Cancer cells can hibernate like bears during chemotherapy, a team of doctors has discovered. The cancer cells can act as a living organism, slowing down their activities to survive until the drugs are cleared from the system.
Researchers develop the first nanomaterial that demonstrates “photon avalanching;” finding could lead to new applications in sensing, imaging, and light detection.
Researchers at Columbia Engineering report today that they have developed the first nanomaterial that demonstrates “photon avalanching,” a process that is unrivaled in its combination of extreme nonlinear optical behavior and efficiency. The realization of photon avalanching in nanoparticle form opens up a host of sought-after applications, from real-time super-resolution optical microscopy, precise temperature and environmental sensing, and infrared light detection, to optical analog-to-digital conversion and quantum sensing.
“Nobody has seen avalanching behavior like this in nanomaterials before,” said James Schuck, associate professor of mechanical engineering, who led the study published today (January 132021) by Nature. “We studied these new nanoparticles at the single-nanoparticle level, allowing us to prove that avalanching behavior can occur in nanomaterials. This exquisite sensitivity could be incredibly transformative. For instance, imagine if we could sense changes in our chemical surroundings, like variations in or the actual presence of molecular species. We might even be able to detect coronavirus and other diseases.”
Compared to standard machine learning models, deep learning models are largely superior at discerning patterns and discriminative features in brain imaging, despite being more complex in their architecture, according to a new study in Nature Communications led by Georgia State University.
Advanced biomedical technologies such as structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI and fMRI) or genomic sequencing have produced an enormous volume of data about the human body. By extracting patterns from this information, scientists can glean new insights into health and disease. This is a challenging task, however, given the complexity of the data and the fact that the relationships among types of data are poorly understood.
Deep learning, built on advanced neural networks, can characterize these relationships by combining and analyzing data from many sources. At the Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS), Georgia State researchers are using deep learning to learn more about how mental illness and other disorders affect the brain.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=YUNdEWoUs8Y
Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast I’m your host Siim Land and our guest today is Liz Parish. Liz is the founder and CEO of BioViva. Which is a company committed to extending human lifespan using techniques such as gene and cell technologies. Liz Parrish became the first person worldwide to take dual gene therapies for treating aging.
The creatures made famous by Game of Thrones went extinct some 13000 years ago. Now geneticists know a little more about where they come from.
Stuck at home with time on their hands, millions of amateurs around the world are gathering information on everything from birds to plants to Covid-19 at the request of institutional researchers. And while quarantine is mostly a nightmare for us, it’s been a great accelerant for science.
From backyard astronomy to birding, amateurs have been busy collecting data — and making real discoveries.
Continue reading “Citizen science is booming during the pandemic” »
The process of systems integration (SI) functionally links together infrastructure, computing systems, and applications. SI can allow for economies of scale, streamlined manufacturing, and better efficiency and innovation through combined research and development.
New to the systems integration toolbox are the emergence of transformative technologies and, especially, the growing capability to integrate functions due to exponential advances in computing, data analytics, and material science. These new capabilities are already having a significant impact on creating our future destinies.
The systems integration process has served us well and will continue to do so. But it needs augmenting. We are on the cusp of scientific discovery that often combines the physical with the digital—the Techno-Fusion or merging of technologies. Like Techno-Fusion in music, Techno-Fusion in technologies is really a trend that experiments and transcends traditional ways of integration. Among many, there are five grouping areas that I consider good examples to highlight the changing paradigm. They are: Smart Cities and the Internet of Things (IoT); Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Quantum and Super Computing, and Robotics; Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality Technologies (VR); Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences Technologies; and Advanced Imaging Science.
The new clinical trial data shows a single shot of the vaccine “gives sustainable antibodies,” Dr. Paul Stoffels, J&J chief scientific officer, told CNBC.
A team of researchers at Columbia University has developed a way to allow DNA strands to store more data. In their study, published in the journal Science, the group applied a small amount of electricity to DNA strands to allow for encoding more information than was possible with other methods.
For several years, researchers have been looking for ways to increase data storage capacity—storage requirements are expected to exceed capacity in the near future as demand skyrockets. One such approach has involved encoding data into strands of DNA—prior research has shown that it is possible. In the early stages of such research, scientists manually edited strands to add characteristics to represent zeroes or ones. More recently, researchers have used the CRISPR gene editing tool. Most such studies used DNA extracted from the tissue of deceased animals. More recently, researchers have begun efforts to move the research to living animals because it will last longer. And not just in the edited strands—the information they contain could conceivably be passed on to offspring, allowing data to be stored for very long periods of time.
Back in 2017, another team at Columbia University used CRISPR to detect a certain signal—in their case, it was the presence of sugar molecules. Adding such molecules resulted in gene expressions of plasmid DNA. Over time, the editing process was improved as genetic bits were added to represent ones and zeroes. Unfortunately, the system only allowed for storing a few bits of data.
