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Mars Base

Researchers develop nanodevice manufacturing strategy using DNA 'building blocks' - 0 views

phys.org/...evice-strategy-dna-blocks.html

scibyte49 dna NanoDevice

shared by Mars Base on 31 May 12 - No Cached
  • Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have developed a method for building complex nanostructures out of short synthetic strands of DNA
  • interlocking DNA "building blocks," akin to Legos, can be programmed to assemble themselves into precisely designed shapes, such as letters and emoticons
  • Further development of the technology could enable the creation of new nanoscale devices, such as those that deliver drugs directly to disease sites.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • DNA is best known as a keeper of genetic information
  • in an emerging field of science known as DNA nanotechnology, it is being explored for use as a material with which to build tiny, programmable structures for diverse applications
  • most research has focused on the use of a single long biological strand of DNA, which acts as a backbone along which smaller strands bind to its many different segments, to create shapes
  • called DNA origami
  • In focusing on the use of short strands of synthetic DNA and avoiding the long scaffold strand, Yin's team developed an alternative building method
  • Each SST is a single, short strand of DNA
  • One tile will interlock with another tile, if it has a complementary sequence of DNA
  • are no complementary matches, the blocks do not connect
  • collection of tiles can assemble itself into specific, predetermined shapes through a series of interlocking local connections
  • researchers created just over one hundred different designs, including Chinese characters, numbers, and fonts, using hundreds of tiles for a single structure of 100 nanometers (billionths of a meter) in size.
  • SSTs could have some important applications in medicine
  • SSTs could organize themselves into drug-delivery machines that maintain their structural integrity until they reach specific cell targets, and because they are synthetic, can be made highly biocompatible.
Mars Base

16th-century Korean mummy provides clue to hepatitis B virus genetic code - 0 views

phys.org/...rean-mummy-clue-hepatitis.html

scibyte49 health

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 12 - No Cached
  • discovery of a mummified Korean child with relatively preserved organs enabled an Israeli-South Korean scientific team to conduct a genetic analysis on a liver biopsy which revealed a unique hepatitis B virus
  • may be used as a model to study the evolution of chronic hepatitis B and help understand the spread of the virus,
  • may shed further light on the migratory pathway of hepatitis B in the Far East from China and Japan to Korea as well as to other regions in Asia and Australia where it is a major cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Carbon 14 tests of the clothing of the mummy suggests that the boy lived around the 16th century during the Korean Joseon Dynasty
  • viral DNA sequences recovered from the liver biopsy enabled the scientists to map the entire ancient hepatitis B viral genome.
  • researchers compared the ancient DNA sequences with contemporary viral genomes disclosing distinct differences
  • changes in the genetic code are believed to result from spontaneous mutations and possibly environmental pressures during the virus evolutionary process
  • analysis suggests that the reconstructed mummy's hepatitis B virus DNA had its origin between 3,000 to 100,000 years ago.
  • In recent years, universal immunization of newborns against hepatitis B in Israel and in South Korea has lead to a massive decline in the incidence of infection.
Mars Base

