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Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have shown that therapeutically restoring ‘youthful’ levels of a specific subunit of the telomerase enzyme can significantly reduce the signs and symptoms of aging in preclinical models. If these findings are validated in clinical trials, they could have important therapeutic implications for age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease, and cancer.

The study, published in Cell, identified a small molecule compound that restores physiological levels of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), which normally is repressed with the onset of aging. Maintenance of TERT levels in aged lab models reduced cellular senescence and tissue inflammation, spurred new neuron formation with improved memory, and enhanced neuromuscular function, which increased strength and coordination.

The researchers show that TERT functions not only to extend telomeres, but also acts as a transcription factor to affect the expression of many genes directing neurogenesis, learning and memory, cellular senescence, and inflammation.

“Epigenetic repression of TERT plays a major role in the cellular decline seen at the onset of aging by regulating genes involved in learning, memory, muscle performance, and inflammation,” said corresponding author Ronald DePinho, M.D., professor of Cancer Biology. “By pharmacologically restoring youthful TERT levels, we reprogrammed expression of those genes, resulting in improved cognition and muscle performance while eliminating hallmarks linked to many age-related diseases.”

Not coming to anywhere near you anytime soon, because reasons, mostly having to do with government regulation.

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Get woke, go broke….

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Anti-woke crusader Robby Starbuck is making headlines again, this time taking credit for Lowe’s scaling back its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Starbuck, known for his relentless campaign against far-left white-collar activists infiltration of corporate America’s management teams and corporate boardrooms, argues that companies like Lowe’s should focus on selling products instead of being woke activists.

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Researchers have discovered a “spatial grammar” in DNA that redefines the role of transcription factors in gene regulation, influencing our understanding of genetic variations and disease.

A recently uncovered code within DNA, referred to as “spatial grammar,” may unlock the secret to how gene activity is encoded in the human genome.

This breakthrough finding, identified by researchers at Washington State University and the University of California, San Diego and published in Nature, revealed a long-postulated hidden spatial grammar embedded in DNA. The research could reshape scientists’ understanding of gene regulation and how genetic variations may influence gene expression in development or disease.

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday revived part of an Arizona voter law requiring documented proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, in response to a request from the Republican National Committee and Arizona Republicans.

The justices in a 5-4 ruling agreed to reinstate a provision of the law after a federal judge blocked it in response to legal challenges by Democratic president Joe Biden’s administration and advocacy groups.

The decision comes before the Nov. 5 election in which Democratic vice president Kamala Harris is facing off against Republican former president Donald Trump.

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A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday barred a U.S. Federal Trade Commission rule from taking effect that would ban agreements commonly signed by workers not to join their employers’ rivals or launch competing businesses.

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As demand for clean energy is increasing and countries are exploring alternatives for fossil fuels, a nuclear-powered container ship can help reduce cargo ship emissions.

In this arena, three companies have launched a study to assess multiple factors including regulatory feasibility.

Lloyd’s Register (LR), CORE POWER, and AP Moller – Maersk will research on frameworks needed to establish nuclear container ship using a fourth-generation reactor.

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China appears to have installed a laser directed energy weapon on one of its Type 071 amphibious assault ships, mirroring U.S. and other nations’ expanding activities in the same arena. Recent actions against Houthi drones in the Red Sea have helped to spur further interest in fitting warships with directed energy weapons of various types, although most of China’s activities with laser weapons have, so far, been conducted on land.

A photo that recently appeared on social media shows an apparently newly installed laser weapon on a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 071 amphibious transport dock, the vessel having reportedly just emerged from a refit. The system is mounted immediately aft of the 76mm dual-purpose gun on the ship’s bow. When not in use, the weapon is concealed under a relatively large dome-like cover.

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The pursuit of a cure for Alzheimer’s disease is becoming an increasingly competitive and contentious quest with recent years witnessing several important controversies.

In July 2022, Science magazine reported that a key 2006 research paper, published in the prestigious journal Nature, which identified a subtype of brain protein called beta-amyloid as the cause of Alzheimer’s, may have been based on fabricated data.

One year earlier, in June 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration had approved aducanumab, an antibody-targeting beta-amyloid, as a treatment for Alzheimer’s, even though the data supporting its use were incomplete and contradictory.

Some physicians believe aducanumab never should have been approved, while others maintain it should be given a chance.

