Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: neuroscience

It’s crazy to think that we still don’t quite understand the mechanism behind one of the most common medical interventions — general anaesthetic.

But researchers in Australia just got a step closer by discovering that one of the most commonly used anaesthetic drugs doesn’t just put us to sleep; it also disrupts communication between brain cells.

The team investigated the drug propofol, a super-popular option for surgeries worldwide. A potent sedative, the drug is thought to put us to sleep through its effect on the GABA neurotransmitter system, the main regulator of our sleep-and-wake cycles in the brain.

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It is wartime. You and your fellow refugees are hiding from enemy soldiers, when a baby begins to cry. You cover her mouth to block the sound. If you remove your hand, her crying will draw the attention of the soldiers, who will kill everyone. If you smother the child, you’ll save yourself and the others.

If you were in that situation, which was dramatized in the final episode of the ’70s and ’80s TV series “M.A.S.H.,” what would you do?

The results of a new UCLA study suggest that scientists could make a good guess based on how the responds when watch someone else experience pain. The study found that those responses predict whether people will be inclined to avoid causing harm to others when facing .

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What if scientists could develop an opioid-based painkiller that is not addictive and has limited side effects?

That is possible based on new findings by an international team of scientists that included contributions from top researchers at the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience.

The international team captured the crystal structure of the kappa opioid receptor—critical for providing pain relief—in action on the surface of human brain cells. The researchers also made another important discovery: a new opioid-based compound that, unlike current opioids, activates only the kappa opioid receptor, raising hopes that they may develop a painkiller that has no risk of addiction and, therefore, none of the devastating consequences and side effects that accompany it.

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A look back at the most popular health articles of 2017. Here is the report: “9 Things Everybody Ought To Know About Fish Oils”

In brief: Do fish oil supplements containing omega-3 fatty acids significantly improve heart health, brain health and a host of other conditions? Here’s what the science says.

Fish oil is the third most widely used supplement in the U.S. According to a study published in 2015 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), nearly one in twelve Americans used fish oils in 2012.

Omega-3 fatty acids are a group of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) that are essential for health and are required for some functions in the body. Research studies suggest that omega-3 fatty acids may help in a wide range of diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, depression, cancer, ADHD, cardiovascular disease and various autoimmune diseases.

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Next, the technology maturation process, unfolds in a linear fashion with the ultimate objective of transitioning to the NASA program that established the requirement. This process sacrifices science and the ability to iterate fast; does not incentivize providers to develop affordable and systematic capabilities, and the consideration of economic intelligence and market pull is anything but strategic (engagement model with industry is secondary, i.e “work for hire” contracts, and commercialization is serendipitous). As the sole customer, NASA/the government needs to maintain the unique infrastructure needed for these missions and maintains large per mission costs.

While science missions are largely competitive and outcome focused, human missions start by establishing a destination — the political choice of Moon or Mars — often becoming a solution in search of a problem. Since the Apollo era, the overall result of this “swing” approach has basically resulted in “grounding” the human space program, negatively affecting the morale of the working force, and making many feel that it is little more than a job welfare program.

From an HR perspective, NASA, like any other government organization, is a great example of Peter’s principle, structured and incentivized by the slogan “the hierarchy needs to be preserved by all costs”, frequently leading to the alienation or outright removal of highly competent people focused on problem solving and with a desire of seeing accelerated progress.

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Researchers find promising Alzheimer’s treatment with a diabetes drug that ‘significantly reversed memory loss.’

Promising alzheimer’s treatment using diabetes drug.

Scientists announced a drug that ‘significantly reversed memory loss’ in mice with Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers from Lancaster University in the UK say the novel drug – created to treat type 2 diabetes – works through a triple method of action and also add that the medicine could provide substantial improvements in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The drug combines three growth factors that act in multiple ways to protect the brain from degeneration. The Lancaster University scientists published their study results on January 1 in the journal Brain Research.

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Shermer’s journey into the present-day search for human domination over death and society’s ills introduces readers to all forms of what he calls “techno-optimism,” meaning the belief that technological progress means an end to death — or, at the very least, to aging and social decay. There are the cryonicists who want to freeze us, and those who want simply to freeze our brains, with all their neural connections and associated memories (the connectome). The transhumanists want to enhance us so thoroughly — through means both natural and artificial — that we become godlike, “taking control of evolution and transforming the species into something stronger, faster, sexier, healthier and with vastly superior cognitive abilities the likes of which we mere mortals cannot conceive”; the Omega Point theorists think we will all one day be brought back to life in a virtual reality. Believers in “the singularity” contend that it is possible to upload the human brain to a server without losing the essence of what makes you you. And, of course, there are those who try to cure us of aging, so that our bodies and minds will cease to deteriorate and our life spans will increase ad infinitum. Shermer visits each of these and other utopian theories with detail and considered analysis, drawing readers along increasingly unrealistic (or are they?) possibilities for our future evolution. It’s a journey as boggling as it is engrossing.

In “Heavens on Earth,” Michael Shermer explores the lengths to which mankind will go to ensure our souls’ survival beyond existence on this mortal coil.

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The transhumanist vision of a transformed and technologically enhanced humanity is no longer a science fiction pipe dream. The technological and scientific breakthroughs our society has experienced over the past couple of decades perhaps stand testament to that.

Applied science has certainly come a long way too, but we are yet to crack the brain’s enigma code. How would humanity benefit if we were to crack it? Neuroprosthetics seem to be a window into the future.

Can brain activity be translated into movement?

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