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Category: bioengineering – Page 225

Why Plants? Part III – Rise of The Plant Machines by Orlando de Lange.

Everyone talks about the rise of the robots. What about the rise of the “Vegetation/ Plant Machines?”

In part 3 of our series on plant synthetic biology, Orlando de Lange (@SeaGreenODL) of The New Leaf blog introduces how synbio approaches are being used to develop novel disease resistant crops, overcoming some of the challenges faced by monoculture farming.

The King’s man

In 1970 an unassuming American man with greying hair and large spectacles stood before the King of Norway and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This prize of international renown is set aside for individuals who have made the greatest possible contribution to peace among nations. Who was the king’s man in 1970? A president, a diplomat, a great writer, perhaps? No, he was crop scientist and plant breeder Norman Borlaug, founding father of the Green Revolution.

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Arthritis sufferers have been offered new hope after scientists grew a ‘living hip’ in the lab which not only replaces worn cartilage but stops painful joints returning.

Researchers in the US have used stem cells to grow cartilage in the exact shape of a hip joint while also genetically engineering the tissue to release anti-inflammatory molecules to fend off the return of arthritis.

The idea is to implant the perfectly shaped cartilage around the joint to extend its life before arthritis has caused too much damage to the bone.

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Biowire.

Researchers led by microbiologist Derek Lovely say the wires, which rival the thinnest wires known to man, are produced from renewable, inexpensive feedstocks and avoid the harsh chemical processes typically used to produce nanoelectronic materials.

Lovley says, “New sources of electronic materials are needed to meet the increasing demand for making smaller, more powerful electronic devices in a sustainable way.” The ability to mass-produce such thin conductive wires with this sustainable technology has many potential applications in electronic devices, functioning not only as wires, but also transistors and capacitors. Proposed applications include biocompatible sensors, computing devices, and as components of solar panels.

This advance began a decade ago, when Lovley and colleagues discovered that Geobacter, a common soil microorganism, could produce “microbial nanowires,” electrically conductive protein filaments that help the microbe grow on the iron minerals abundant in soil. These microbial nanowires were conductive enough to meet the bacterium’s needs, but their conductivity was well below the conductivities of organic wires that chemists could synthesize.

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Can serve many uses such as geneology, etc. However, the bigger advancement will be with criminal/ legal investigations.

Rice University researchers have developed gas biosensors to “see” into soil and allow them to follow the behavior of the microbial communities within.

In a study in the American Chemical Society’s journal Environmental Science and Technology, the Rice team described using genetically engineered bacteria that release methyl halide gases to monitor microbial gene expression in samples in the lab.

The bacteria are programmed using synthetic biology to release gas to report when they exchange DNA through , the process by which organisms share genetic traits without a parent-to-child relationship. The biosensors allow researchers to monitor such processes in real time without having to actually see into or disturb a lab soil sample.

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Woo and other entrepreneurs are using fasts and other tricks to “hack” their brain chemistry like they would a computer, hoping to give themselves an edge as they strive to dream up the next billion-dollar idea. Known by insiders as “biohacking,” the push for cognitive self-improvement is gaining momentum in the Silicon Valley tech world, where workers face constant pressure to innovate and produce at the highest levels.

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There is a well-documented organ shortage throughout the world. For example, 3,000 kidney transplants were made last year in the United Kingdom, but that still left 5,000 people on the waiting list at the end of the period. A lucrative trade in organs has grown up, and transplant tourism has become relatively common. While politicians wring their hands about sensible solutions to the shortage, including the nudge of opt-out donation, scientists using genetic manipulations have been making significant progress in growing transplantable organs inside pigs.

Scientists in the United States are creating so-called ‘human-pig chimeras’ which will be capable of growing the much-needed organs. These chimeras are animals that combine human and pig characteristics. They are like mules that will provide organs that can be transplanted into humans. A mule is the offspring of a male donkey (jack) and a female horse (mare). Horses and donkeys are different species with different numbers of chromosomes, but they can breed together.

In this case, the scientists take a skin cell from a human and from this make stem cells capable of producing any cell or tissue in the body, known as ‘induced pluripotent stem cells’. They then inject these into a pig embryo to make a human-pig chimera. In order to create the desired organ, they use gene editing, or CRISPR, to knock out the embryo’s pig’s genes that produce, for example, the pancreas. The human stem cells for the pancreas then make an almost entirely human pancreas in the resulting human-pig chimera, with just the blood vessels remaining porcine. Using this controversial technology, a human skin cell, pre-treated and injected into a genetically edited pig embryo, could grow a new liver, heart, pancreas or lung as required.

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Transhuman Terminology.

