Science & TechnologyS


Microscope 1

KZFP proteins found to tame the genome's 'jumping' sequences


Science Daily
Wed, 24 Apr 2019 18:26 UTC
jumping genes
© J. Pontis, E. Planet, et. al.KLFs foster EGA by activating enhancers embedded in young TEs (TEENhancers)
Scientists have discovered how a family of proteins that regulates the activity of transposable elements in the genome allows them to make inheritable changes to the growing fetus.

The human genome is fascinating. Once predicted to contain about a hundred thousand protein-coding genes, it now seems that the number is closer to twenty thousand, and maybe less. And although our genome is made up of about three billion units -- "base pairs" -- many of them don't seem to belong to specific genes, and for that reason they were delegated to the dustbin of genetics: they were literally called "junk DNA."

But as it turned out, junk DNA is actually critical in coordinating and regulating the work of actual genes. For example, there are sequences of DNA that "jump" around the genome and influence gene expression. These jumping units are called "transposable elements" and their number is estimated at over 4.5 million in a single genome.
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Beaker

Scientists create 'lifelike' DNA material with artificial metabolism

Matt Hayes
Cornell Chronicle
Wed, 10 Apr 2019 14:54 UTC
DASH DNA
As a genetic material, DNA is responsible for all known life. But DNA is also a polymer. Tapping into the unique nature of the molecule, Cornell engineers have created simple machines constructed of biomaterials with properties of living things.

Using what they call DASH (DNA-based Assembly and Synthesis of Hierarchical) materials, Cornell engineers constructed a DNA material with capabilities of metabolism, in addition to self-assembly and organization - three key traits of life.

"We are introducing a brand-new, lifelike material concept powered by its very own artificial metabolism. We are not making something that's alive, but we are creating materials that are much more lifelike than have ever been seen before," said Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

The paper, "Dynamic DNA Material With Emergent Locomotion Behavior Powered by Artificial Metabolism," published April 10 in Science Robotics.
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Robot

Cornell scientists create 'living' machines that eat, grow, and evolve

Tristan Greene
The Next Web
Sat, 20 Apr 2019 11:21 UTC
bioorganic robots
The field of robotics is going through a renaissance thanks to advances in machine learning and sensor technology. Each generation of robot is engineered with greater mechanical complexity and smarter operating software than the last. But what if, instead of painstakingly designing and engineering a robot, you could just tear open a packet of primordial soup, toss it in the microwave on high for two minutes, and then grow your own 'lifelike' robot?

If you're a Cornell research team, you'd grow a bunch and make them race.

Scientists from Cornell University have successfully constructed DNA-based machines with incredibly life-like capabilities. These human-engineered organic machines are capable of locomotion, consuming resources for energy, growing and decaying, and evolving. Eventually they die.

Comment: See also:

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Mars

Cosmic climate change: Earthquake detected on Mars! 'Marsquake' observed on Red Planet for very first time


RT
Tue, 23 Apr 2019 19:13 UTC
InSight probe sitting on Mars surface
© NASAInSight probe sitting on Mars surface.
The first ever seismic tremor was registered on Mars, proving that the so-far hypothetical "marsquakes" are a real deal, and the Red Planet is far from being dead - in a geological sense at least.

The quake was detected by the French made SEIS module, that was placed on the planet back in December 2018 by NASA's InSight lander probe. Audio of the Mars tremor, accompanied with footage of the cupola-like probe has been released by French space agency CNES.


The quake is the very first tremor, recorded on Mars, that came from the inside of the planet and was not caused by wind, impact of some stray space rock, or anything else. While humankind has tried to explore the depths of Mars with a seismometer since the 1970s, the SEIS module is the first one to succeed.

Comment: Or, they do occur that rarely, and we live in rare times...

See also:

More evidence of Solar System-wide 'Climate Change': Outgassing on Mars - Methane 'belches' detected on Red Planet

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Brain

Treating Parkinson's with electrical spinal implant 'transforms lives'

Pallab Ghosh
BBC
Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:57 UTC
Parkinson's treament spine implant
© BBCGail Jardine: "I can walk, I can turn... it's really helped me"
A treatment that has restored the movement of patients with chronic Parkinson's disease has been developed by Canadian researchers.

Previously housebound patients are now able to walk more freely as a result of electrical stimulation to their spines.

A quarter of patients have difficulty walking as the disease wears on, often freezing on the spot and falling.

Parkinson's UK hailed its potential impact on an aspect of the disease where there is currently no treatment.
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Seismograph

Scientists have identified almost 2 million 'hidden' earthquakes shaking California

Peter Dockrill
Science Alert
Tue, 23 Apr 2019 07:27 UTC
Earthquake crack
© SteveCollender/iStock
California is notorious for its earthquakes, but a stunning new discovery reveals for the first time just how much we've underestimated its omnipresent earth-shaking potential.