First Evidence of Life in Antarctic Subglacial Lake : The Crux - 0 views

blogs.discovermagazine.com/...e-in-antarctic-subglacial-lake

scibyte80 AntarcticLake

shared by Mars Base on 01 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The search continues for life in subglacial Lake Whillans, 2,600 feet below the surface of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet—but a thrilling preliminary result has detected signs of life
  • At 6:20am on January 28, four people in sterile white Tyvek suits tended to a winch winding cable onto the drill platform
  • One person knocked frost off the cable as it emerged from the ice borehole a few feet below
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • a gray plastic vessel, as long as a baseball bat, filled with water from Lake Whillans, half a mile below.
  • The bottle was hurried into a 40-foot cargo container outfitted as a laboratory on skis
  • Some of the lake water was squirted into bottles of media in order to grow whatever microbes might inhabit the lake
  • cultures could require weeks to produce results
  • When lake water was viewed under a microscope, cells were seen: their tiny bodies glowed green in response to DNA-sensitive dye. It was the first evidence of life in an Antarctic subglacial lake.
  • (A Russian team has reported that two types of bacteria were found in water from subglacial Lake Vostok, but DNA sequences matched those of bacteria that are known to live inside kerosene—causing the scientists to conclude that those bacteria came from kerosene drilling fluid used to bore the hole, and not from Lake Vostok itself
  • In order to conclusively demonstrate that Lake Whillans harbors life, the researchers will need to complete more time-consuming experiments showing that the cells actually grow
  • dead cells can sometimes show up under a microscope with DNA-sensitive
  • weeks or months will pass before it is known whether these cells represent known types of microbes, or something never seen before
  • t a couple of things seem likely. Most of those microbes probably subsist by chewing on rocks. And despite being sealed beneath 2,600 feet of ice, they probably have a steady supply of oxygen.
  • oxygen comes from water melting off the base of the ice sheet—maybe a few penny thicknesses of ice per year
  • When you melt ice, you’re liberating the air bubbles [trapped in that ice
  • That’s 20 percent oxygen
  • , lake bacteria could live on commonly occurring pyrite minerals that contain iron and sulfur
  • would obtain energy by using oxygen to essentially “burn” that iron and sulfur (analogous to the way that animals use oxygen to slowly burn sugars and fats).
  • The half mile of glacial ice sitting atop Lake Whillans is quite pure—derived from snow that fell onto Antarctica thousands of years ago.
  • contains only one-hundredth the level of dissolved minerals that are seen in a clear mountain creek, or in tap water from a typical city
  • a sensor lowered down the borehole this week showed that dissolved minerals were far more abundant in the lake itself
  • The fact that we see high concentrations is suggestive that there’s some interesting water-rock-microbe interaction that’s going on
  • Microbes, in other words, might well be munching on minerals under the ice sheet
  • will take months or years to unravel this picture
  • will perform experiments to see whether microbes taken from the lake metabolize iron, sulfur, or other components of minerals
  • will analyze the DNA of those microbes to see whether they’re related to rock-chewing bacteria that are already known to science.
  • Antarctica isn’t the only place in the solar system where water sits concealed in the dark beneath thick ice. Europa and Enceladus (moons of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively) are also thought to harbor oceans of liquid water. What is learned at Lake Whillans could shed light on how best to look for life in these other places
Mars Base

U.K. Government Plans to Allow Mitochondrial Replacement - ScienceInsider - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...ernment-plans-to-allow-mi.html

scibyte100

shared by Mars Base on 30 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • The U.K. government is moving toward allowing a new type of in vitro fertilization that would enable patients with mitochondrial diseases to avoid passing the condition to their children
  • The technique is controversial, because it involves introducing new DNA into a human embryo
  • The Department of Health announced
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • that it would draw up draft guidelines to allow fertility clinics to offer the technique
  • The proposed guidelines would be released for public comment later this year, and Parliament could vote on a final version next year
  • Mitochondria are the cell's power generators, and they carry their own DNA, called mtDNA
  • Mutations in those genes cause mitochondrial diseases, which can affect various organs, including the heart, liver, eyes, and brain
  • Such diseases are passed from mother to child, because the egg provides most of an embryo's mtDNA
  • The techniques
  • transfer the nuclear DNA from the sperm and egg of the potential parents into a second egg, provided by a donor who has healthy mitochondria, from which the nuclear DNA has been removed
  • The technique is still under development and isn't yet considered ready to try in humans
Mars Base

2013 in science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...2013_in_science

