Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists drilling into a New Mexico rock formation deep underground have brought to life four unknown strains of bacteria that have lain entombed in salt crystals for 250 million years.

The bacteria, like many of their kind, form into long-lasting protective spores. The scientists were able to revive the spores until the microbes reproduced.

The report, by a team of biologists and geologists, has already fueled speculation that spores of living organisms might somehow be transported from planet to planet, across the galaxy and over eons. It is a concept known as “panspermia,” which some see as a possible source for life arising on Earth.

Wherever there are people, the party is sure to follow. Well, a party of microbes, at least. That is what scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have found after a 30-day microbial observation of the inflatable lunar/Mars analog habitat (IMAH).

What is an “analog habitat?” For NASA, analogs are experiments and processes that are developed and tested on the ground in the confines of special laboratories on Earth. Because of the danger, distance, and expense of space flight, it makes good sense to test out conditions that space travelers will face — before they ever launch.

For NASA, there are five different space stresses evaluated in analog missions. These stresses are the subject of analog missions that often make use of a carefully designed habitat to replicate space conditions. These five challenges are:

A new approach to water treatment could be cheaper, produce less waste and possibly help fix nitrate pollution in California.

• By Meg Wilcox on June 27, 2019

Circa 2018

Based at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Russia), a research team led by Prof. Yuri Rakovich has developed a tunable micro-resonator for hybrid energy states between light and matter using light to control the chemical and biological properties of molecules. The results have been published in the Review of Scientific Instruments.

The micro-resonator is a two-mirror trap for the light, with the mirrors facing each other within several hundred nanometers. A photon caught in the trap would form a localized state of an electromagnetic wave. By modifying the resonator’s form and size, operators can control the spatial distribution of the wave, as well as the duration of the photon’s life in the resonator.

Continue reading “Scientists develop unique trap for light” »

Around the ruins and dense rainforest of a mysterious “lost city” in Honduras, researchers have discovered a treasure trove of biodiversity, including numerous species once thought to be extinct and others previously unknown to science.

As detailed in a new report, a recent expedition by Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) and the Government of Honduras headed deep into a previously unexplored corner of the forest around Ciudad Blanca, in La Mosquitia, Honduras.

Their biological assessment documented 246 species of butterflies and moths, 30 bats, 57 amphibians and reptiles, as well as numerous fish, mammals, and insects. At least 22 of these species had never been recorded in Honduras before.

We synthesise life de-novo in the lab? This is one of the Grand Challenges of contemporary Science. Overall objective of this project is to set important steps in turning chemistry into biology by building fully synthetic chemical systems that contain and integrate some of the essential elements of life: replication, metabolism and compartmentalisation. Functional coupling of any of life’s essential elements has not been achieved, at least not without making use of biomolecules. We now aim to achieve such coupling and develop fully chemical systems to become increasingly life-like. Specific aims are:

Though it may be hard to believe that there is already an “established” method of doing something such as 3D-printing biological tissue, there does indeed seem to be one. It utilizes microscale scaffolds – which a newly-developed technique does away with the need for.

“Previously, bacteria were found using metagenomics or microbiome sequencing, and now we have confirmed that signal based on our ability to label the bacterial RNA with a florescent ‘tag’ and actually see them,” said Dr. Maxim Seferovic, instructor in obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor and lead author in the study. “We leveraged a powerful new imaging technology to add greater specificity in the signal of bacterial RNA, which helped us to see bacteria within the microarchitecture of the placental tissue.”

Researchers examined microbes in term and preterm gestations using a signal amplified 16S universal in situ hybridization probe designed for bacterial rRNA, along with several other histologic methods. Seferovic said the study was carefully designed to control for contamination as best as possible, so that these sparse bacteria could be accurately attributed to their location in the placenta.

“We did not see quantitative or numerical differences between preterm or full-term births, nor did we see them localizing to different substrata. But we do see differences in what genera of bacteria are there in preterm or full term, and this supported our and other’s past findings as well,” said Aagaard.

Tam Hunt interviews Prof. Morgan Levine about her work with epigenetics and aging.

One of the biggest breakthroughs in biology in the last few decades has been the discovery of epigenetics. Rather than changing the genes themselves, epigenetics change how genes are expressed, allowing our cells to differentiate between their various types.

However, the epigenetics of our cells change over time. There is some debate over how much epigenetic alterations are a cause or a consequence of other age-related damage, but they are one of the primary hallmarks of aging.

Continue reading “Interview with Prof. Morgan Levine” »