Magnetic-Plasmonic Hybrid Nanoparticles Isolate Lysosomes from Cells
Researchers at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed a method to isolate intact lysosomes from cells. The technique is rapid and produces samples of high purity. Lysosomes are the garbage-disposal organelles within a cell, and they are involved in numerous diseases, from lysosomal storage diseases to autoimmune disorders, certain cancers, and neurodegenerative diseases. However, they are difficult to study, as current techniques to isolate lysosomes from cells result in samples with poor purity and damaged or altered lysosomes. This new approach uses nanotechnology to rapidly extract a high-...
Source: Medgadget - January 13, 2022 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: etc. Genetics Nanomedicine Pathology Source Type: blogs
Water Vapor Plasma Bonding for Ultrathin and Flexible Electronics
Scientists at RIKEN research institute in Japan have developed a new method to bind gold electrodes to each other within flexible electronics. The technique, which does not require adhesives or high temperatures that can damage delicate electronic components, allows for extremely thin and flexible electronics and could lead to new types of medical wearables. The team’s method relies on exposing tiny gold electrodes to water vapor plasma before binding them together. The plasma generates hydroxyl groups that help to bind the gold surfaces together, and the process can take place at room temperature.
Conformability test...
Source: Medgadget - January 11, 2022 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Materials Source Type: blogs
History
I ' ve been reading a lot of history lately. The Story of China, by Michael Wood, A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani, a couple of Jared Diamond books, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan, World War II by Robert Tombs, and other books.Our view of historical time tends to be fairly compressed. We think the future will be an extrapolation of the past we know personally, our own lifetime and maybe that of our grandparents who told us their stories. This makes larger scale historical events seem an abstraction and not anything that can happen to us. Yes, World War II was in the time frame....
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 10, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 27th 2021
We report that whereas microglia are characterized by marked gene-level alterations related to negative regulation of protein phosphorylation and phagocytic vesicles, astrocytes show activation of enzyme- or peptidase-inhibitor signaling after detectable changes in BBB permeability. We also identify several genes enriched in these pathways that are notably altered after BBB breakdown. Our data reveal that microglia and astrocytes play an active role in maintaining BBB stabilization and corralling infiltrating cells, and thus might potentially function in ameliorating the lesions and neurologic disabilities in CNS diseases....
Source: Fight Aging! - December 26, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Hostage Crisis Ends On Day 73 —American Patients Now Have Access to One Antiviral Pill
Jeffrey A. SingerEarlier this week I wrote about foot ‐dragging by the Food and Drug Administration regarding approval of two highly effective antiviral pills. With the omicron variant of COVID-19 rapidly spreading throughout the population, infecting both vaccinated and unvaccinated, these pills becomes even more important.Merck applied to the FDA for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of its antiviral molnupiravir on October 11, 2021 —73 days ago. The drug was approved for emergency use in the U.K. on November 4. It is 30 percent effective in preventing COVID infections (including the omicron variant) from progr...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 22, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
The Fed ’s Higher Fed Funds Rate Projections Mean What?
Alan ReynoldsBefore they were awash with reserves, banks often paid interest to other banks in the “federal funds” market if they needed more reserves to support more lending (due to reserve requirements). Since 2008 and massive “quantitative easing” (buying federal debt with new reserves), reserve requirements stopped limiting commercial bank credit. The Federal Reserve instead paid an interest rate on reserve balances (IROB)– which effectively sets a floor under the fed funds rate.Members of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed ’s policymaking arm, announced on December 15 that their median projection ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 21, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Alan Reynolds Source Type: blogs
NeuroD1 Gene Therapy for Neural Regeneration Looks Like a Dead End
In recent years, researchers have produced what looked like promising results in reprogramming supporting cells in the brain into neurons via neuroD1 gene therapy. A way to do this, to produce new neurons that can integrate into existing neural circuits, would provide a road to regeneration of the brain. Unfortunately, and as sometimes happens, this may all be a dead end, and the early promise was based on misinterpretation of the data. This will likely be hashed out further in the next few years; science often proceeds in this way, and this is one of the many reasons as to why independent replication is vital to scientifi...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 20, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
The Top Seven Reasons to Oppose New Semiconductor Subsidies