scibyte114 2013YearInReview

shared by Mars Base on 23 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Morocco in 2011, and report that it is a new type of Mars rock with an unusually high water content.[8][9][10] American researchers state that a gene associated with active personality traits is also linked to
  • Astronomers affiliated with the Kepler space observatory announce the discovery of KOI-172.02, an Earth-like exoplanet candidate which orbits a star similar to the Sun in the habitable zone
  • 13 January – Massachusetts doctors invent a pill-sized medical scanner that can be safely swallowed by patients, allowing the esophagus to be more easily scanned for disease
  • ...101 more annotations...
  • 17 January – NASA announces that the Kepler space observatory has developed a reaction wheel issue
  • 2 January A study by Caltech astronomers reports that the Milky Way Galaxy contains at least one planet per sta
  • 3 January
  • 8 January
  • 20 January – Scientists prove that quadruple-helix DNA is present in human cells
  • 25 January
  • An international team of scientists develops a functional light-based "tractor beam", which allows individual cells to be selected and moved at will. The invention could have broad applications in medicine and microbiology
  • 30 January – South Korea conducts its first successful orbital launch
  • 6 February
  • Astronomers report that 6% of all dwarf stars – the most common stars in the known universe – may host Earthlike planets
  • Scientists discover live bacteria in the subglacial Antarctic Lake Whillans
  • American scientists finish drilling down to the subglacial Lake Whillans, which is buried around 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) under the Antarctic ice
  • 10 February NASA's Curiosity Mars rover uses its onboard drill to obtain the first deep rock sample ever retrieved from the surface of another plane
  • 15 February A 10-ton meteoroid impacts in Chelyabinsk, Russia, producing a powerful shockwave and injuring over 1,000 people
  • 28 February
  • Astronomers make the first direct observation of a protoplanet forming in a disk of gas and dust around a distant sta
  • A third radiation belt is discovered around the Eart
  • 1 March – Boston Dynamics demonstrates an updated version of its BigDog military robot
  • 3 March – American scientists report that they have cured HIV in an infant by giving the child a course of antiretroviral drugs very early in its life. The previously HIV-positive child has reportedly exhibited no HIV symptoms since its treatment, despite having no further medication for a year
  • researchers replace 75 percent of an injured patient's skull with a precision 3D-printed polymer replacement implant. In future, damaged bones may routinely be replaced with custom-manufactured implants
  • 7 March
  • A study concludes that heart disease was common among ancient mummies
  • 11 March
  • 12 March NASA's Curiosity rover finds evidence that conditions on Mars were once suitable for microbial life after analyzing the first drilled sample of Martian rock, "John Klein" rock at Yellowknife Bay in Gale Crater. The rover detected water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, chloromethane and dichloromethane. Related tests found results consistent with the presence of smectite clay minerals
  • 14 March CERN scientists confirm, with a very high degree of certainty, that a new particle identified by the Large Hadron Collider in July 2012 is the long-sought Higgs boson
  • 18 March
  • NASA reports evidence from the Curiosity rover on Mars of mineral hydration, likely hydrated calcium sulfate, in several rock samples, including the broken fragments of "Tintina" rock and "Sutton Inlier" rock as well as in the veins and nodules in other rocks like "Knorr" rock and "Wernicke" rock.[177] Analysis using the rover's DAN instrument provided evidence of subsurface water, amounting to as much as 4% water content, down to a depth of 60 cm
  • 27 March – A potential new weight loss method is discovered, after a 20% weight reduction was achieved in mice simply by having their gut microbes altered.
  • NASA scientists report that hints of dark matter may have been detected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station
  • 3 April
  • 15 April A functional lab-grown kidney is successfully transplanted into a live rat in Massachusetts General Hospital
  • 18 April – NASA announces the discovery of three new Earthlike exoplanets – Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f, and Kepler-69c – in the habitable zones of their respective host stars, Kepler-62 and Kepler-69. The new exoplanets, which are considered prime candidates for possessing liquid water and thus potentially life, were identified using the Kepler spacecraft
  • 21 April The Antares rocket, a commercial launch vehicle developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, successfully conducts its maiden flight
  • After years of unpowered glide tests, Scaled Composites' SpaceShipTwo hybrid spaceplane successfully conducts its first rocket-powered fligh
  • 29 April
  • 1 May IBM scientists release A Boy and His Atom, the smallest stop-motion animation ever created, made by manipulating individual carbon monoxide molecules with a scanning tunnelling microscope
  • A new study finds that children whose parents suck on their pacifiers have fewer allergies later in life
  • NASA reports that a reaction wheel on the Kepler space observatory may be malfunctioning and may result in the premature termination of the observatory's search for Earth-like
  • 15 May
  • 16 May Water dating back 2.6 billion years, by far the oldest ever found, is discovered in a Canadian mine
  • 27 May Four-hundred-year-old bryophyte specimens left behind by retreating glaciers in Canada are brought back to life in the laboratory
  • 29 May
  • Russian scientists announce the discovery of mammoth blood and well-preserved muscle tissue from an adult female specimen in Siberia
