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This Research Article uncovers an unexpected function of iron regulatory protein 1 in metabolic regulation

Kostas Pantopoulos & team find mice that lack IRP1 have altered energy metabolism and are protected against metabolic syndrome pathologies:

The figure shows liver in Irp1-/- mice fed a high-fat diet have reduced fat content; stained with oil red O. MetabolicSyndrome.

1Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital and Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

2Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology & Immunology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

3Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Norway unveiled a new underwater reconnaissance system for depths of up to 6 km

Norway is implementing technologies to improve underwater sensing. Specifically, a development by the Norwegian company Kongsberg is cited as an example. Kongsberg claims to have created a device that “changes the way the Navy collects intelligence in the underwater environment.”

This is an upgrade to the Argeo Listen platform. The upgrade consists of an enhanced passive electromagnetic sensing system. This reportedly allows for more efficient detection of underwater objects with more precise measurements, followed by mapping.

Cryosphere Chat — Tomorrow Bio’s Big Announcement, Biostasis Summit Updates

In this epsiode of the Cryosphere Chat we discuss:
● The themes of this year’s Biostasis Summit.
● Our thoughts on Tomorrw Bio’s big announcement about longevity experts.
● Greg Fahy’s paper on ultrastructure preservation in vitrified brains.

Links:
Buy tickets for the Biostasis days at Vitalist Bay: https://vitalistbay.com/ (use code CRYOSPHERE20 for 20% off)
Biostasis Summit needs based discount application: https://forms.gle/4pR3r4uvXprc4mH99
Biostasis Summit pitch application: https://forms.gle/FQsqx9thLvryKteq8
Join the Biostasis Summit mailing list: https://www.globalcryonicssummit.com/
Survey of cryonicists: https://cryospherepress.substack.com/p/the-cryonics-survey-of-2022-part.
Cryonics Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/cryonics/
Cryosphere Discord: https://discord.gg/ndshSfQwqz.
Cryosphere Substack: https://cryospherepress.substack.com/

Jupiter’s Moons May Have Held Life’s Ingredients at Birth

Dr. Olivier Mousis: “Our findings suggest that Jupiter’s moons did not form as chemically pristine worlds. Instead, they may have accreted, or accumulated, a significant inventory of COMs at birth, providing a chemical foundation that could later interact with the liquid water in their interiors.” [ https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30236/jupiter-s-moon…ts-birth-2](https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30236/jupiter-s-moon…ts-birth-2)

When did Jupiter’s Galilean moons first contain the ingredients for life? This is what complementary studies published in The Planetary Science Journal and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society hopes to address as an international team of scientists investigated potential timescales for when three of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, could have first formed the ingredients for life. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of the Galilean moons and what this could mean in the search for life beyond Earth.

For the studies, the researchers explored the formation of complex organic molecules (COMs) within Jupiter’s original disk of gas, dust, and ice, also called the circumplanetary disk, along with modeling how COMs could be delivered to the Jupiter system from the protoplanetary disk that formed the Sun and planets. They examined how interaction with ultraviolet radiation from the Sun could influence COM formation. The overarching goal of both studies was to ascertain both how and when Jupiter’s Galilean moons received the ingredients for life, specifically focusing on icy grains that currently comprise Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

In the end, the researchers found that icy grains could have obtained COMs and delivered them to Jupiter’s moons both within Jupiter’s circumplanetary disk and from the solar system’s protoplanetary disk. Additionally, the models showed that approximately half of the simulated icy grains could have formed within the solar system’s protoplanetary disk and were delivered to Jupiter’s moons. Finally, the researchers estimated these processes occurred billions of years ago during the early formation of the solar system.

Sleep loss induces cholesterol-associated myelin dysfunction

The increasing prevalence of sleep deprivation poses a public health challenge in modern society. Manifestations of reduced alertness, such as slowed reaction times and increased errors, are well-documented behavioral indicators of sleep loss (SL). Yet, the biological consequences of sleep deprivation and their role in behavioral impairment remain elusive. Our study reveals significant effects of sleep deprivation on myelin integrity. As a result, we identify increased conduction delays in nerve signal propagation, hindered interhemispheric synchronization, and impaired cognitive and motor performance associated with SL. By profiling oligodendrocyte transcriptome and lipidome, we observe SL-induced endoplasmic reticulum stress and lipid metabolism dysregulation, particularly affecting cholesterol homeostasis.

