In a major scientific leap, University of Queensland researchers have created a quantum microscope that can reveal biological structures that would otherwise be impossible to see.
This paves the way for applications in biotechnology, and could extend far beyond this into areas ranging from navigation to medical imaging.
The microscope is powered by the science of quantum entanglement, an effect Einstein described as “spooky interactions at a distance.”
Summary: Higher sugar diets during childhood increase the risk for obesity, cognitive impairments, and attention deficits as adults, a new study reports.
Source: Queensland University of Technology.
Children who consume too much sugar could be at greater risk of becoming obese, hyperactive, and cognitively impaired, as adults, according to the results of a new study of mice led by QUT and published by Frontiers in Neuroscience.
Summary: NfL, a single biomarker in the blood, can accurately predict the presence of underlying neurodegenerative disorders, such as FTD and ALS, in people with cognitive problems.
Source: King’s College London.
Levels of a protein called neurofilament light chain (NfL) in the blood can identify those who might have neurodegenerative diseases such as Down’s syndrome dementia, motor neuron disease (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia, when clinical symptoms are not definitive.
Circa 2017 could be used on smartphones to scan the body for illnesses.
Medical techniques for looking inside our bodies have come a long way, but in the future it looks like doctors may be able to see absolutely everything going on under our skin.
Researchers have invented a new kind of camera that can actually see through structures inside the human body, detecting light sources behind as much as 20 centimetres (7.9 inches) of bodily tissue.
The current prototype, developed by researchers from the University of Edinburgh in the UK, is designed to work in conjunction with endoscopes – long, slender instruments that are often equipped with cameras, sensors and lights to peer inside hollow cavities inside the human body.
A team at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California have created something that could turn the tide in how fast vaccines come into existence.
They created an AI framework that can significantly speed-up the analysis of COVID vaccine candidates and also find the best preventative medical therapies. This is at a time when more and more COVID mutations are emerging, bringing existing vaccine efficiencies into question.
Virologists are concerned that the mutations will evolve past the first vaccines. The UK even set up a genomic consortium to look solely at where these mutations are cropping up. In the global picture, while some poorer countries wait for access to the vaccine, they become sitting ducks for highly infectious mutations.
The high levels of serotonin seen in the blood of some autistic people have confounded scientists for more than half a century. Despite so little progress, some researchers refuse to give up.
Laurie Graham, a molecular biologist at Queen’s University in Ontario and lead author on the paper, knows she’s making a bold claim in arguing for the direct transfer of a gene from one fish to another. That kind of horizontal DNA movement once wasn’t imagined to happen in any animals, let alone vertebrates. Still, the more she and her colleagues study the smelt, the clearer the evidence becomes.
Nor are the smelt unique. Recent studies of a range of animals — other fish, reptiles, birds and mammals — point to a similar conclusion: The lateral inheritance of DNA, once thought to be exclusive to microbes, occurs on branches throughout the tree of life.
Sarah Schaack, an evolutionary genomicist at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, believes these cases of horizontal transfer still have “a pretty big wow factor” even among scientists, “because the conventional wisdom for so long was that it was less likely or impossible in eukaryotes.” But the smelt discovery and other recent examples all point to horizontal transfers playing an influential role in evolution.
David Sinclair is a geneticist at Harvard and author of Lifespan.
Nature – Reversal of biological clock restores vision in old mice
Sinclair and his team restored vision in old mice and in mice with damaged retinal nerves by resetting some of the thousands of chemical marks that accumulate on DNA as cells age. They are now working to rejuvenate the brains of old mice. This work is so promising that Sinclair believes he can get to human trials within two years. Sinclair is using three genes to reset the age of cells.
Posted in biotech/medical
A strategy for the long fight against COVID-19.
Global herd immunity is now unreachable. How should governments’ strategy in the fight against COVID-19 change in response?
An international team of scientists says it has sequenced and assembled the entirety of the human genome, including parts that were missed in the sequencing of the first human genome two decades ago.
The claim, if confirmed, surpasses the achievement laid out by leaders from the Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics on the White House lawn in 2000, when they announced the sequencing of the first draft human genome. That historic draft, and subsequent human DNA sequences, have all missed about 8% of the genome.
The sequencing of the new genome fills in these gaps using new technology. It has different limitations, however, including the type of cell line that the researchers used in order to speed up their effort.
