Molecule restores cognition, memory in Alzheimer’s disease model mice

In a study, published in the journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a molecule identified and synthesized by UCLA Health researchers was shown to restore cognitive functions in mice with symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease by effectively jump-starting the brain’s memory circuitry.

If proven to have similar effects in humans, the candidate compound would be novel among Alzheimer’s disease treatments in its ability to revitalize memory and cognition, the study authors said.

Mom, her only sibling, and her mother all had severe dementia before they died. My brothers and I watch the medical news for stuff like this in hopes that even if the dice roll the wrong way there will be an effective treatment for us.

Interesting study on aging:

The Blood of Exceptionally Long-Lived People Reveals Crucial Differences : ScienceAlert

Centenarians, once considered rare, have become commonplace. Indeed, they are the fastest-growing demographic group of the world’s population, with numbers roughly doubling every ten years since the 1970s.

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We found that, on the whole, those who made it to their hundredth birthday tended to have lower levels of glucose, creatinine and uric acid from their sixties onwards.

Although the median values didn’t differ significantly between centenarians and non-centenarians for most biomarkers, centenarians seldom displayed extremely high or low values.

For example, very few of the centenarians had a glucose level above 6.5 mmol/L earlier in life, or a creatinine level above 125 µmol/L.

For many of the biomarkers, both centenarians and non-centenarians had values outside of the range considered normal in clinical guidelines.

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Keeping track of your kidney and liver values, as well as glucose and uric acid as you get older, is probably not a bad idea.

That said, chance probably plays a role at some point in reaching an exceptional age.

But the fact that differences in biomarkers could be observed a long time before death suggests that genes and lifestyle may also play a role.

If the cancer and dementia in my family history don’t take me out and civil/WWIII doesn’t make a negative contribution to my health I probably have a higher than average, but far from good, chance at reaching 100.

Scientists Get Serious in the Search for a Working Warp Drive (msn.com)

Scientists have longed for some sort of technology that can propel humans faster than what physics says is possible, and now a new online tool is helping engineers make a warp drive the sole property of Starfleet. Last week, Applied Physics, which is an international group of scientists and engineers, announced that they’d created an online toolkit for “analyzing warp drive spacetimes” called the “Warp Factory.”

This comes only a few years after a flurry of papers reported that constructing warp drives — built on the idea of spacetime-folding warp bubbles — could be theoretically possible. Warp Factory provides an online playground for researchers to test warp engine ideas.

“Physicists can now generate and refine an array of warp drive designs with just a few clicks, allowing us to advance science at warp speed,” Gianni Martire, CEO of Applied Physics, said in a press statement. “Warp Factory serves as a virtual wind tunnel, enabling us to test and evaluate different warp designs. Science fiction is now inching closer to science fact.”

Interesting. I’m a bit skeptical but it is still interesting. I brings up a flood of memories for me.

In late 1999 my contract at Microsoft was not renewed and I was looking for a job. I called up Eric Engstrom who, the last I had heard, was still working at Microsoft. I thought he might know of a group that was hiring. He had left Microsoft a few months earlier and was about to start his own company. He was thrilled I had called him. His employment agreement at MS prohibited him from recruiting MS people for some period of time after he left. But since I contacted him and was no longer at MS I was fair game.

His recruiting pitch for me to join his startup was unique.

We were going to become billionaires by using a different business model and out competing MS in the Microsoft Office suite of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.

If you think that was grandiose…

And once we had the money stream we had sucked away from Microsoft we would start working on immortality. Immorality would give us the luxury of being able to, “Wait around for warp drive.” We would be able to travel the galaxy.

I was his first employee at his new startup. It didn’t turn out as well as he had hoped, the company went under in the dot com crash and he died on December 1, 2020 at the age of 55 of an accidental Tylenol overdose.

Every time I hear of warp drive outside of a Sci-Fi environment I think of Eric. And if I ever take a cruise on a warp drive powered ship and you see me sad it will be because I’m thinking of Eric.

On a happier note. Warp drive will enable the colonization of other planets. We no longer have the option to move to a new frontier (Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Washington) as my great-great grandparents did when things got unpleasant in the Midwest in the lead up to the civil war. Short of the ocean and perhaps parts of Antarctica there just isn’t any place on this planet that isn’t infected with overbearing government busybodies or outright tyrants. The moon and Mars are sort of promising but the cost of living there is going to be really high for a long time. The environment is just too hostile.

With a Star Trek like warp drive there will be hundreds of planets with hospitable environments available. A few million free minded could make one a new home and not have to worry about the dismal political situation on earth. It would be better if the free minded people could persuade the busybodies and tyrants to do the move. But as I believe it has always been the case before here on earth, that the freedom loving people had to do the moving rather than government loving busybodies.

Wow! If true, this is fascinating.

Universal vaccine may be effective against any variant of any virus (msn.com)

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) has recently developed a revolutionary RNA-based strategy for a universal vaccine capable of combating any virus strain effectively and safely – even in infants and the immunocompromised. This innovative approach could transform how vaccines are developed and administered across the globe.

This could significantly reduce the threat from bio terrorists. And of course the more natural deadly threats like Marburg, Ebola, Hantavirus, HIV, etc..

See also New ‘One-And-Done’ Vaccine Method Could Protect Infants With Just A Single Shot, Study Suggests (msn.com).

And closely related:

A Golden Age of Vaccines Is Here. What It Means for You. (msn.com)

Roll up your sleeves. Effective new vaccines have hit the market for everything from pneumonia to shingles to RSV to, of course, Covid-19. And that’s just the beginning.

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Pharmaceutical companies are currently developing everything from personalized cancer vaccines that could cost tens of thousands per patient to vaccines that prevent developing-world diseases like malaria or tuberculosis. Improved flu, pneumonia, and meningitis vaccines will also be available in your neighborhood pharmacy.

Scientists are testing vaccines to prevent a virus believed to cause multiple sclerosis in some people. Someday, vaccines could routinely treat acne, protect against peanut allergies, and even prevent heart disease or help treat Alzheimer’s disease.

This is all of great interest to me. Cancer took my dad, who also had heart problems. His father died of a heart attack. Mom, her brother, and their mother had dementia. Mom and her mother had heart problems as well.