With millions of people needing an effective treatment, why are researchers still fumbling in this quest for a cure for what is arguably one of the most important diseases confronting humankind?

The Guardian.

Some do it to explore their ancestral heritage or an unknown part of their identity. Others are hoping to find parents, siblings and new relatives.

More than 40 million people worldwide are thought to have tested their DNA ancestry via companies such as Ancestry, 23andMe and MyHeritage since the first genetic genealogy test was offered to the public in 2000.

Now, people are using their test results in a new way – to apply for citizenship in other countries, DNA experts say.

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A student has successfully developed a small nuclear fusion reactor as part of his A-Levels. The 17-year-old built the reactor to generate neutrons as part of his Extended Project Qualification (EPQ).

Notably, Cesare Mencarini’s work is claimed to be the only nuclear reactor built in a school environment.

Showcased at the Cambridge Science Festival recently, the nuclear reactor achieved plasma a few months ago. It also gave Mencarini an A* in his A-Level results, according to reports.

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More high-income households have left California and New York than moved in, but some states saw the opposite.

Florida had the biggest net gain of high-earning households, according to a recent SmartAsset study. SmartAsset analyzed the latest available IRS data from the 2021-2022 tax year. Using $200,000 of adjusted gross income as a threshold, the study examined the number of high-income households moving into and out of each state to determine the net inflow.

Texas came in second in terms of net inflow, followed by North and South Carolina and Arizona.

UPDATE: Map Shows Most Popular States for High Earners (Newsweek)

UPDATE: Here’s where the young and rich are moving – and it’s not New York or California (Fox)

UPDATE: California and New York are losing rich Americans at the highest rate in America — here’s where the money’s moving instead (MoneyWise)

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Researchers assessed many thousands of different molecules in people from age 25 to 75, as well as their microbiomes—the bacteria, viruses and fungi that live inside us and on our skin—and found that the abundance of most molecules and microbes do not shift in a gradual, chronological fashion. Rather, we undergo two periods of rapid change during our life span, averaging around age 44 and age 60. A paper describing these findings appears in Nature Aging.

“We’re not just changing gradually over time; there are some really dramatic changes,” said Michael Snyder, Ph.D., chair of genetics and the study’s senior author. “It turns out the mid-40s is a time of dramatic change, as is the early 60s. And that’s true no matter what class of molecules you look at.”

Xiaotao Shen, Ph.D., a former Stanford Medicine postdoctoral scholar, was the first author of the study. Shen is now an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University Singapore.

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Conventional aircraft wings follow design principles established by the Wright brothers and rely on Bernoulli’s principle. This dictates that faster airflow over the top of the wing results in lower pressure, while slower airflow underneath generates higher pressure, thus lifting the plane.

However, as an aircraft approaches the speed of sound, shock waves come into existence, creating turbulence and drag. These reduce lift and cause damaging vibrations.

The research team, led by Professor Gao Chao of the university’s School of Aeronautics, proposed that strategic holes in the wing could solve these ill effects.

They employed computer simulations and wind tunnel experiments, which demonstrated that the holes in the wing disrupted shock waves and mitigated the ensuing vibrations. Remarkably, they also discovered a boost of over 10% in aerodynamic efficiency.

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Scientists looking to tackle our ongoing obesity crisis have made an important discovery: Intermittent calorie restriction leads to significant changes both in the gut and the brain, which may open up new options for maintaining a healthy weight.

Researchers from China studied 25 volunteers classed as obese over a period of 62 days, during which they took part in an intermittent energy restriction (IER) program – a regime that involves careful control of calorie intake and relative fasting on some days.

Not only did the participants in the study lose weight – 7.6 kilograms (16.8 pounds) or 7.8 percent of their body weight on average – there was also evidence of shifts in the activity of obesity-related regions of the brain, and in the make-up of gut bacteria.

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Solving a decades-old problem, a multidisciplinary team of Caltech researchers has figured out a method to noninvasively and continually measure blood pressure anywhere on the body with next to no disruption to the patient. A device based on the new technique holds the promise to enable better vital-sign monitoring at home, in hospitals, and possibly even in remote locations where resources are limited.

