[TECH NEWS] A paper in Science reports a design method that substantially advances the macromolecular technology base for building atomically precise nanosystems. As many readers know, biology shows an effective way to build large, intricate, atomically precise systems: Use covalent chemistry to build chains of small building blocks, and design these chains to fold into nanoscale building blocks that undergo… Read more »
[FEATURED ARTICLE] Cryonics, 2nd Quarter 2011 By Aubrey de Grey This article is a response to: Ben Best – Deficiencies in the SENS Approach to Rejuvenation SENS, my proposal for combating aging with regenerative medicine, was first formulated in 2000 and first published in 2002 [1]. In 2005 and 2006, the first scientific critiques of SENS [2,3] appeared that were… Read more »
[FEATURED ARTICLE] Cryonics, 2nd Quarter 2011 By Mike Perry This article is a response to: Kenneth J. Hayworth – The Brain Preservation Technology Prize: A Challenge to Cryonicists, a Challenge to Scientists I think it is commendable that Ken Hayworth is offering a prize for demonstrated, near-perfect brain preservation at the synaptic level where identity-critical structure appears to be seated…. Read more »
[FEATURED ARTICLE] Cryonics, 2nd Quarter 2011 For an illustrated version of this article, click here. For a response to this article by Alcor staff member Mike Perry, click here. By Kenneth J. Hayworth, Ph.D. My name is Kenneth Hayworth and I am a PhD neuroscientist working in a university laboratory developing automated electron imaging techniques. The primary focus of my… Read more »
In the 2011 2nd quarter issue of Cryonics magazine Alcor member Kenneth Hayworth, Ph.D., writes about the Brain Preservation Foundation and the Brain Preservation Technology Prize. The Brain Preservation Technology Prize aims to encourage researchers to develop chemical or cryobiological methods to preserve the precise pattern of synaptic connectivity in the brain. Alcor staff member Michael Perry, Ph.D., expresses Alcor’s… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Human skin cells can be converted directly into functional neurons in a period of four to five weeks with the addition of just four proteins, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The finding is significant because it bypasses the need to first create induced pluripotent stem cells, and may make it… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Pity the lowly astrocyte, the most common cell in the human nervous system. Long considered to be little more than putty in the brain and spinal cord, the star-shaped astrocyte has found new respect among neuroscientists who have begun to recognize its many functions in the brain, not to mention its role in a range of disorders of… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] An Australian woman’s life has been saved using a radical synthetic blood substitute made from cow plasma. In a world first, doctors at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne brought 33-year-old Tamara Coakley back from the brink of death after a car crash left her with severe blood loss and close to heart failure. Her spinal cord was almost… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Brain scans of healthy people showed signs that the brain was shrinking in Alzheimer’s-affected areas nearly a decade before the disease was diagnosed, U.S. researchers said April 13. The finding, published in the journal Neurology, may offer a new way to detect the disease early, an advance that could help in the development of effective treatments for Alzheimer’s,… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Mapping the fat distribution of the healthy human brain is a key step in understanding neurological diseases, in general, and the neurodegeneration that accompanies Alzheimer’s disease in particular. Antonio Veloso and colleagues, from the University of the Basque Country in Leioa, Spain, find a new technique to reveal the fat distribution of three different areas of the healthy… Read more »