  • A new treatment to "reset" the immune system of multiple sclerosis patients is reported to reduce their reactivity to myelin by 50 to 75 percent
  • 4 June
  • During the Shenzhou 10 mission, Chinese astronauts deliver the country's first public video broadcast from the orbiting Tiangong-1 space laboratory
  • 20 June
  • China's Shenzhou 10 manned spacecraft returns safely to Earth, having conducted China's longest manned space mission to date
  • 26 June
  • 20 June
  • 20 June
  • 6 July
  • Scientists report that a wide variety of microbial life exists in the subglacial Antarctic Lake Vostok, which has been buried in ice for around 15 million years. Samples of the lake's water obtained by drilling were found to contain traces of DNA from over 3,000 tiny organisms
  • 15 July
  • ASA engineers successfully test a rocket engine with a fully 3D-printed injector
  • 19 July
  • NASA scientists publish the results of a new analysis of the atmosphere of Mars, reporting a lack of methane around the landing site of the Curiosity rover
  • Earth is photographed from the outer solar system. NASA's Cassini spacecraft releases images of the Earth and Moon taken from the orbit of Saturn
  • 29 July – Astronomers discover the first exoplanet orbiting a brown dwarf, 6,000 light years from Earth
  • exoplanet
  • 7 January
  • Astronomers
  • report that "at least 17 billion" Earth-sized exoplanets are estimated to reside in the Milky Way Galaxy
  • 20 February
  • NASA reports the discovery of Kepler-37b, the smallest exoplanet yet known, around the size of Earth's Moon
  • 10 June
  • Scientists report that the earlier claims of an Earth-like exoplanet orbiting Alpha Centauri B, a star close to our Solar System, may not be supported by astronomical evidence
  • 25 June – In an unprecedented discovery, astronomers detect three potentially Earthlike exoplanets orbiting a single star in the Gliese 667
  • 11 July For the first time, astronomers determine the true colour of a distant exoplanet. HD 189733 b, a searing-hot gas giant, is said to be a vivid blue colour, most likely due to clouds of silica in its atmosphere
  • NASA announces that the failing Kepler space observatory may never fully recover. New missions are being considered
  • 15 August
  • Phase I clinical trials of SAV001 – the first and only preventative HIV vaccine – have been successfully completed with no adverse effects in all patients. Antibody production was greatly boosted after vaccination
  • 3 September
  • 12 September NASA announces that Voyager I has officially left the Solar System, having travelled since 1977
  • NASA scientists report the Mars Curiosity rover detected "abundant, easily accessible" water (1.5 to 3 weight percent) in soil samples
  • 26 September
  • In addition, the rover found two principal soil types: a fine-grained mafic type and a locally derived, coarse-grained felsic type
  • mafic
  • as associated with hydration of the amorphous phases of the soi
  • perchlorates, the presence of which may make detection of life-related organic molecules difficult, were found at the Curiosity rover landing site
  • earlier at the more polar site of the Phoenix lander) suggesting a "global distribution of these salts
  • Astronomers have created the first cloud map of an exoplanet, Kepler-7b
  • 30 September
  • 8 October The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to François Englert and Peter Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider"
  • 16 October Russian authorities raise a large fragment, 654 kg (1,440 lb) total weight, of the Chelyabinsk meteor, a Near-Earth asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere over Russia on 15 February 2013, from the bottom of Chebarkul lake.
  • Researchers have shown that a fundamental reason for sleep is to clean the brain of toxins. This is achieved by brain cells shrinking to create gaps between neurons, allowing fluid to wash through
  • 17 October
  • 22 October – Astronomers have discovered the 1,000th known exoplanet
  • 4 November - Astronomers report, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of sun-like stars and red dwarf stars within the Milky Way Galaxy
  • 11 billion of these estimated planets may be orbiting sun-like stars
  • 5 November – India launches its first Mars probe, Mangalyaan
  • The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has made the first discovery of very high energy neutrinos on Earth which had originated from beyond our Solar System
  • 21 November
  • 1 December – China launches the Chang'e 3 lunar rover mission, with a planned landing on December 16
  • 3 December – The Hubble Space Telescope has found evidence of water in the atmospheres of five distant exoplanets: HD 209458b, XO-1b, WASP-12b, WASP-17b and WASP-19b
  • 9 December NASA scientists report that the planet Mars had a large freshwater lake (which could have been a hospitable environment for microbial life) based on evidence from the Curiosity rover studying Aeolis Palus near Mount Sharp in Gale Crater
  • 12 December NASA announces, based on studies with the Hubble Space Telescope, that water vapor plumes were detected on Europa, moon of Jupiter
  • 14 December – The unmanned Chinese lunar rover Chang'e 3 lands on the Moon, making China the third country to achieve a soft landing there
  • 18 December
  • nomers have spotted what appears to be the first known "exomoon", located 1,800 light years away
  • 20 December – NASA reports that the Curiosity rover has successfully upgraded, for the third time since landing, its software programs and is now operating with version 11. The new software is expected to provide the rover with better robotic arm and autonomous driving abilities. Due to wheel wear, a need to drive more carefully, over the rough terrain the rover is currently traveling on its way to Mount Sharp, was also reported
Mars Base