ADHOCRACY
AEONOMICS
A-LIFE
AGORIC SYSTEM

AI-COMPLETE ALEPH ALGERNON AMORTALIST ARACHNIOGRAPHY ARCH-ANARCHY ARCOLOGY ARROW IMPOSSIBILITY THEOREM ARTILECT ASEX ASIMORT ASIMOV ASSEMBLER ATHANASIA ATHANOPHY ATHEOSIS AUGMENT AUTOEVOLUTIONIST AUTOMATED ENGINEERING AUTOMORPHISM AUTOPOTENT AUTOSCIENT BABY UNIVERSE BASEMENT UNIVERSE BEAN DIP CATASTROPHE BEANSTALK BEKENSTEIN BOUND BERSERKER BETELGEUSE-BRAIN BIG CRUNCH BINERATOR BIOCHAUVINISM BIOLOGICAL FUNDAMENTALISM BIONICS BIONOMICS BIOPHILIAC BIOSTASIS B-LIFE BLIGHT BLIND UPLOADING BLUE GOO BOGOSITY FILTER BORGANISM BREAKEVEN POINT BROADCATCHING BRUTE FORCE UPLOADING BUSH ROBOT CALCUTTA SYNDROME CALM TECHNOLOGY CALORIE RESTRICTION CASIMIR EFFECT CEREBROSTHESIS CHINESE ROOM CHRONONAUTS CHURCH-TURING THESIS COBOTS COMPUFORM COMPUTRONIUM CONCENTRATED INTELLIGENCE CONSILIENCE CONNECTIONISM CONTELLIGENCE CONTINUITY IDENTITY THEORY COSMYTHOLOGY CRYOBIOLOGY CRYOCRASTINATE CRYOGENICS CRYONICS CRYONIC SUSPENSION CRYPTO ANARCHY CRYPTOCOSMOLOGY CYBERCIDE CYBERFICTION CYBERGNOSTICISM CYBERIAN CYBERNATE/CYBERNIZE CYBERSPACE/CYBERMATRIX CYBRARIAN CYPHERPUNK DEANIMALIZE DEATH FORWARD DEATHISM DEEP ANARCHY DEFLESH DIGITAL PSEUDONYM DIAMONDOID DISASSEMBLER DISASTERBATION DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE DIVERGENT TRACK HYPOTHESIS DIVERSITY IQ DIVIDUALS DOOMSDAY ARGUMENT DOWNLOAD DRYWARE DUBIFIER DYSON SPHERE ECOCALYPSE ECTOGENESIS

EMBRYOMEME
EMULATION
ENHANCED REALITY
ENVIROCAPITALISM
EPHEMERALISTS
E-PRIME
ESCALATORLOGY
THE ETERNAL LIFE POSTULATE
EUPSYCHIA
EUTHENICS
EVOLUTIONARILY STABLE STRATEGY (ESS)
EVOLUTURE
EXCONOMICS
EXES
EXFORMATION
EXISTENTIAL TECHNOLOGY
EXOPHOBIA
EXOSELF
EXTROPIAN
EXTROPIATE
EXTROPIC
EXTROPOLIS
EXTROPY
FACULTATIVE ANAGOROBE
FAR EDGE PARTY
THE FERMI PARADOX
FEMTOTECHNOLOGY
FLATLANDER
FLUIDENTITY
FOGLET
FORK
FREDKIN’S PARADOX
FUNCTIONAL SOUP
FUTIQUE
FUTURE SHOCK
GALAXY BRAIN
GAUSSIAN
GENEGENEERING
GENETIC ALGORITHM
GENIE
GREEN GOO
GÖDEL’S THEOREM
GOLDEN GOO
GREAT FILTER, THE
GREY GOO
GUY FAWKES SCENARIO
HALLUCINOMEMIC
HIVE COMPUTING
HOMORPH
HPLD
HYPERTEXT
HYPONEIRIA
HYPOTECH

