Science & TechnologyS


Info

Males can also pass on mitochondrial DNA says new study

Nick Carne
Cosmos Magazine
Mon, 26 Nov 2018 22:09 UTC
MT DNA
© Shy Al Britanni/Getty ImagesPassing on mitochondrial DNA was thought to be an exclusively maternal process, but new research suggests otherwise.
Paternal transmission of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) may be possible, a new study suggests - contradicting the accepted view that it is passed on exclusively through maternal inheritance.

The find, made by a team led by Taosheng Huang from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Centre, and Paldeep Atwal, from Mayo Clinic Hospital, Jacksonville, both in the US, may stimulate further study of mtDNA genetics that leads to alternative treatments for mitochondrial diseases.

Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers present evidence of biparental inheritance of mitochondrial DNA in 17 members of three unrelated multi-generation families. The findings were independently validated using multiple approaches for whole mtDNA sequencing.

"Our results suggest that, although the central dogma of maternal inheritance of mtDNA remains valid, there are some exceptional cases where paternal mtDNA could be passed to the offspring," they write.
Read More...
Mars

The Mars InSight mission is about to touchdown on the red planet - what you need to know


RT
Mon, 26 Nov 2018 14:25 UTC
MarsLander illustration
© NASAIllustration of the InSight mission lander
The first NASA spacecraft in six years to visit Mars is hours away from completing the difficult and nervy initial stage of its mission. So what should you know about the InSight robotic lander dubbed 'the mole'?

NASA has not landed a craft on Mars since the Curiosity Rover, the plucky aluminium-wheeled probe that has been investigating since 2012 whether life ever existed on the barren planet.

That looks set to change on November 26, when NASA's Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander is expected to drop through the Martian atmosphere and onto the surface.

So what do we know about the InSight robot, which is armed to the teeth with scientific instruments?

Comment: See also:
NASA InSight team on course for Mars touchdown November 26

Read More...
Info

'Humongous fungus' in Michigan weighs 440 tons and is 2,500 years old

George Dvorsky
Gizmodo
Wed, 14 Nov 2018 05:15 UTC
Armillaria gallica fungus on a scrap of wood.
© James B. AndersonEvidence of the Armillaria gallica fungus on a scrap of wood.
It's nicknamed the "humongous fungus"-an unusually large fungal growth belonging to a single genetic individual. An updated analysis of this gigantic fungal beast shows it's substantially larger and older than scientists initially thought.

This single genetic individual, known as C1, belongs to a species of fungus called Armillaria gallica, otherwise known as the honey mushroom. When University of Toronto biologist James B. Anderson first studied this large growth in 1992, he was astounded by its sheer size. Anderson and his colleagues estimated that it was 1,500 years old, weighed 100,000 kilograms (110 tons) and covered around 37 acres (15 hectares) of forest floor in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The C1 specimen, which has latched onto hundreds, if not thousands, of tree roots, was declared to be among the largest and oldest organisms on Earth.

Nearly 30 years later, and as a final scientific act before his retirement, Anderson decided to return to the Michigan forest to take more precise measurements of C1 and to see if its cells had changed over the decades.

Looking at hundreds of samples taken from 2015 to 2017, Anderson had to revise his earlier estimates. As he points out in his updated study, the gigantic fungus is actually closer to 2,500 years old and it weighs around 400,000 kilograms, or 440 tons. The growth covers about 173 acres (70 hectares), which is roughly the same size as the total floor area of the Pentagon building.
Read More...
Beaker

Grave ethical concerns: Chinese scientist claims to have created the first gene-edited babies


The Guardian
Mon, 26 Nov 2018 14:14 UTC
scientist
© Mark Schiefelbein/APA scientist at work at a laboratory in Shenzhen in southern China. Many mainstream scientists have denounced the Chinese report as human experimentation.
A scientist in China claims to have created the world's first genetically edited babies, in a potentially ground-breaking and controversial medical first.

If true, it would be a profound leap of science and ethics. This kind of gene editing is banned in most countries as the technology is still experimental and DNA changes can pass to future generations, potentially with unforeseen side-effects.

Many mainstream scientists think it is too unsafe to try, and some denounced the Chinese report as human experimentation.

The researcher, He Jiankui of Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, said he altered embryos for seven couples during fertility treatments, with one pregnancy resulting so far. He said his goal was not to cure or prevent an inherited disease, but to try to bestow a trait that few people naturally have: an ability to resist possible future infection with HIV.
Read More...
Toys

Elon Musk considers future move to Mars despite "good chance you die there"

Martin Pengelly
Guardian
Sun, 25 Nov 2018 15:44 UTC
elon musk
© David McNew/AFP/Getty ImagesElon Musk speaks near a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in September 2018. 'We think you can come back but we're not sure.'
Elon Musk is considering moving to Mars, and gives himself a 70% chance of doing so.

"I know exactly what to do," the billionaire Tesla founder told Axios on HBO, in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday night. "I'm talking about moving there."

He also implied that such a move might be permanent, saying: "We think you can come back but we're not sure."

The Axios website trailed the interview a day before the scheduled Mars landing of the Insight spacecraft. According to the Associated Press, the Nasa vehicle will use "a mechanical mole to tunnel 16ft deep to measure internal heat, and a seismometer to register quakes, meteorite strikes and anything else that might start the red planet shaking".

