Science & TechnologyS


Monkey Wrench

Molecular biologist: There needs to be a global policy to govern gene editing


cbc.ca
Thu, 15 Nov 2018 10:43 UTC
gene editing
© iStock/Getty ImagesA gene drive uses genetic editing technology like CRISPR to push a desired genetic change through an entire population.
Countries will debate gene drive technology at UN Biodiversity Conference

Gene drives are ready to leave the laboratory and enter the real world. But a molecular biologist argues that the technology - which could be used to fundamentally alter the DNA of an entire species - needs global oversight.

In one example of the technology's potential, a mosquito's DNA could be modified so that when the insect breeds, it spreads a specific genetic change. That change could ultimately wipe out an entire malaria-carrying species.

"These organisms are likely to cross international borders, [one country] cannot make these decisions in isolation, that's just not safe and it's not fair, really," molecular biologist Natalie Kofler told The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti.

Comment: Gene-Editing dangers cause a firefight

Read More...
Comet

Canyons flowing from Mars' craters likely caused by catastrophic flood events


University of Texas
Sat, 17 Nov 2018 16:57 UTC
Jezero crater
© NASA/Tim Goudge.Jezero crater is a paleolake and potential landing site for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission to look for past life. The outlet canyon carved by overflow flooding is visible in the upper right side of the crater. Ancient rivers carved the inlets on the left side of the crater.
Today, most of the water on Mars is locked away in frozen ice caps. But billions of years ago it flowed freely across the surface, forming rushing rivers that emptied into craters, forming lakes and seas. New research led by The University of Texas at Austin has found evidence that sometimes the lakes would take on so much water that they overflowed and burst from the sides of their basins, creating catastrophic floods that carved canyons very rapidly, perhaps in a matter of weeks.

The findings suggest that catastrophic geologic processes may have had a major role in shaping the landscape of Mars and other worlds without plate tectonics, said lead author Tim Goudge, a postdoctoral researcher at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences who will be starting as an assistant professor at the school in 2019.

"These breached lakes are fairly common and some of them are quite large, some as large as the Caspian Sea," said Goudge. "So we think this style of catastrophic overflow flooding and rapid incision of outlet canyons was probably quite important on early Mars' surface."

Comment: The significance of gradualism and plate tectonics as the main shapers for life are becoming increasingly sidelined by evidence that catastrophism is the most influential driver for the great changes on our planet, and others: Also check out SOTT radio's:

Read More...
Brain

'Just like riding a bike' - why don't we forget how?

Boris Suchan
Scientific American
Thu, 15 Nov 2018 16:16 UTC
bicycle riders
© S-F / Shutterstock
The way memories are anchored in the brain plays a role, neuropsychologist Boris Suchan explains

Most of us learn how to ride a bike during childhood. But as we grow older, many of us stop riding and put those once-beloved bikes in storage. Years later, when we discover these relics and hop on, it's as if we never stopped biking.

This is surprising because our memories let us down in so many other instances, such as remembering the name of a place or a person we once knew or where we put our keys. So how is it that we can ride a bicycle when we haven't done so in years?

Comment: More on the different types of memory:

Read More...
Cloud Precipitation

Atacama Desert's unprecedented rains are lethal to microbes

George Dvorsky
Gizmodo Australia
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 15:30 UTC
A small, temporary lagoon in the Atacama Desert caused by unprecedented rains.
© Carlos González-SilvaA small, temporary lagoon in the Atacama Desert caused by unprecedented rains.
After not experiencing any meaningful amounts of precipitation for at least 500 years, Chile's Atacama Desert is finally getting some rain. Quite unexpectedly, however, these rains-instead of fostering life-are doing the exact opposite.

Life on Earth cannot exist without water, but for microbes highly adapted to arid conditions, the sudden introduction of excess water can be utterly devastating. Such is the conclusion of a new paper published this week in Scientific Reports.

Fascinatingly, these findings, while applicable to life on Earth, may also apply to ancient Mars - a planet possibly capable of fostering microbial life during its ancient past, but at the same time susceptible to catastrophic flooding.

Located in northern Chile, the 105,000-square-kilometer Atacama Desert is one of the oldest and driest deserts on Earth, and it's been this way for 150 million years. This desert features a hyper-arid core, with climate models predicting major rainfall events at a paltry rate of once per century. That said, no significant rainfall had been recorded in this region for the past 500 years.

But things are changing in Atacama Desert - and not necessarily for the better.
Read More...
Beaker

Shocker: Lab-grown human kidneys surprisingly yield rogue brain and muscle cells


RT
Sat, 17 Nov 2018 15:18 UTC
test tubes
© Global Look Press / Daniel Schoenen
Researchers working to develop laboratory-grown human kidneys were left stunned after observing that the mini organs they were working on started sprouting brain and muscle cells instead of additional kidney cells.

The test-tube grown miniature kidneys, or kidney organoids, are made from stem cells that are encouraged to develop into clusters of specific kidney cells. Scientists hope that the process could one day treat people with kidney diseases.

However, recently published finding discovered that the technique had some unknown consequences, actually creating other cells that weren't kidney related.