Russia finds 'new bacteria' in Antarctic lake - 0 views

phys.org/...a-bacteria-antarctic-lake.html

scibyte85 SubglacialLake

shared by Mars Base on 08 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Russian scientists believe they have found a wholly new type of bacteria in the mysterious subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica
  • The samples obtained from the underground lake in May 2012 contained a bacteria which bore no resemblance to existing type
  • "After putting aside all possible elements of contamination, DNA was found that did not coincide with any of the well-known types in the global database,"
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • discovery comes from samples collected in an expedition in 2012 where a Russian team drilled down to the surface of Lake Vosto
  • believed to have been covered by ice for more than a million years but has kept its liquid state.
  • Lake Vostok is the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica
  • The Russian team last year drilled almost four kilometres (2.34 miles) to reach the lake and take the samples.
  • t the interest surrounded one particular form of bacteria whose DNA was less than 86 percent similar to previously existing forms.
  • "In terms of work with DNA this is basically zero. A level of 90 percent usually means that the organism is unknown."
  • not even possible to find the genetic descendants of the bacteria.
  • "If this had been found on Mars everyone would have undoubtedly said there is life on Mars. But this is bacteria from Earth."
  • new samples of water would be taken from Lake Vostok during a new expedition in May.
  • "If we manage to find the same group of organisms in this water we can say for sure that we have found new life on Earth that exists in no database,"
  • Exploring environments such as Lake Vostok allows scientists to discover what life forms can exist in the most extreme conditions
  • whether life could exist on some other bodies in the solar system.
  • Saturn's moon Enceladus and the Jupiter moon Europa as they are believed to have oceans, or large lakes, beneath their icy shells.
Mars Base

Hearing quality restored with bionic ear technology used for gene therapy - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ionic-ear-technology-gene.html

scibyte128 MedicalDevice

shared by Mars Base on 24 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Researchers
  • have for the first time used electrical pulses delivered from a cochlear implant to deliver gene therapy, thereby successfully regrowing auditory nerves
  • The research also heralds a possible new way of treating a range of neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, and psychiatric conditions such as depression through this novel way of delivering gene therapy.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • "People with cochlear implants do well with understanding speech, but their perception of pitch can be poor, so they often miss out on the joy of music," says UNSW Professor Gary Housley
  • The work centres on regenerating surviving nerves after age-related or environmental hearing loss, using existing cochlear technology
  • The cochlear implants are "surprisingly efficient" at localised gene therapy in the animal model, when a few electric pulses are administered during the implant procedure.
  • It has long been established that the auditory nerve endings regenerate if neurotrophins – a naturally occurring family of proteins crucial for the development, function and survival of neurons – are delivered to the auditory portion of the inner ear, the cochlea.
  • until now, research has stalled because safe, localised delivery of the neurotrophins can't be achieved using drug delivery, nor by viral-based gene therapy
  • developed a way of using electrical pulses delivered from the cochlear implant to deliver the DNA to the cells close to the array of implanted electrodes. These cells then produce neurotrophins.
  • the neurotrophin production dropped away after a couple of months
  • ultimately the changes in the hearing nerve may be maintained by the ongoing neural activity generated by the cochlear implant.
  • "We think it's possible that in the future this gene delivery would only add a few minutes to the implant procedure,"
  • Jeremy Pinyon, whose PhD is based on this work
  • "The surgeon who installs the device would inject the DNA solution into the cochlea and then fire electrical impulses to trigger the DNA transfer once the implant is inserted."
  • Integration of this technology into other 'bionic' devices such as electrode arrays used in deep brain stimulation
  • the treatment of Parkinson's disease and depression, for example) could also afford opportunities for safe, directed gene therapy of complex neurological disorders
  • implications far beyond hearing disorders
  • Professor Matthias Klugmann
  • "Gene therapy has been suggested as a treatment concept even for devastating neurological conditions and our technology provides a novel platform for safe and efficient gene transfer into tissues as delicate as the brain."
Mars Base

New drug raises potential for cancer treatment revolution - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ncer-treatment-revolution.html

