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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,047

Short clip of Michael Levin, an American developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University, talking about Planarian and their capacity to regenerate their organs indefinetely, which makes then biologically immortal.

The remarks where given during a fascinating three-hour-long conversation with Lex Fridman that was aired on october 1st, 2022.

Lex Fridman is a Russian-American computer scientist, artificial intelligence researcher, and podcast host.

To watch the entire conversation clic here: https://youtu.be/p3lsYlod5OU

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Scientists including an Oregon State University materials researcher have developed a better tool to measure light, contributing to a field known as optical spectrometry in a way that could improve everything from smartphone cameras to environmental monitoring.

The study, published today in Science, was led by Finland’s Aalto University and resulted in a powerful, ultra-tiny that fits on a microchip and is operated using artificial intelligence.

The research involved a comparatively new class of super-thin materials known as two-dimensional semiconductors, and the upshot is a proof of concept for a spectrometer that could be readily incorporated into a variety of technologies—including quality inspection platforms, security sensors, biomedical analyzers and space telescopes.

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“We are very pleased that we can now start with the first activities to stimulate and consolidate cellular agriculture in the Netherlands,” said Ira van Eelen, CEO of KindEart. Tech and a board member of Cellular Agriculture Netherlands. “With this we can guarantee that the Netherlands remains the ideal place for cellular agriculture to thrive. We have a rich history in cellular agriculture and are a global leader in biotechnology, alternative proteins and food innovation. Supported by this visionary leadership that the Dutch government is showing again today, we will expand our team in the coming months and roll out the first activities around public research, scaling up, and education.”

Indeed, the Netherlands has been demonstrating considerable progress in developing cultured meat. In July, for example, Dutch company Meatable revealed its first lab-grown sausages, which are expected to go on sale to consumers by 2025. The addition of €60 million in government funding will make the Netherlands an even more attractive location for companies in the sector.

Currently a niche and miniscule part of the overall food market, cultured meat has potential to become another “exponential” technology – much like the semiconductor industry, solar energy, genome sequencing, and so on. The benefits in terms of animal welfare, climate change, food safety, antibiotic resistance, land and water usage could be substantial.

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Picking your nose might seem harmless albeit gross, but new research is showing it may have some devastating consequences, according to a press release published by Griffith University Friday.

A direct path to the brain

The new research demonstrates that a bacteria can travel through the olfactory nerve in the nose and into the brain in mice, where it creates markers that are a tell-tale sign of Alzheimer’s disease.

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New research from SAHMRI has found a link between the omega-3 fatty acid known as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and increased IQ among children born prematurely.

Preterm children are more likely to have lower IQ scores and cognitive impairments compared with term-born children.

Dr. Jacqueline Gould, who led the study now published in the New England Journal of Medicine, says infants born at the earliest gestations are deprived of the natural supply of DHA that normally builds up in the brain during the last trimester of pregnancy.

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Biomedical and electrical engineers at UNSW Sydney have developed a new way to measure neural activity using light—rather than electricity—which could lead to a complete reimagining of medical technologies like nerve-operated prosthetics and brain-machine interfaces.

Professor François Ladouceur, with UNSW’s School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, says the multi-disciplinary team has just demonstrated in the lab what it proved theoretically shortly before the pandemic: that sensors built using liquid crystal and integrated optics technologies—dubbed “optrodes”—can register nerve impulses in a living animal body.

Not only do these optrodes perform just as well as conventional electrodes—that use electricity to detect a nerve impulse—but they also address “very thorny issues that competing technologies cannot address,” says Prof. Ladouceur.

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Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences‘Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) have recently found two fossil repositories in the early Silurian strata of southwest Guizhou and Chongqing that are rewriting the “from fish to human” evolutionary story.

Four different papers describing their findings were recently published in the journal Nature.

Humans are one of the 99.8% of species of extant vertebrates that are gnathostomes, or jawed vertebrates. The basic body plan and several key organs of humans can be traced back to the origin of gnathostomes. One of the most significant developments in the evolution of vertebrates is the emergence of jaws.

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