Science & Technology
See on Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future
An ?800,000 research project aims to artificially replicate the process of photosynthesis in a bid to harness the sun’s energy more efficiently.
Computer files stored accurately on DNA in new breakthrough Scientists have recorded data including Shakespearean sonnets and an MP3 file on strands of DNA, in a breakthrough which could see millions of records stored on a handful of molecules rather than computer drives.
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By translating computerised files into DNA similar to that found in plants and animals, the researchers claim it is possible to store a billion books’ worth of data for thousands of years in just a small test tube. Although the method is expensive, it could still be much more efficient than hard drives or magnetic tape for long-term storage of large sets of data such as government records, the scientists said. Within a decade, they expect the technique to have become cheap enough that DNA storage could become cost-efficient for the public to store lifelong keepsakes like wedding videos. Dr Nick Goldman of the European Bioinformatics Institute, who led the study, said: “We already know that DNA is a robust way to store information because we can extract it from bones of woolly mammoths, which date back tens of thousands of years, and make sense of it. “It’s also incredibly small, dense and does not need any power for storage, so shipping and keeping it is easy.” (via Computer files stored accurately on DNA in new breakthrough - Telegraph)
University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have developed a strain of mice that turns on a gene from fireflies to provide a visual indication of aging and tumor growth in mice. The mice light up whenever another mouse gene, p16INK4a (p16) is is activated (in cells undergoing senescence, the p16 gene is switched on).
How do you annihilate lymphoma without using any drugs?
Starve it to death by depriving it of what appears to be a favorite food: HDL cholesterol.
Northwestern Medicine® researchers discovered this with a new nanoparticle that acts like a secret double agent. It appears to the cancerous lymphoma cell like a preferred meal — natural HDL. But when the particle engages the cell, it actually plugs it up and blocks cholesterol from entering. Deprived of an essential nutrient, the cell eventually dies.
Filabot promises to help turn your plastic crap into 3-D printed fanciness, alleviating one of the biggest sustainability problems for 3-D printing.
Just over a year ago, Tyler McNaney was on break from college. “I was surfing the internet as most college kids do, and I saw a video of 3-D printing,” he says. “I was amazed and I learned all I could about it.” Soon after, he owned one of his own. Not much longer after that, he decided he wanted to make his own filament for it. Sadly, he was low on cash. So he launched Filabot on Kickstarter.
An Australian scientist said Wednesday he had discovered a way to turn the HIV virus against itself in human cells in the laboratory, in an important advance in the quest for an AIDS cure.
“The presence of quantum effects in photosynthesis surprised both physicists and biologists, and left them wondering how a fragile quantum state could survive in a living organism.” (Proteins boost quantum coherence in bacteria - physicsworld.com)
(via wildcat2030)