scibyte125 Cancer

shared by Mars Base on 24 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • A new study
  • has developed a new drug that can manipulate the body's natural signalling and energy systems, allowing the body to attack and shut down cancerous cells.
  • ZL105,
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • the drug is a compound based on the precious metal iridium
  • The study has found ZL105 could potentially replace currently used anticancer drugs
  • which become less effective over time, cause a wide-range of side-effects and damage healthy cells as well as cancerous.
  • study co-author
  • said "The energy-producing machinery in cancer cells works to the limit as it attempts to keep up with quick proliferation and invasion
  • This makes cancer cells susceptible to minor changes in the cell 'power-house'.
  • drug pushes cancer cells over the limit causing them to slow and shut down, whilst normal cells can cope with its effects
  • Preliminary data indicate that the novel drug may be ten times more effective in treating ovarian, colon, melanoma, renal, and some breast cancers, according to data obtained by the US National Cancer Institute
  • researchers now aim to expand the study to cancers that are inherently resistant to existing drugs and to those which have developed resistance after a first round of chemotherapy treatments.
  • Existing cancer treatments often become less effective after the first course, as cancer cells learn how they are being attacked
  • The drug we have developed is a catalyst and is active at low doses
  • It can attack cancer cells in multiple ways at the same time, so the cancer is less able to adapt to the treatment
  • means the new drugs could be much more effective than existing treatments
  • Platinum-based drugs are used in nearly 50% of all chemotherapeutic regimens
  • damaging DNA and cannot select between cancerous and non-cancerous cells
  • leading to a wide-range of side-effects from renal failure to neurotoxicity, ototoxicity, nausea and vomiting
  • the new iridium-based drug is specifically designed not to attack DNA,
  • growth
  • novel mechanism of action, meaning that it could not only dramatically slow down and halt cancer growth, but also significantly reduce the side effects
  • This research could also lead to substantial improvements in cancer survival rates
Mars Base

Well-preserved mammoth carcass found in Siberia - 0 views

phys.org/...d-mammoth-carcass-siberia.html

scibyte66 mammoth

shared by Mars Base on 06 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • the carcass of a 16-year-old mammoth that was possibly killed by humans tens of thousands of years ago and was excavated on the North Siberian Taimyr peninsula in late Sept. 28, 2012
  • one of the best-preserved bodies of a grown mammoth yet found
  • excavated from the Siberian permafrost in late September near the Sopochnaya Karga cape, 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) northeast of Moscow.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • n named Jenya, after the 11-year-old Russian boy who found the animal's limbs sticking out of the frozen mud
  • 2 meters (6 feet 6 inches) tall and weighed 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds).
  • what killed Jenya was
  • t a missing left tusk that made him unfit for fights with other mammoths or human hunters
  • proved that the massive humps on mammoths seen on Ice Age cave paintings
  • e were not extended bones but huge chunks of fat that helped them regulate their body temperatures and survive the long, cold winters
  • , its DNA has been damaged by low temperatures and is "hardly" suitable for possible cloning
  • an earlier mammoth discovery might be able to help recreate the Ice Age elephant.
  • in early September that an international team of researchers had discovered mammoth hair, soft tissues and bone marrow some 328 feet (100 meters) underground
  • Scientists already have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth from balls of mammoth hair found frozen in the Siberian permafros
Mars Base

Redefining dentistry through 'salivaomics' - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ing-dentistry-salivaomics.html

scibyte69

shared by Mars Base on 22 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • research findings show that saliva is made up of complex sets of molecules—including genes, proteins, DNA and RNA—that help paint a picture of an individual's biology
  • The study of the biological molecules in saliva is known as "salivaomics."
  • researchers have developed several informatics and statistical tools to help interpret biomarkers in saliva
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • can then be used for early detection of disease, treatment monitoring, recurrence prediction and other translational assessments.
  • Research
  • has shown that saliva, as a medium for health screening is just as useful as blood and other bodily fluids
  • it has been shown that 20 percent more Americans visit their dentists more regularly than their physicians, there will be substantial opportunities for dentists to engage in primary health care by taking saliva samples from their patients and, based on the medical findings of those samples
Mars Base

S.Korean, Russian scientists bid to clone mammoth - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...-scientists-clone-mammoth.html

scibyte38 mammoth

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Russian and South Korean scientists have signed a deal on joint research intended to recreate a woolly mammoth, an animal which last walked the earth some 10,000 years ago.
  • The deal was signed by Vasily Vasiliev, vice rector of North-Eastern Federal University of the Sakha Republic
  • controversial cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, on Tuesday.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Hwang was a national hero until some of his research into creating human stem cells was found in 2006 to have been faked
  • Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog, in 2005, has been verified by experts
  • Sooam said it would launch research this year if the Russian university can ship the remains. The Beijing Genomics Institute will also take part in the project
  • South Korean foundation said it would transfer technology to the Russian university
  • first and hardest mission is to restore mammoth cells
  • scientists in trying to find well-preserved tissue with an undamaged gene
  • replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken from the mammoth's somatic cells,
  • embryos with mammoth DNA could be produced and planted into elephant wombs for delivery
  • Sooam will use an Indian elephant for its somatic cell nucleus transfer
  • South Korean experts have previously cloned animals including a cow, a cat, dogs, a pig and a wolf
Mars Base

