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) therapy for patients with microsatellite stable metastatic colorectal cancer.

Study: Fecal microbiota transplantation plus tislelizumab and fruquintinib in refractory microsatellite stable metastatic colorectal cancer: an open-label, single-arm, phase II trial (RENMIN215). Image Credit: Peakstock / Shutterstock.com.

Continue reading “Fecal microbiota transplantation boosts survival in metastatic colorectal cancer treatment” »

A controversial new electric propulsion system, which physicists say defies Newton’s Laws of Motion, was launched into space this weekend aboard a Space X rocket.

Developed by electronics prototyping company IVO Ltd, the Quantum Drive took flight Saturday morning, November 11^th, aboard SpaceX’s Transporter 9 mission. This flight included over 80 separate payloads destined for Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

“Launch and deployment were successful!” IVO’s owner and founder, Richard Mansell, told The Debrief in a Sunday email. “We’re getting the satellite’s ‘heartbeat.’ Next step is to establish communication with the satellite.”

EIRSAT-1, a student-led gamma-ray astronomy cubesat, is due to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at the end of November.

Provocative Silicon Valley artist Agnieszka Pilat has strong beliefs regarding the intermingling of art, religion and technology, something that keeps her fertile muse alert amid multiple presentations, exhibitions and appearances at global events such as the recent TED AI 2023 conference in San Francisco.

The Polish-born Pilat’s current SpaceX Artist-in-Residence program at the aerospace firm’s Hawthorne, California facility will likely run through 2024 and comes right before a December exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria’s Triennial in Australia. There, for three months, her black-and-yellow Boston Dynamics robodogs will be creating autonomous artwork via a series of pre-programmed instructions.

Space Force and SpaceX announced that they’ve reached a deal for a brand-new military capability: Starshield. Is it a new laser defense shield against nuclear missiles? An Ultron for our time to destroy alien armadas? Or Starlink, but with new branding and (probably) a new fleet of satellites?

Yup, the last one. But with how clutch Starlink is in Ukraine, a military-controlled version of the network could change operations there. And it would dramatically improve U.S. and allied military communications in future conflicts. Now, the American military will lead military space-based communications with the start of Starshield. But expect allies to clamor aboard and other nations to try developing rival platforms.

Space Force has one of the most descriptive, succinct names in the modern military, but it appears to be even worse at naming its programs than the other branches. Still, its Proliferated Low Earth Orbit Program, or “PLEOP,” for acronym addicts who want to hear the sound of a dump every time they discuss the program, is promising.

The European Space Agency.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to the exploration and study of space. ESA was established in 1975 and has 22 member states, with its headquarters located in Paris, France. ESA is responsible for the development and coordination of Europe’s space activities, including the design, construction, and launch of spacecraft and satellites for scientific research and Earth observation. Some of ESA’s flagship missions have included the Rosetta mission to study a comet, the Gaia mission to create a 3D map of the Milky Way, and the ExoMars mission to search for evidence of past or present life on Mars.

SAN FRANCISCO – The Space Development Agency awarded SpaceRake, a Cambridge, Massachusetts startup, $1.8 million to develop miniature laser communications terminals.

It was the first government contract for SpaceRake, a firm founded in 2021 by Kerri Cahoy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Space Telecommunications, Astronomy and Radiation Laboratory director with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, and Jeremy Wertheimer, former Google vice president engineering with a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence.

Under the two-year direct-to-Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research award announced Nov. 1, SpaceRake will develop terminals to enable satellites as small as cubesats to transfer data through laser links with the Transport Layer, a global communications network in low Earth orbit being established by SDA, a U.S. Space Force organization.

The researchers built a dynamic data acquisition platform to capture human arm motion during assembly tasks.

A team of researchers from the Beijing Institute of Technology has developed a new method to control robots that can assemble satellites in space. The technique is inspired by the human arm, which can adjust its damping to perform different tasks with precision and stability. The researchers published their findings in Cyborg and Bionic Systems.

Space operations with robots and challenges

Continue reading “Human arm dynamics can help robots assemble satellites” »

High Microsatellite Instability is an emerging biomarker for immune-oncology that can be predictive of positive response to immunotherapy.

Tumors with defects in the expression of functional MMR (dMMR) proteins often have somatic mutations that produce novel or “foreign” proteins. These proteins can be immunogenic. As a result, these tumors are effective at priming an immune response and subsequently susceptible to immunotherapies. Because MSI can be the first evidence of an MMR deficiency, MSI-H status is predicative of a positive response to immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint blockade inhibitors.