The new patented technique, called resonance sonomanometry, uses sound waves to gently stimulate resonance in an artery and then uses ultrasound imaging to measure the artery’s resonance frequency, arriving at a true measurement of blood pressure. In a small clinical study, the device, which gives patients a gentle buzzing sensation on the skin, produced results akin to those obtained using the standard-of-care blood pressure cuff.

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Funny how we never see Republicans switch to being Democrats (at least formally).

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Although mayonnaise typically behaves as a solid, when subjected to a pressure gradient, it begins to flow in a manner similar to plasma under comparable conditions.

Newsbusters.

U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled Monday in U.S. v. Google that “Google is a monopolist and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.” Former Attorney General William Barr filed the lawsuit initially while Donald Trump was still president. Fox News host Laura Ingraham celebrated the decision on the Aug. 5 edition of her show The Ingraham Angle. Crediting the Trump administration, Ingraham said the former president “may be a Google slayer.”

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Twenty years ago, professor Fredrik Almqvist, an organic chemistry professor at Umeå University in Sweden, was asked by his collaborating researchers at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) to design a compound that would prevent urinary tract infections, which are often caused by Gram-negative bacterial infections.

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Go where you’re treated best.

Daily Beast.

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) declined a request by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign to appear at this year’s convention, a source familiar with the plans told The Daily Beast.

The news, first reported by theGrio, came hours after Karen Attiah, a co-chair of this year’s NABJ convention, stepped down after the organization announced Donald Trump would appear for a moderated conversation at the Chicago event.

The Trump conversation, focused on “the most pressing issues facing the Black community,” with ABC News reporter Rachel Scott, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, and Semafor reporter Kadia Goba, has caused significant outrage among NABJ members.

Newsweek.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s disputed election victory spells trouble for Vice President Kamala Harris as the U.S.-Mexico border takes center stage in the race for the presidency.

The presumptive Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential race faces difficult paths to navigate after Maduro was declared the winner on Sunday, most importantly because the result may lead to what one expert told Newsweek said was likely to be a surge in migration from Venezuelans fleeing his regime.

If that happens, Republican lawmakers who have branded Harris as Biden’s “border czar”—a description seen by her supporters as inaccurate—may attempt to capitalize on her comments about Venezuela to further attack her record on immigration policy and border security, particularly as migrant numbers typically rise between August and October.

Other aspects of the Biden-Harris administration’s policy toward Venezuela, which was an important oil supplier to the U.S. prior to sanctions as well as a source for rare earth elements crucial for emerging technologies, may also come under scrutiny.

Various elements of the Biden-Harris administration’s policies in foreign affairs are likely going to come back to bite Jambalaya right square on the ass–and rightly so.

Maduro’s actions are right out of the standard socialist playbook.

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A new test gauging levels of key proteins in the blood was far more accurate than doctor assessments in spotting Alzheimer’s disease in people with early-stage illness.

The test, called APS2 (the amyloid probability score 2), was 91% accurate in diagnosing Alzheimer’s in people with mild cognitive decline or early dementia, compared to the 61% success rate of primary care doctors who examined the same patients.

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Be careful out there.

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The search is on worldwide to find ways to extract carbon dioxide from the air or from power plant exhaust and then make it into something useful. One of the more promising ideas is to make it into a stable fuel that can replace fossil fuels in some applications. But most such conversion processes have had problems with low carbon efficiency, or they produce fuels that can be hard to handle, toxic, or flammable.

Now, researchers at MIT and Harvard University have developed an efficient process that can convert carbon dioxide into formate, a liquid or solid material that can be used like hydrogen or methanol to power a fuel cell and generate electricity. Potassium or sodium formate, already produced at industrial scales and commonly used as a de-icer for roads and sidewalks, is nontoxic, nonflammable, easy to store and transport, and can remain stable in ordinary steel tanks to be used months, or even years, after its production.

UK Telegraph.

Two non-identical twin girls in the US were found to have a level of autism at 20 months old that required “very substantial support”.

A groundbreaking trial saw their parents and a team of medical experts create a bespoke two-year programme of interventions designed to help the children thrive and flourish as much as possible.

Scientists say the programme was successful, with both girls undergoing “dramatic improvements” in the severity of their symptoms.

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A patented experimental propellantless propulsion drive is finally ready to go to space, according to its inventor, a veteran NASA scientist with decades of expertise in electrostatics.