Well-preserved strawberry-blond mammoth discovered in Siberia | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...-mammoth-discovered-in-siberia

scibyte41 WollyMammoth

shared by Mars Base on 04 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • juvenile mammoth, nicknamed "Yuka,"
  • found entombed in Siberian ice near the shores of the Arctic Ocean and shows signs of being cut open by ancient people.
  • remarkably well preserved frozen carcass
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • part of a BBC/Discovery Channel-funded expedition and is believed to be at least 10,000 years old, if not older
  • If further study confirms the preliminary findings, it would be the first mammoth carcass revealing signs of human interaction in the region.
  • in such good shape that much of its flesh is still intact, retaining its pink color. The blonde-red hue of Yuka's woolly coat also remains.
  • first relatively complete mammoth carcass -- that is, a body with soft tissues preserved -- to show evidence of human association
  • carbon dating is still in the works, the researchers believe Yuka died at least 10,000 years ago, but may be much older
  • The animal was about 2 ½ years old when it died.
  • appears that Yuka was pursued by one or more lions or another large field, judging from deep, unhealed scratches in the hide and bite marks on the tail
  • Yuka then apparently fell, breaking one of the lower hind legs
  • humans may have moved in to control the carcass, butchering much of the animal and removing parts that they would use immediately.
  • may, in fact, have reburied the rest of the carcass to keep it in reserve for possible later use
  • removed parts include most of the main core mass of Yuka's body, including organs, vertebrae, ribs, associated musculature, and some of the meat from upper parts of the legs
  • Kevin Campbell of the University of Manitoba also studied Yuka
  • Campbell famously published the genetic code of mammoth hemoglobin a few years ago
  • Most permafrost-preserved mammoth specimens consist solely of bones or bone fragments that currently provide little new insight into the species' biology in life
  • This extremely rare finding of a near complete specimen, like the discovery of the baby mammoth Lyuba in 2007, will be a boon to researchers as it will help them link observed phenotypes (morphological features that we can see) with genotype (DNA sequences)."
  • Such information could help reveal whether or not mammoths had all of the same hair colors that humans do
  • An intriguing and controversial application would be to bring a mammoth back to life via cloning.
  • producer and director of a forthcoming BBC/Discovery Channel show called "Woolly Mammoth"
  • told Discovery News that cloning a mammoth could take years or even decades.
Mars Base

Common Lab Dye Found to Interrupt Formation of Huntington's Disease Proteins: Scientifi... - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte59 GrabBag MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 16 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • methylene blue, gets a mention in medical literature as early as 1897 and was used to treat, at one time or another, ailments ranging from malaria to cyanide poisoning
  • never formally approved it as a therapy for any illnesses.
  • Because of existing knowledge of methylene blue and the fact that it’s not harmful to humans, I would hope that progress toward clinical trials could go relatively quickly," says 
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • a neurobiologist at University of California–Irvine
  • Huntington’s disease occurs when the C-A-G sequence of DNA base pairs repeat too often on the HTT gene, resulting in an abnormally long version of the huntingtin protein, that therefore folds incorrectly and forms clumps in the brain
  • usually begins to affect people in their 30s and 40s, causing movement problems and early death
  • No drug is currently available to stop the disease from progressing
  • For their experiment, researchers fed methylene blue mixed with food for a week to Drosophila flies
  • brains showed that protein clumps had been reduced by 87 percent compared with a control group
  • given methylene blue
  • underwent several tests to assess mobility
  • At two months of age, the treated mice showed abnormal clasping of their hind claws only 20 percent of the time
  • untreated counterparts clasped at a 60 percent rate
  • the number of mice used was not sufficient to provide statistically significant results and the difference in the test quickly dropped off at nine weeks of age
  • the data as hopeful, because even a delay in Huntington’s symptoms would be very helpful
  • more research is needed
  • Methylene blue would absolutely require further testing in mouse models and would need safety and efficacy trial before it could be used for humans."
  • This study shows promise pre-clinically and follow-up studies are needed in a more representative mouse model that expresses the full-length Huntingtin protein
Mars Base

Prehistoric Horses Came In Leopard Print - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...c_horses_came_in_leopard_print

scibyte21

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • A new analysis of DNA from the remains of 31 horses found in Europe and Siberia suggests that prehistoric horses came in bay, black and leopard-spotted at least 16,000 years ago
  • Previous genetic studies had suggested that horses were either bay or black before domestication, and more elaborate patterns emerged as a result of breeding selection imposed by humans
  • In new study published
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • show that some prehistoric horses really did sport spots
  • 31 horses studied, 18 were bay, seven were black and six carried genetic variants that produce a leopard spotting pattern
Mars Base