IDEAL IDENTITY
IMMORTALIST
IMMORTECHNICS
IMP
INACTIVATE
INFOGLUT
INFOMORPH
INFORMATION-THEORETICAL DEATH
INLINE UNIVERSITIES
INTERFACER
INTERNALNET
JUPITER-BRAIN
KHAKI GOO
KARDASCHEV TYPES
KNOWBOTS
KOLMOGOROV COMPELXITY
LEONARDO DA VINCI SYNDROME
LINDE SCENARIO
LIQUIDENTITY
LOFSTROM LOOP
LONGEVIST
MASPAR
MATAGLAP
MEGATECHNOLOGY (or MEGASCALE ENGINEERING)
MEMETICS
MEMIE
MEMIUS
MEMOTYPE
MEMOID (or MEMEOID)
MEHUM
MERCHANCY
MESOSCALE
MINDKIND
MOLMAC
MORPHOLOGICAL FREEDOM
MUTUAL REALITY
NANARCHIST
NANARCHY
NANITE
NANOCHONDRIA
NANOFACTURE
NANOMEDICINE
NANOSOME
NANOTECH
(MOLECULAR) NANOTECHNOLOGY
NEG
NEOMORPH
NEOLOGOMANIA
NEOPHILE
NEOPHILIA
NEOPHOBE
NEUROCOMPUTATION
NEURONAUT
NEURON STAR
NEUROPROSTHESIS
NEUROSUSPENSION
NOOTROPIC
NOW SHOCK
NUTRACEUTICAL
OFFLOADING
OMEGA POINT
OMEGON
OMNESCIENCE
O’NEILL COLONY
O’NEILL CYLINDERS
ONTOLOGICAL CONSERVATIVES
OPTIMAL PERSONA
PANCRITICAL RATIONALISM
ORBITAL TOWER
PARTIALATE
PATTERN IDENTITY THEORY
PERICOMPUTER
PERIMELASMA
PERSOGATE
PERVERSION ATTACK
PHARMING
PHYLE
PHYSICAL ESCHATOLOGY
PICO TECHNOLOGY
PIDGIN BRAIN
PINK GOO
PLEXURE
POME
POSTHUMAN
POSTJUDICE
POWERSHIFT
PRISONERS’ DILEMMA
PRIVACY MANAGEMENT
PROLONGEVITY
QUANTUM COMPUTING
QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHY
QUASISPECIES
RAPTURE OF THE FUTURE
RED GOO
RED QUEEN PRINCIPLE
RED QUEENED
REMEMBRANCE AGENT
REVERSIBLE
RIF
SANS CEILING HYPOTHESIS
SANTA MACHINE
SAPPER MEME
SCHEME
SENTIENCE QUOTIENT
SHIH
SINGULARITY
SINGULARITARIAN
SKY HOOK
SMART-FACED
SOCIOTYPE
SOLID STATE CIVILIZATION
SPIKE, THE
SPOCK MEME
SPONTANEOUS VOLUNTARISM
SPACE FOUNTAIN
STAR LIFTING
STELLAR HUSBANDRY
STEWARD
STRONG AI POSTULATE
STRONG CONVERGENCE HYPOTHESIS
SUSPENDED ANIMATION
SYNTHESPIAN
TAZ/Temporary Autonomous Zone.
TECHNOCYTE
TECHNOSPHERE
TECHNOCALYPS
TELEOLOGICAL THREAD
THEORETICAL APPLIED SCIENCE
TITHONUS SYNDROME
TIPLER CYLINDER
TIPLERITE
TRANSBIOMORPHOSIS (TRANSBIOLOGICAL METAMORPHOSIS)
TRANSCEND
TRANSCENSION
TRANSCIENT
TRANSCLUSION
TRANSHUMANISM
TRANSHUMANITIES
TRAPDOOR FUNCTION
TURING MACHINE
TURING TEST
ÜBERGOO
UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING
UPLIFT
UPLOADER
UNIVERSAL CONSTRUCTOR
UNIVERSAL IMMORTALISM
UNIVERSAL TURING MACHINE
UTILITY FOG
VACCIME
VASTEN
VENTURISM
VIEWQUAKE
VIRIAN
VIRION
VIRTUAL COMMUNITY
VIRTUAL RIGHTS
VITOLOGY
VIVISYSTEM
VON NEUMANN MACHINE
VON NEUMANN PROBE
WEBORIZE
WETWARE
WORMHOLE
XENOBIOLOGY
XENOEVOLUTURE
XEROPHILIA
XOXER
ZERO KNOWLEDGE PROOF

This may not be the best possible neologism for this sort of entity, but I think it’s a good idea on principle to generate neologisms. They are good for us and solidify our thinking. Bruce Sterling, Speech at Lifelike Computer Characters ‘95.

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Over the past several years, Northwestern Engineering’s Michael Jewett did the seemingly impossible. He overcame the critical barrier to making mutant ribosomes, the core catalyst in cells that are responsible for life.

Now, with funding from the Department of Defense’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives (MURI) program, Jewett is ready to take this research to the next level. Along with a multi-school team, he plans to use engineer and repurpose the ribosome to make new kinds of polymers for flow batteries.

“We are in a new era of biomaterial design,” Jewett said. “So far, the ribosome has been this untouchable biomolecular machine — one that we couldn’t engineer or modify. Now, armed with recent advances in our ability to construct new versions, new applications may only be limited by our imagination.”

The MURI grant joins researchers from Northwestern, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Texas at Austin, and Georgia Institute of Technology who will work together to develop new types of electrical materials for battery storage. By using biological catalysts, the team aims to produce materials for sustainable, rechargeable batteries that are currently impossible to make chemically.

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