Dr. Charles Buhler, the technology’s creator, says the propulsion system may represent a working version of Quantized Inertia, a theory first proposed by University of Plymouth professor Mike McCulloch. The proposition has been subjected to criticism from mainstream scientists in the past because it seemingly violates Newton’s third law of motion.

The controversial technology, which The Debrief covered in April, is privately owned by Exodus Propulsion Technologies and is not affiliated with NASA.

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We have the technology.

I’ve always thought the pituitary was the spitting gland.

New Atlas.

For the first time, scientists have demonstrated how a specific protein increases in our organs as we get older and actively promotes the aging process. By blocking this activity, it could not only help us live longer, but slow the physical decline that is, right now, an inevitable part of aging.

Researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore have previously undertaken three different studies to examine interleukin-11 (IL-11) protein expression and its role in heart and kidney, liver and lung health. The lattermost research has led to an experimental anti-IL-11 therapy that’s currently in clinical trials to treat fibrotic lung disease.

Building on this work, the team identified IL-11’s role in the aging process, with its increased production leading to fat accumulating in the liver and abdomen, as well as reduced muscle mass and strength. By blocking this protein expression, these hallmarks of aging could be drastically reduced.

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A group of small freshwater animals protect themselves from infections using antibiotic recipes stolen from bacteria, according to new research led by the University of Oxford that could help develop future medicines.

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The familiar steam turbines in wide use at power plants today are based on 19th century technology. They typically range in size from less than 100 kilowatts to more than 250 megawatts, depending on the use case. When used to generate electricity in a central power plant they are massive beasts the size of a bus or larger.

Supercritical carbon dioxide turbines are different. They don’t deploy steam as a working fluid. Instead, they use a concentrated form of carbon dioxide — sCO2 for short — that hovers somewhere between a gas and a liquid.

The Energy Department anticipates that new supercritical carbon dioxide turbines can shave energy consumption at power plants by 10%, but that’s just for starters. They have a much smaller footprint than their steam-driven cousins, resulting in manufacturing efficiencies all along the supply chain.

Which supply chain, alas, does not yet exist.

The independent R&D organization Southwest Research Institute is a leading partner in the project along with the firms GTI Energy and GE Vernova. Construction of the building shell took place between 2018 and 2020, followed by the startup of a supercritical CO2 compressor earlier this year.

In the latest update from SwRI, the team has just marked the completion of the mechanical work on the system, including new turbines that are about 1/10 the size of a conventional steam turbine.

Though only about the size of an office desk, household refrigerator, pony, credenza, or golf cart, the new turbines are powerful enough to generate the electricity equivalent of 10,000 typical homes.

Or will, once they get it into operation, which doesn’t seem to be happening all that quickly.

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The €4 million ($4.36 million) EIC Pathfinder Challenge research project aims to develop a prototype for decentralized room air conditioning within three years. According to the research team, the technology is rated by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as one of the “TOP Ten Technologies 2024.” The US Department of Energy and the European Commission have also declared it to be the most promising alternative to conventional heating and cooling.

The solid-state heating and cooling process is based on transporting heat into or out of a room by loading and unloading a so-called shape memory material, for example in the form of wires. The material absorbs heat when it is loaded, for example when it is pulled, and releases it again when the load is removed.

The researchers, led by elastocalorics pioneer Paul Motzki, are using the superelastic nickel-titanium alloy for this purpose. Materials made from this alloy return to their original shape after deformation because they have two crystal lattices and thus two phases. While water, for example, assumes the solid, liquid and gaseous phases, in nickel-titanium both phases are solid but merge into one another.

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A NEARLY COMPLETE digital library of Whole Earth publications—including the famed Whole Earth Catalog founded 55 years ago by counterculture icon Stewart Brand—has been made available online for the first time. A curious reader can now flip through all the old catalogs, magazines, and journals right in their web browser, or download entire issues to their computer free of charge.

The Whole Earth Catalog was the Sears Catalog for the boomer generation. People of my generation would spend hours ‘shopping with a highlighter’ in our leisure moments, and dreaming.

New Atlas.

It’s an unfortunate irony that while many regions struggle to find enough water, there’s trillions of liters of the stuff floating around in the air everywhere. A new water harvester design from MIT can pull enough fresh water out of the air to meet the daily needs of several people.

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twice-yearly injection of a new pre-exposure prophylaxis drug gives young women total protection from HIV infection.