Bacteria-eating viruses 'magic bullets in the war on superbugs' - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...131016212558.htm

scibyte107 ViewerFeedback

shared by Mars Base on 27 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • A specialist team of scientists from the University of Leicester has isolated viruses that eat bacteria -- called phages -- to specifically target the highly infectious hospital superbug Clostridium difficile
  • predominantly been funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC).
  • been investigating an alternative approach to antibiotics, which utilizes naturally occurring viruses called bacteriophages, meaning 'eaters of bacteria'.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • since the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin, antibiotics
  • have saved countless lives and impacted on the well-being of humanity
  • the future impact of antibiotics is dwindling
  • with more and more bacteria
  • 'out-evolving' these miracle drugs
  • bacteriophages
  • are specific in what they kill and will generally only infect one particular species, or even strain, of bacteria
  • Following attachment to their hosts, they inject their DNA into the bacterium, which then replicates many times over, ultimately causing the bacterial cell to burst open
  • team have
  • , a specific mixture of phages have been proved, through extensive laboratory testing, to be effective against 90% of the most clinically relevant C. diff strains currently seen in the U.K
  • US-based biopharmaceutical company and pioneers in developing phage-based therapeutics
  • have already made progress in developing phages targeted against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a pathogen that causes acute, life-threatening lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients
  • funding further development and testing
  • phages developed
  • is to have a phage mixture ready to go into phase 1 and 2 clinical trials
  • Evaluations of the efficacy of bacteriophage therapy and optimisation of dosing regimes will be carried out
  • bacteria primarily affect our digestive system
  • pose a serious threat when our natural digestive environment is disrupted or depleted, such as after chronic antibiotic use
  • antibiotics also destroy the 'good' gut bacteria, in turn increasing the potential for relapse or new infections
  • The key advantage of using phages over antibiotics
  • A phage will infect and kill only a specific strain/species of bacteria.
  • Antibacterial resistance is a major and growing threat to health globally
  • This study
  • examines a new way to kill bacteria to circumvent resistance formation
Mars Base

Astronomers answer key question: How common are habitable planets? - 0 views

phys.org/...-common-habitable-planets.html

scibyte109

shared by Mars Base on 07 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • astronomers analyzed all four years of Kepler data in search of Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of sun-like stars
  • Based on this analysis, they estimate that 22 percent of stars like the sun have potentially habitable Earth-size planets, though not all may be rocky or have liquid water
  • NASA's Kepler spacecraft
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • provided enough data to complete its mission objective: to determine how many of the 100 billion stars in our galaxy have potentially habitable planets
  • Based on a statistical analysis
  • astronomers now estimate that one in five stars like the sun have planets about the size of Earth and a surface temperature conducive to life.
  • nearly 20 years since the discovery of the first extrasolar planet around a normal star
  • Since then we have learned that most stars have planets of some size and that Earth-size planets are relatively common in close-in orbits that are too hot for life
  • Earth-size planets in Earth-size orbits are not necessarily hospitable to life, even if they orbit in the habitable zone of a star where the temperature is not too hot and not too cold
  • thick atmospheres, making it so hot at the surface that DNA-like molecules would not survive
  • rocky surfaces that could harbor liquid water suitable for living organisms
  • Last week,
  • provided hope that many such planets actually are rocky
  • NASA launched the Kepler space telescope in 2009 to look for planets that cross in front of, or transit, their stars, which causes a slight diminution – about one hundredth of one percent – in the star's brightness
  • 150,000 stars photographed every 30 minutes for four years
  • reported more than 3,000 planet candidates
  • the Keck Telescopes in Hawaii
  • help them determine each star's true brightness and calculate the diameter of each transiting planet, with an emphasis on Earth-diameter planets.
  • The team's definition of habitable is that a planet receives between four times and one-quarter the amount of light that Earth receives from the sun
  • Independently
  • focused on the 42,000 stars that are like the sun or slightly cooler and smaller, and found 603 candidate planets orbiting them
  • Only 10 of these were Earth-size, that is, one to two times the diameter of Earth and orbiting their star at a distance where they are heated to lukewarm temperatures suitable for life
  • Accounting for missed planets, as well as the fact that only a small fraction of planets are oriented so that they cross in front of their host star as seen from Earth, allowed them to estimate that 22 percent of all sun-like stars in the galaxy have Earth-size planets in their habitable zones.
  • All of the potentially habitable planets found in their survey are around K stars, which are cooler and slightly smaller than the sun
  • analysis shows that the result for K stars can be extrapolated to G stars like the sun
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