While researchers are enthusiastic about using this process to help people fight diseases, there is a catch. Dr. Benjamin D. Humphreys, one of the report's authors, warned that "scientists haven't fully appreciated" that some of the cells that make up the lab grown organs may not mimic what we would find in people.
Read More...
Telescope

NASA learns more about the asteroid 'Oumuamua as it leaves the solar system

Calla Cofield
NASA
Wed, 14 Nov 2018 13:53 UTC
'Oumuamua
© European Southern Observatory / M. KornmesserAn artist's concept of interstellar asteroid 1I/2017 U1 ('Oumuamua) as it passed through the solar system after its discovery in October 2017. Observations of 'Oumuamua indicate that it must be very elongated because of its dramatic variations in brightness as it tumbled through space.
In November 2017, scientists pointed NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope toward the object known as 'Oumuamua - the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system. The infrared Spitzer was one of many telescopes pointed at 'Oumuamua in the weeks after its discovery that October.

'Oumuamua was too faint for Spitzer to detect when it looked more than two months after the object's closest aproach to Earth in early September. However, the "non-detection" puts a new limit on how large the strange object can be. The results are reported in a new study published today in the Astronomical Journal and coauthored by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The new size limit is consistent with the findings of a research paper published earlier this year, which suggested that outgassing was responsible for the slight changes in 'Oumuamua's speed and direction as it was tracked last year: The authors of that paper conclude the expelled gas acted like a small thruster gently pushing the object. That determination was dependent on 'Oumuamua being relatively smaller than typical solar system comets. (The conclusion that 'Oumuamua experienced outgassing suggested that it was composed of frozen gases, similar to a comet.)

"'Oumuamua has been full of surprises from day one, so we were eager to see what Spitzer might show," said David Trilling, lead author on the new study and a professor of astronomy at Northern Arizona University. "The fact that 'Oumuamua was too small for Spitzer to detect is actually a very valuable result."

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Jet2

From China with might: Military expert breaks down technology behind latest Chinese aircraft


RT
Sat, 17 Nov 2018 13:41 UTC
Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter jets with open weapon bays during the Zhuhai Airshow
© REUTERS/StringerChengdu J-20 stealth fighter jets with open weapon bays during the Zhuhai Airshow.
Demonstration flights of the J-10B and J-20 jets at the latest airshow are testimony to China's technological prowess. It no longer needs to copy foreign products and can make weapons unmatched in some areas, experts say.

Chinese military and defense producers showed off lots of weapon systems at the biennial Zhuhai Airshow held in the southern province. But demonstration flights were among the most interesting parts of the event, partly because they really show what modern Chinese aircraft can do. After all, a specifications sheet may be influenced by wishful thinking and false advertising, but in the air you can either perform a Pugachev Cobra or you can't.
Read More...
Chalkboard

Scientists have changed the way we officially measure a kilogram

Pallab Ghosh
BBC
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 00:01 UTC
scale kilogrammel
© SPLThere are now discrepancies between copies of the kilogram and the master version held in a French vault
Scientists have changed the way the kilogram is defined.

Currently, it is defined by the weight of a platinum-based ingot called "Le Grand K" which is locked away in a safe in Paris.

On Friday, researchers meeting in Versailles voted to get rid of it in favour of defining a kilogram in terms of an electric current.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Microscope 2

Hemimastigotes: Scientists discover new branch on the tree of life


CBC
Thu, 15 Nov 2018 15:40 UTC
Hemimastigotes
© Yana EglitThis is an electron microscope image of Hemimastix kukwesjijk, named after Kukwes, a greedy, hairy ogre from Mi'kmaq mythology. Its 'mouth' or capitulum is on the left.
Canadian researchers have discovered a new kind of organism that's so different from other living things that it doesn't fit into the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, or any other kingdom used to classify known organisms.

Two species of the microscopic organisms, called hemimastigotes, were found in dirt collected on a whim during a hike in Nova Scotia by Dalhousie University graduate student Yana Eglit.

A genetic analysis shows they're more different from other organisms than animals and fungi (which are in different kingdoms) are from each other, representing a completely new part of the tree of life, Eglit and her colleagues report this week in the journal Nature.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Better Earth

Seismic study reveals huge amount of water is dragged into Earth's interior

Talia Ogliore
Washington University in St Louis
Wed, 14 Nov 2018 12:00 UTC
under water
Slow-motion collisions of tectonic plates under the ocean drag about three times more water down into the deep Earth than previously estimated, according to a first-of-its-kind seismic study that spans the Mariana Trench.

The observations from the deepest ocean trench in the world have important implications for the global water cycle, according to researchers in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

"People knew that subduction zones could bring down water, but they didn't know how much water," said Chen Cai, who recently completed his doctoral studies at Washington University. Cai is the first author of the study published in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Nature.

"This research shows that subduction zones move far more water into Earth's deep interior - many miles below the surface - than previously thought," said Candace Major, a program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the study. "The results highlight the important role of subduction zones in Earth's water cycle."

Comment: When we consider that major seismic activity has been risen by 2000% since the 1900s, are there any implications for the water on our planet?

See also:

Read More...