The trial tested whether the six-month injection of lenacapavir would provide better protection against HIV infection than two other drugs, both daily pills. All three medications are pre-exposure prophylaxis (or PrEP) drugs.

Physician-scientist Linda-Gail Bekker, the principal investigator for the South African part of the study, tells Nadine Dreyer of The Conversation what makes this breakthrough so significant, and what to expect next.

The Sun.

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In 1932, Bremer of Harvard filmed the blood in the very early embryo circulating in self-propelled mode in spiralling streams before the heart was functioning. Amazingly, he was so impressed with the spiralling nature of the blood flow pattern that he failed to realize that the phenomena before him had demolished the pressure propulsion principle. Earlier in 1920, Steiner, of the Goetheanum in Switzerland had pointed out in lectures to medical doctors that the heart was not a pump forcing inert blood to move with pressure but that the blood was propelled with its own biological momentum, as can be seen in the embryo, and boosts itself with “induced” momenta from the heart. He also stated that the pressure does not cause the blood to circulate but is caused by interrupting the circulation. Experimental corroboration of Steiner’s concepts in the embryo and adult is herein presented.

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If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

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And who could blame them?

Officials have long accused Moscow of intentionally trying to flood the border with Middle East migrants.

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No fundamental right to force your fantasy on other people’s reality.

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Cancer treatments that aim to destroy deadly cells often cause damage and pain as they wreak havoc on neighboring cells and tissues. However, scientists have discovered a new method of targeting harmful cells using light for precise destruction, according to a recent study.

“Usually treatments for cancer use pharmacological induction to kill the cells, but those chemicals tend to diffuse throughout the tissues and it’s hard to contain to a precise location,” said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign biochemistry professor and study leader Kai Zhang in a press release. “You get a lot of unwanted effects.”

The researchers deploy optogenetics, an approach that uses optical systems to control cell functions, to focus a light beam on a target smaller than one cell.

“That is how we can use light to very precisely target a cell and turn on its death pathway,” Mr. Zhang said in the press release.

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Participation in Gaza solidarity protests and student groups could become a disqualifying factor for applicants at a prominent Wall Street law firm, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

The 145-year-old law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, which employs close to 900 lawyers and has had Amazon and Goldman Sachs among its clients, has hired the background check company HireRight to assess an applicant’s participation record in pro-Palestinian protests and student groups.

Check it out.

A Live View of the solar system and planetary positions today.

Freethink.

ÄIO was founded in 2022 by Petri-Jaan Lahtvee and Nemailla Bonturi, a professor and senior researcher of food technology and bioengineering at Tallinn University of Technology, respectively. The two were initially part of a research group led by Lahtvee looking into biotechnology processes that relied on locally available resources.

After a year and a half of building and studying various processes, one stood out as special: a yeast created by Bonturi.

Conventional yeast are microorganisms that consume raw sugars from organic sources like corn, barley, or fruit. Through metabolism, they then convert sugars into various end products known as metabolites. And these are key to many of our favorite foods.

WIRED.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

Basically a square knot, but nobody would pay surgeon rates for what any Boy Scout or sailer could do.

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Our homes are already full of invisible Wi-Fi signals, whizzing around connecting our phones, laptops, lightbulbs, fridges, and basically everything else that can be made “smart” nowadays. While we can’t see or feel these signals, we do leave an impact on them as we move around the house.

Intriguingly, recent research has shown that specialized algorithms can be used to analyze reflected Wi-Fi signals and detect a person in a room, even through walls. Further advances were made to differentiate individual people based on height, body shape, or even the way they walk, and counting up to 20 people in one room.

Now, a Dutch startup called Gamgee is putting that tech into consumer products. The Wi-Fi Home Alarm System is made up of a set of routers that form a mesh network, which first of all ensures a reliable internet connection throughout the house. But the other main function, of course, is that they can then detect motion with the help of built-in algorithms.

WIRED.

The seminal DIY catalogs, journals, and magazines printed by the techno-hippie publishing house are finally available online in digital form, all for free.

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Help to solve the mystery of a 2,200-year-old ‘computer’ has come from an unlikely source – a YouTuber.

The Antikythera Mechanism is believed to be the earliest surviving mechanical computing device.

The content creator’s research into the device’s interlocking gears was crucial in discovering the truth behind this advanced and ancient artifact.