New lab technique can reverse chemical process linked with Alzheimer’s disease

An Oregon State University scientist and a team of undergraduate students have uncovered real-time insights into a chemical process linked with Alzheimer’s disease, paving the way toward better drug designs. The researchers used a molecule measuring technique to observe in a laboratory setting how certain metals can promote the protein clumping that leads to the blocked neural pathways associated with Alzheimer’s. Led by Marilyn Rampersad Mackiewicz, associate professor of chemistry in the OSU College of Science, the research team also watched molecules known as chelators disrupt or reverse the clumping. The findings are published in ACS Omega.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, a chronic condition of impaired cognitive function that affects large numbers of older adults and their loved ones. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Alzheimer’s is the sixth-leading cause of death for people age 65 and older.

In Alzheimer’s patients, aggregations of amyloid-beta proteins interrupt brain cells’ ability to communicate with each other. The brain needs certain metals to work properly, but problems arise when the metals are present in unbalanced quantities.

Abstract: Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome is largely characterized by pulmonary cysts, but disease models for this lung phenotype are lacking

Here, Elizabeth P. Henske report mTORC1 hyperactivation in cystic lungs from patients and validate its role in lung cyst formation using a novel pre-clinical model:

The figure shows lung mesenchymal and epithelial cell differentiation.

1Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine; Department of Internal Medicine; University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.

2The Saban Research Institute, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.

3Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

‘It seemed to defy the laws of physics’: The everlasting ‘memory crystals’ that could slash data centre emissions

In the face of rising emissions from data centres, researchers are turning to micro-explosions in glass, and using DNA to solve big data’s big problem.

Mathematicians make a breakthrough on 2,000-year-old problem of curves

From the article:

“A Rule for Every Curve”

That’s where the new proof comes in. Its authors present a formula that can be applied to any curve in the mathematical universe, whatever its degree. It doesn’t say precisely how many rational points that curve has, but it gives an upper limit on what that number can be.

Previous formulas of this kind either didn’t apply to all curves or depended on the specific equation used to define them. The new formula is something mathematicians have hoped for since Faltings’s proof, a “uniform” statement that applies to all curves without depending on the coefficients in their equations. “This one statement gives us a broad sweep of understanding,” Mazur says.

It depends on only two things. The first is the degree of the polynomial that defines the curve—the higher the degree is, the weaker the statement becomes. The second thing the formula depends on is called the “Jacobian variety,” a special surface that can be constructed from any curve. Jacobian varieties are interesting in their own right, and the formula offers a tantalizing path for studying them as well.”

Since ancient Greece, researchers have tried to isolate special rational points on curves. Now they have the first ever formula that applies uniformly to all curves.

Continue reading “Mathematicians make a breakthrough on 2,000-year-old problem of curves” | >

FDA Greenlights Life Biosciences’ Human Study, Setting Up Pivotal Test for Aging Theory from Harvard’s David Sinclair

…Life Biosciences, a biotech company co-founded by Sinclair, received the FDA’s approval to begin a human trial testing its gene therapy based on the Information Theory of Aging. The gene therapy is designed to rewind the clock and restore the function of dying cells…

…Life Biosciences’ gene therapy has been under development for quite a while. In the 1990s, David Sinclair first contended that the deterioration and loss of epigenetic information—chemical tagging patterns on DNA that regulate which genes are turned on and off—plays an important role in driving aging. Sinclair subsequently dubbed this contention the Information Theory of Aging. Fast forward to the present day, and Life Biosciences has produced a gene therapy that delivers three proteins, which Sinclair’s laboratory helped establish, to reset epigenetic information to a more youthful state.

‘It’s extremely exciting,’ Sinclair told Endpoints News. ‘It’s been over 30 years to get to this point, and we’re about to learn if all of that work is going to come to fruition this year.’

The FDA has greenlighted Life Biosciences’ first human trial testing whether their gene therapy can confer a near-total rejuvenating reset of cells.

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