By the time you just about finish reading this story, in fact, Southern California will probably have experienced another quake - based off a new, unprecedented deep dive into 10 years' worth of seismic data, which isolated almost 2 million 'hidden' tremors in the region that scientists had never identified before.

For decades, scientists suspected these invisible, smaller quakes existed, but had no way of singling them out from other random vibrations created by things like vehicle traffic, construction projects, weather events, and more.

"It's not that we didn't know these small earthquakes were occurring," says geophysicist Zachary Ross from Caltech.

"The problem is that they can be very difficult to spot amid all of the noise."

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Evil Rays

Huawei rolls out 5G communication devices for autos

Yilei Sun and Brenda Goh
Reuters
Mon, 22 Apr 2019 16:56 UTC
5g tecnologia
China's Huawei Technologies launched on Monday what it said was the world's first 5G communications hardware for the automotive industry, in a sign of its growing ambitions to become a key supplier to the sector for self-driving technology.

Comment: Not only do we have 20 thousand satellites going up for the horrendous 5G rollout, but why not include a 5G microchip in every device, car, house, and of course the many towers going up all over cities.

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Info

Lightning does strikes twice in the same place surprisingly often

Nick Carne
Cosmos Magazine
Mon, 22 Apr 2019 17:33 UTC
Lightning
© Vasin Lee/Shutterstock

Lightning strikes twice in the same place surprisingly often and now, thanks to a Dutch radio telescope network called the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), scientists have a better idea why.

An international team used the array to study the development of lightning flashes in unprecedented detail, and discovered that the negative charges inside a thundercloud are not discharged in a single flash.

Some are stored inside structures the researchers have called needles, making a repeated discharge to the ground quite possible.

"This finding is in sharp contrast to the present picture, in which the charge flows along plasma channels directly from one part of the cloud to another, or to the ground", says Olaf Scholten, from the University of Groningen in The Netherlands.

And it hasn't been noticed before because there wasn't equipment powerful enough to do so.

"These needles can have a length of 100 metres and a diameter of less than five metres, and are too small and too short-lived for other lightning detections systems," says Brian Hare, also from the University of Groningen.
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Cloud Grey

Recent SpaceX Crew Dragon accident clouds outlook for US domestic astronaut launches

James Dean
Florida Today
Mon, 22 Apr 2019 13:37 UTC
SpaceX launch anomaly, Crew Dragon SpaceX
© Craig Bailey / Florida TodayOrange smoke rises above SpaceX's facilities at Cape Canaveral. The Air Force confirmed an anomaly occurred with the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
SpaceX had appeared to be cruising to victory over Boeing in the race to be the first to launch astronauts to orbit from U.S. soil since NASA's final shuttle mission in 2011.

Officials including Vice President Mike Pence hailed last month's successful first test flight of the company's Crew Dragon capsule as the dawn of a new era of commercial spaceflight.

A pair of astronaut test pilots were on track to fly a Crew Dragon to the International Space Station as soon as July.

Not so fast.

The same capsule retrieved from a March 8 splashdown off the Florida coast was believed to have been destroyed Saturday during preparations for another test flight in June.

Acrid smoke that billowed from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, visible for miles along the Space Coast, clouded the outlook for SpaceX's crew program and NASA's optimism that reliance on Russia for rides to the station would end soon.

The space agency already was scrambling to come up with options for maintaining U.S. access to the station as it runs out of seats on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft early next year.

Comment: Neither Boeing or SpaceX are inspiring confidence in the US' ability to command the skies:

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Microscope 1

Discoveries about organelle communication are transforming biology

Elie Dolgin
Nature
Mon, 22 Apr 2019 13:39 UTC
organelle communication
© Serge Bloch/Nature
Organelles - the cell's workhorses - mingle far more than scientists ever appreciated.

Nobody paid much attention to Jean Vance 30 years ago, when she discovered something fundamental about the building blocks inside cells. She even doubted herself, at first.

The revelation came after a series of roadblocks. The cell biologist had just set up her laboratory at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and was working alone. She thought she had isolated a pure batch of structures called mitochondria - the power plants of cells - from rat livers. But tests revealed that her sample contained something that wasn't supposed to be there. "I thought I'd made a big mistake," Vance recalls.

After additional purification steps, she found extra bits of the cells' innards clinging to mitochondria like wads of chewing gum stuck to a shoe. The interlopers were part of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) - an assembly line for proteins and fatty molecules. Other biologists had seen this, too, and dismissed it as an artefact of the preparation. But Vance realized that the pieces were glued together for a reason, and that this could solve one of cell biology's big mysteries.
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