Scott Lincicome and Ilana BlumsackAs the global semiconductorshortage persists, chipmakers have renewed theirefforts to convince Congress to hand them tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. Earlier this year, the U.S. Senatepassed a $52 billion subsidy package for this very purpose. Its fate remains unclear in the House of Representatives, but a vote on some sort of government support for domestic chip production is expected in the coming weeks (though perhaps after the new year). Before members vote again on any such subsidies, however, we provide below seven reasons why broad, strings-free subsidization of U.S. semiconduc...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 17, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Scott Lincicome, Ilana Blumsack Source Type: blogs
Freedom in Decline for 83% of the World ’s Population: New Human Freedom Index
Ian V ásquezThe vast majority of the world ’s population (83%) has seen a decline in freedom since 2008. That includes decreases in freedom in the ten most populous countries of the world—China, India, United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, and Mexico.So finds theHuman Freedom Index 2021(HFI) co ‐published today by the Cato Institute and the Fraser Institute in Canada. The index uses 82 distinct indicators of economic, personal, and civil freedoms to rate 165 jurisdictions from 2008 to 2019, the most recent year for which internationally comparable data is available.The decline ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 16, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Ian V ásquez Source Type: blogs
Does College Education Make Us Act Healthier? Evidence from a Japanese Superstition
Yichen Shen (Waseda University), Rong FU (Waseda University), Haruko Noguchi (Waseda University), Does College Education Make Us Act Healthier? Evidence from a Japanese Superstition, SSRN (2021): We investigated the causal effect of college education on smoking, drinking, sleeping, and cancer... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - December 16, 2021 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
Mike Lee Proposes Paring Back Protectionism to Address Port Woes
Colin GrabowOne unpleasant discovery for many Americans during 2021 has been thewoeful state of the country ’s ports, which have struggled to accommodate a deluge of demand for imported goods. To address these shortcomings, the Biden administration and much of Congress have —to the surprise of only the grossly naïve—largely centered their efforts around increased spending.Included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed last month was $17.1 billion for ports, of which more than $11.5 billion will be focused on new construction. That money, onearticle says, “appears set to literally reshape ports ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 15, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Colin Grabow Source Type: blogs
WTO Members Agree to Cut Red Tape in Global Services Trade
Inu Manak and Alfredo Carrillo ObregonWhile politicians often spend an inordinate amount of time praising manufacturing and trade in goods, a big portion of what is actually traded in the world is made up of services. Despite the importance of services trade to the global economy, the costs for engaging in services trade remain high. In fact, a 2019report by the World Trade Organization (WTO) found that the cost of trading in services is twice as high as the cost of trading in goods. This is because some of the barriers to trade in services are often “behind the border” measures, such as government rules and regulat...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 15, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Inu Manak, Alfredo Carrillo Obregon Source Type: blogs
Cato Scholars on China and the World Trade Organization —20 Years On
Alfredo Carrillo ObregonDecember 11, 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of China ’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The world has changed dramatically since then, and U.S.-China relations are increasingly marked by tension. Over the years, Cato scholars have weighed in on China’s entry into the rules based international trading system, and this post provides a summary of many of those contributions and reflects on the lessons learned from this momentous policy.One of the challenges to having a frank discussion about China ’s entry into the WTO, is that there are pervasive myths surrounding China’s WTO...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 10, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Alfredo Carrillo Obregon Source Type: blogs
China Marks 20 Years in the World Trade Organization. We Should Celebrate It.
This report was made by the Trump administration; it is unclear whether the Biden administration feels the same way.But this view is wrong. Overall, China ’s integration into the rules‐based multilateral trading system has generated significantly more stability, predictability, and transparency in the economic relations of the rest of the world with China than existed before China’s accession. The WTO has played an important role in opening C hina’s market to foreign goods and services. This opening has produced major economic gains for China and for all its trading partners – not least the United States. Even...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 9, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Inu Manak, James Bacchus Source Type: blogs
Artificial art with Wombo
The trendy AI app – Wombo – which seems to be going viral takes your words, lets you choose an art style and then generates a dream-like image from the combination. You may have seen the Rush-inpsired art I had it create in a previous post, but here are a few more created with eclectic word choices and picking from the various styles – Mystical, Dark Fantasy, Psychic, Steampunk, Synthwave etc
Tidal Life
The Cybermaid’s Tale
Doctor Who cocktails – Daleks on the Beach
Terraforming Mars for Xmas
Dancing with Darth
Not 50 Shades of Grey
The Immigrant Song
No dreaming spires
Disney doesn’t d...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 7, 2021 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Fiction Source Type: blogs
