Science & TechnologyS


Monkey Wrench

Rewriting life: These are not your father's GMOs

Antonio Regalado
technologyreview.com
Tue, 19 Dec 2017 22:16 UTC
soybeans
A new wave of gene-edited crops are dodging regulators, and they're about to reach stores.

When I visited Jason McHenry's farm in South Dakota, the young farmer, dressed in worn jeans and sunglasses, led me up a slippery steel ladder on the side of a grain bin. We tumbled through the manhole into a shifting mountain of soybeans. You could sift them through your fingers and taste their sweet, cloudy flavor.

The U.S. soybean crop is four billion bushels a year, about 240 billion pounds. It generates the most cash receipts for American farms after cattle and corn. Of those beans, more than 90 percent are genetically modified organisms, or GMOs-that is, they've been genetically enhanced, most often through the addition of a gene from a soil bacterium that renders them immune to the weed killer glyphosate, commonly known as Roundup.
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Attention

New culprit is killing the world's bees


RT
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 12:41 UTC
flower bee
© Stephane Mahe / Reuters
Scientists have found what they believe to be the strongest factor leading to the worryingly steep decline of bumblebees... fungicides.

The discovery has now been added to the growing list of threats that could potentially lead to the extinction of the essential pollinators. The revelation that common fungicides are having the strongest impact on the insects came as a surprise, as they typically affect mold and mildew, but appear to be killing bees by making them more susceptible to the nosema parasite or by exacerbating the toxicity of other pesticides.

The discovery was made during a landscape-scale study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, which used machine learning technology to analyze 24 different factors and how they impacted four bumblebee species.

The study collected 'subjects' from 284 sites across 40 US states and tested them against various factors like latitude, elevation, habitat type and damage, human population and pesticide use.
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Network

The man the internet can't identify

Jane Wakefield
BBC News
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 15:50 UTC
ohnathan hirshon privacy internet
© Jonathan HirshonFor someone who likes anonymity, it is no surprise that Jonathan Hirshon enjoys remote places such as northern Lapland
Earlier this month, Facebook announced it would be using facial recognition to let users know every time a photo of them had been uploaded to the site.

Such a feature would be extremely useful to one man - public-relations professional Jonathan Hirshon, who has managed to stay anonymous on the social network for the past 20 years.

He has more than 3,000 friends on Facebook and regularly updates his profile with personal information - where he is going on holiday, what he has cooked for dinner and the state of his health.

But what he has never shared on the social network, or anywhere else online, is a picture of himself.

It is, he said, his way of "screaming my privacy to the world".

"I choose to share virtually everything about myself on social media, but my face is the essence of me individually and this is about refusing to give up the last piece of identifiable information that I can control."

One of the big debates of 2018 is going to be around our personal information - how we share it, what Facebook, Amazon and Google do with it and what should happen when it is stolen or hacked.
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Binoculars

Scientists discover new species of world's largest octopus


RT
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 12:01 UTC
Octopus
© AP Photo/ Jaime Henry-White
Seven years ago, researchers managed to obtain DNA evidence of an octopus which was genetically distinct from the giant Pacific octopus, ranging from California to Alaska to Japan.

Scientists from Alaska Pacific University have discovered a new species of the world's largest octopus, which can weigh up to 150 pounds (about 68 kilograms).

The "frilled giant Pacific octopus" has repeatedly been mistaken for the giant Pacific octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini, because researchers could not visually confirm the existence of the new species.
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Cult

'We live in a new world of sophisticated hacking & cryptojacking' - McAfee to RT


RT
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 02:33 UTC
mcafee
© RT
Cybersecurity guru John McAfee, who courted online ridicule after he was breached by a hacker seeking to promote obscure digital coins, told RT (Watch video here) we are essentially defenseless in the face of advanced hacking techniques.

The founder of the McAfee computer security software company had his Twitter account, where he regularly tweets tips on prospective cryptocurrencies, compromised Thursday by an unidentified perpetrator. The hacker immediately seized the opportunity to promote lesser-known digital currencies. While the recommendations were clearly not in McAfee's style, the cryptocurrencies in question briefly surged before dropping again.

McAfee told RT there was effectively nothing he could have done to protect the account from the type of hack he fell victim to, as it was orchestrated though his carrier company, AT&T, the largest in the US.

