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IRVINE, Calif., July 11, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — From measuring glaucoma to augmenting reality, advances in technology have enabled smart contact lenses to steadily gain traction in the past year. Although still in the early stages of development, the introduction of such novelties will inevitably be life-changing.

Photo — http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160711/388295

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Interesting.


WHAT: Scientists at the National Institutes of Health are reporting new, unexpected details about the fundamental structure of collagen, the most abundant protein in the human body. In lab experiments, they demonstrated that collagen, once viewed as inert, forms structures that regulate how certain enzymes break down and remodel body tissue. The finding of this regulatory system provides a molecular view of the potential role of physical forces at work in heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and other disease-related processes, they say. The study appears in the current online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have known for years that collagen remodeling plays an important role in a wide variety of biological processes ranging from wound healing to cancer growth. In particular, researchers know that collagen is broken down by a certain class of enzymes called matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), but exactly how they did this remained somewhat of a mystery, until now.

In the NIH study, the scientists isolated individual, nano-sized collagen fibrils from rat-tail tendons. They then exposed the collagen fibrils to fluorescently-labeled human MMP enzymes. Using video microscopy, the scientists tracked thousands of enzymes moving along a fibril. Unexpectedly, the scientists observed that the enzymes preferred to attach at certain sites along the fibril, and over time these attachment sites slowly moved, or disappeared and reappeared in other positions. These observations revealed collagen fibrils have defects that spontaneously form and heal. In the presence of tension, such as when tendons stretch, defects are likely eliminated, preventing enzymes from breaking down collagen that is loaded by physical force, the researchers suggest. In short, they identified a possible strain-sensitive mechanism for regulating tissue remodeling.

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Imagine a couple wanting to have a baby. They see the fertility specialist at a clinic, provide genetic material such as sperm or skin cells, and return sometime later. ‘The DNA of the resulting embryos will then be sequenced and carefully analyzed before decisions are made about which embryo or embryos to transfer to a womb for possible development,’ Greely writes. ‘Prospective parents will be told as much as they wish to know about the genetic makeup of dozens of embryos, and they will pick one or two for implantation, gestation, and birth.’ Besides the advantages of eliminating certain diseases, ‘It will be safe, lawful, and free.’


Will we be building a better world or a more homogeneous one?

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Ray Kurzweil is a celebrity technologist, well known both for his work as an inventor and for his relatively accurate predictions of technological change. Among his predictions is that of an imminent biotech revolution, which may enable people to restore and maintain healthy life for much longer periods of time than those humans have enjoyed historically. In the meantime, Ray says he takes 250 dietary supplements each day, in addition to receiving half a dozen intravenous therapies each week.

“Although my program may seem extreme, it is actually conservative – and optimal (based on my current knowledge). [My doctor] and I have extensively researched each of the several hundred therapies that I use for safety and efficacy. I stay away from ideas that are unproven or appear to be risky (the use of human-growth hormone, for example).” – Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity Is Near (pages 211–212)

Some of Ray’s dietary supplements are nootropics, intended to maintain and improve brain health. He lists them in his book, Transcend (pages 15 and 22). I’ve compared the nootropics he recommends to reviews on Examine.com, an independent and unbiased encyclopedia on supplementation and nutrition that is not affiliated in any way with any supplement company. Below is a table that summarizes what I found, followed by some observations.

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This is from 2014 but is getting posted around the past couple of days.

““It’s estimated that we’re born with around 20,000 blood stem cells, and at any one time, around 1000 are simultaneously active to replenish blood,” says Holstege. During life, the number of active stem cells shrinks, she says, and their telomeres shorten to the point at which they die –”


She lived to 115, but a study of Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper’s blood hints at factors limiting lifespan.

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Amazing!! More time to learn, evolve, love, & explore the world…


A sprawling facility called Timeship in Texas will host 50,000 frozen dead people with one goal — to become the human race’s first immortals.

Activist Saul Kent — one of the minds behind it — is such a passionate believer in ‘cryogenics’ that he froze his own mother’s head in 1988 after her death.

The creators of Timeship — to begin construction shortly — say that the site will stay in place for ‘hundreds of years’, waiting for technology to advance sufficiently to revive the patients inside.

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Graphene, a two-dimensional wonder-material composed of a single layer of carbon atoms linked in a hexagonal chicken-wire pattern, has attracted intense interest for its phenomenal ability to conduct electricity. Now University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have used rod-shaped bacteria — precisely aligned in an electric field, then vacuum-shrunk under a graphene sheet — to introduce nanoscale ripples in the material, causing it to conduct electrons differently in perpendicular directions.

The resulting material, sort of a graphene nano-corduroy, can be applied to a silicon chip and may add to graphene’s almost limitless potential in electronics and nanotechnology. The finding is reported in the journal ACS Nano.

“The current across the graphene wrinkles is less than the current along them,” says Vikas Berry, associate professor and interim head of chemical engineering at UIC, who led the research.

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