Musk, 47, has spoken about his ambition to travel to Mars before. Speaking to Axios, he named the odds - a 70% chance - that he will live to ride one of his SpaceX rockets and explore the red planet.

Comment: Better Musk be the pioneer than some other poor soul:

Read More...
Meteor

Cameras installed across Alberta, Canada to find meteorites

Diego Ramiro
CTV News - Edmonton
Fri, 23 Nov 2018 19:59 UTC
Alberta, Canada meteor cameras
© CTV
Four high-tech cameras were installed in Alberta as part of a world-wide network to find meteorites quicker.

The cameras are part of the Australia-based Desert Fireball Network (DFN), which now has 50 cameras across the world to track meteorites.

"If you have a bunch of cameras and you see something coming through the atmosphere, a fireball, but you see it from different angles, you can work out exactly its orientation," DFN's Phil Bland said.

The cameras give researchers a three-kilometre ratio of where the meteor landed.

Before this technology, people would see a fireball soar across the sky, but have no idea where it landed.

Read More...
Microscope 1

Mutant superbugs jeopardize future space station expeditions, and maybe life on Earth


RT
Sun, 25 Nov 2018 10:35 UTC
bacteria
© Reuters / Handout
Researchers found five strains of a multidrug-resistant bacterium similar to hospital-acquired infections on the International Space Station, raising concerns about the organisms' health implications for future missions.

Resembling a bacterium recently discovered infecting newborns and one elderly immunocompromised patient across three hospitals, the Enterobacter bugadensis strains found on the ISS were not infectious to humans in their current form. However, their genomes are similar enough to three pathogenic Earth strains to warrant further study, according to researchers at California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group.

All five bacterial strains were resistant to five of the most commonly-used antibiotics, including penicillin, and "resistant or intermediate resistant" to two more. Enterobacter species are commonly found in the human intestinal tract, as well as in sewage and soil, but they have also been implicated in a wide array of hospital-acquired infections, including endocarditis and bacteremia in addition to skin and soft tissue, urinary tract, lower respiratory tract, and intra-abdominal infections.

Comment: So not only do we have superbugs raining down from space, but terrestrial bacteria's exposure to the conditions of space can increase their virulence, add that to the mutative effects of increasing cosmic radiation and there's the recipe for disaster: And, worryingly, infectious outbreaks do appear to be on the rise:

Read More...
Beaker

Cayman Islands: Minister claims GM mosquitoes didn't work


Cayman News Service
Fri, 23 Nov 2018 00:01 UTC
GMO mosquito
The environmental health minister, who has responsibility for the Mosquito Research and Control Unit (MRCU). has said the release of genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in West Bay did not work and has confirmed that when the Oxitec contract formally ends on 31 December, that will be "the last you hear about Oxitec being paid by government". Answering questions in Finance Committee on Thursday night, Dwayne Seymour said that the project "wasn't getting the results that we thought we could get", and if not for the "good MRCU director, Dr Jim, we would have never have known about it".

Following an ambiguous press release from the MRCU and Oxitec ten days ago that danced around the situation and implied that work with the controversial bio-engineered insects might continue in the future, the minister said that the project was not effective and it was only because of the arrival of a new director at MRCU, Dr Jim McNelly, that the ministry learned that it was not working.

Seymour said the bio-engineering firm had wanted to try a different method after the one involving the release of sterile male mosquitoes had not really worked but. However, the minister said he was uncomfortable with that as he had never been happy about the project in the first place.

Comment: What a surprise - a genetic modification technology that doesn't work. Will the wonders of man's hubris never cease?

See also:

Read More...
Seismograph

New Zealand's huge 2016 quake edges country's islands closer together


PhysOrg
Sat, 24 Nov 2018 17:36 UTC
new Zealand earthquake
The Kaikoura earthquake raced north from the middle of New Zealand's South Island towards Cook Strait covering 170 kilometres in about 74 seconds

A destructive earthquake that struck New Zealand two years ago has left its two main islands edging towards each other, and one city sinking, according to scientists.

But the margins are minimal with the gap between the North and South islands narrowing a mere 35 centimetres (13 and a half inches), while Nelson at the top of the South Island has sunk by up to 20 millimetres.

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake on November 14 initially pushed the two islands several metres closer and the unsettled fault lines have since nudged the southern landmass further north.
Read More...
Mars

NASA InSight team on course for Mars touchdown November 26


NASA Science
Wed, 21 Nov 2018 00:01 UTC
NASA InSight
© NASA/JPL-CaltechAn artist's impression of NASA InSight's entry, descent and landing at Mars, scheduled for Nov. 26, 2018.
NASA's Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft is on track for a soft touchdown on the surface of the Red Planet on Nov. 26, the Monday after Thanksgiving. But it's not going to be a relaxing weekend of turkey leftovers, football and shopping for the InSight mission team. Engineers will be keeping a close eye on the stream of data indicating InSight's health and trajectory, and monitoring Martian weather reports to figure out if the team needs to make any final adjustments in preparation for landing, only five days away.

"Landing on Mars is hard. It takes skill, focus and years of preparation," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Keeping in mind our ambitious goal to eventually send humans to the surface of the Moon and then Mars, I know that our incredible science and engineering team - the only in the world to have successfully landed spacecraft on the Martian surface - will do everything they can to successfully land InSight on the Red Planet."

Comment: For a humorous take on the InSight mission (and slightly more awe inspiring than this article) see The Oatmeal.

Read More...