"What happened is brand new to me. They managed to hack AT&T to move my phone number to another phone," and then sent a bogus request for a Twitter password change. Since his telephone number was hijacked, there was little he could he do to stop hackers from successfully seizing his social media account, he said.
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Info

Genetic cause for chronic bad breath discovered

Andy Fell
University of California, Davis campus
Mon, 18 Dec 2017 21:35 UTC
Prof. Kent Lloyd
© Karin Higgins/UC Davis photoProf. Kent Lloyd, director of the UC Davis Mouse Biology Program, in the lab. Gene-edited and “knockout” mice have become a vital tool in biomedical research.
An international team of researchers has identified a cause for chronic bad breath (halitosis), with the help of gene knockout mice from the UC Davis Mouse Biology Program. The results are published Dec. 18 in the journal Nature Genetics.

While most cases of bad breath are linked bacteria growing in the mouth, up to 3 percent of the population have chronic halitosis of no obvious cause.

"It's important to identify the cause of persistent halitosis, and differentiate that cause from relatively benign causes (e.g., gum disease) and the more morbid causes such as liver cirrhosis," said Professor Kent Lloyd, director of the Mouse Biology Program at UC Davis.

Researchers at Radboud University in The Netherlands have been studying families with chronic bad breath for several years.

They found that these people produced a lot of sulfur-based compounds in their breath, especially methanethiol which has an unpleasant boiled-cabbage smell. Methanethiol is normally produced during digestion but broken down in the body.

Some bacteria can break down sulfur compounds. Based on bacterial genes, the team identified a human protein, selenium binding protein 1, which can convert methanethiol into other and compounds.
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Fish

Scientists discover shark with both male and female reproductive organs in Taiwan's southern strait


RT
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 16:48 UTC
shark
© Michael Weberberger / Global Look Press
Scientists have found a shark with both male and female reproductive organs in waters off the coast of Taiwan.

The spadenose shark was caught by a fishing trawler in the strait between Taiwan and China in January. After spotting a pair of penis-like appendages known as claspers near its pelvic fin, marine biologists judged the 50cm-long (1.6ft) fish to be an adult male. However, an internal examination revealed that the shark had male and female reproductive tracts as well as a pair of ovotestes, an organ that produces both eggs and sperm.

The study, published in the journal Marine and Coastal Fisheries by scientists from Xiamen University in China, also showed how germ cells from both sexes were found inside the shark, meaning it could, theoretically, play the male or female role in reproduction. Intersex sharks discovered previously have had only partially-formed reproductive organs.
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Beaker

Russian biologists put cancer cells on a 'diet' and destroy them


Sputnik
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 14:25 UTC
cancer cells
© Creative Commons
According to an article published in the journal BBA General Subjects, cancer cells differ from healthy ones in that they absorb an unusually many nutrients and oxygen, which allows them to grow and multiply uncontrollably.

Scientists from Moscow State University and their Swedish colleagues successfully suppressed the growth of cancer cells, forcing them to starve and not produce protein for sustenance.

In recent years, scientists have begun to notice that suppressing the "appetite" of cancer cells facilitates the fight against them both from the immune system and from various types of chemo- and immunotherapies.

"It is known that autophagy can be caused by a partial restriction of nutrients. We are interested in the question: What is behind this? We have studied the mechanism of this phenomenon," Boris Zhivotovsky, a professor with the biological faculty at Moscow State University, said.

Comment: The good doctors are on the right track.

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Coffee

Chemists figure out how to prepare the perfect cup of coffee


Sputnik
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 13:44 UTC
Iced brewed coffee
© CCO
In a new study devoted to the preparation of the ideal cup of joe, chemists researched four brewing methods, including traditional hot brew and cold brew, medium and dark roast and medium and coarse grind.

The study, conducted by Thomas Jefferson University chemists Megan Fuller and Niny Z. Rao, scientifically confirmed that cold-brewed medium roast coffee has a higher concentration of caffeine and chlorogenic acid than other methods.

Comment:

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Archaeology

Dinosaurs ruled in 2017: 5 incredible things paleontologists learned

Kristin Hugo
Newsweek
Thu, 28 Dec 2017 12:00 UTC
Patagotitan was named the Biggest Land Animal Ever Dinosaur
© Shannon Stapleton/REUTERSMuseum attendees walk by the head of the newly named Patagotitan mayorum, a 122-foot titanosaur, at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York. A generic dinosaur costume can be customized for a stylized Patagotitan look.
2017 was an incredible year for paleontology. Three states declared official "state dinosaurs" and paleontologists made countless dino finds around the world. Here are some of the most important discoveries that changed our understanding of the enormous beasts that once ruled the Earth.

The Patagotitan was named the Biggest Land Animal Ever

In 2013, a Patagonian shepherd discovered the fossilized remains of an enormous long-necked dinosaur. For years it would remain nameless, simply called "The Titanosaur," referring to the taxonomic clade to which it belonged, in the halls of the American Museum of Natural History where visitors could see a life-sized skeleton reconstruction.

Comment: Also See:

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