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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,513

Bacterial enzyme that copies DNA might make more mistakes in zero gravity

(Inside Science) — An enzyme in the bacterium E. coli made more errors copying synthetic DNA when exposed to zero gravity than the same enzyme did in normal gravity, a recent study finds.

The paper raises the possibility that some enzymes work differently in space compared to on Earth. “It gives us an idea that enzymes, like polymerases or others that are involved in maintaining the integrity of our DNA, may be influenced by spaceflight,” said Susan Bailey, a radiation cancer biologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins who has studied DNA damage caused by space radiation and did not contribute to the new paper.

Aaron Rosenstein, lead author of the paper and a bioengineering graduate student at the University of Toronto, said the finding “warrants further investigation into other enzymes that are involved in crucial pathways that are inherent to life and survival.”

Billionaire Space Tourism Has Become Insufferable

Last summer, at a time when the pandemic had strained many people’s finances, inflation was rising and unemployment was still high, the sight of the richest man in the world joyriding in space hit a nerve. On July 20 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos rode to the edge of space onboard a rocket built by his company Blue Origin. A few weeks earlier ProPublica had revealed that he did not pay any income taxes for two years, and in other years he paid a tax rate of just 0.98 percent. To many watching, it rang hollow when Bezos thanked Amazon’s workers, whose low-paid labor had enriched him enough to start his own rocket company, even though Amazon had quashed workers’ efforts to unionize several months before. The fact that another billionaire, Richard Branson, had also launched himself onboard his own company’s rocket just a week earlier did not help.

COVID changed many people’s willingness to shrug off the excesses of the rich. The pandemic drew an impossible-to-ignore distinction between those who can literally escape our world and the rest of us stuck on the ground confronting the ills of Earth: racism, climate change, global diseases. Even several members of Congress expressed their disapproval of Bezos. “Space travel isn’t a tax-free holiday for the wealthy,” said Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon. Bezos and Branson putting the spotlight on themselves as passengers served to downplay the work that hundreds of scientists and engineers at Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic had put into designing, building and testing their spacecraft. It also masked the reality that advances in private spaceflight really could eventually pay off in greater access to space for all and more opportunities for scientific research that could benefit everyone. All their flights did was give the impression that space—historically seen as a brave pursuit for the good of all humankind—has just become another playground for the 0.0000001 percent.

A talk by David Pearce for the Stepping into the Future conference 2022

Synopsis: No sentient being in the evolutionary history of life has enjoyed good health as defined by the World Health Organization. The founding constitution of the World Health Organization commits the international community to a daringly ambitious conception of health: “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing”. Health as so conceived is inconsistent with evolution via natural selection. Lifelong good health is inconsistent with a Darwinian genome. Indeed, the vision of the World Health Organization evokes the World Transhumanist Association. Transhumanists aspire to a civilization of superhappiness, superlongevity and superintelligence; but even an architecture of mind based on information-sensitive gradients of bliss cannot yield complete well-being. Post-Darwinian life will be sublime, but “complete” well-being is posthuman – more akin to Buddhist nirvana. So the aim of this talk is twofold. First, I shall explore the therapeutic interventions needed to underwrite the WHO conception of good health for everyone – or rather, a recognisable approximation of lifelong good health. What genes, allelic combinations and metabolic pathways must be targeted to deliver a biohappiness revolution: life based entirely on gradients of well-being? How can we devise a more civilized signalling system for human and nonhuman animal life than gradients of mental and physical pain? Secondly, how can genome reformists shift the Overton window of political discourse in favour of hedonic uplift? How can prospective parents worldwide – and the World Health Organization – be encouraged to embrace genome reform? For only germline engineering can fix the problem of suffering and create a happy biosphere for all sentient beings.

The End of Suffering – Genome Reform and the Future of Sentience – David Pearce

The conserved mitochondrial gene distribution in relatives of Turritopsis nutricula, an immortal jellyfish

Immortal jellyfish could actually be the key to immortality and regeneration. This article talks more in depth of its importance in the search of immortality.

Turritopsis nutricula (T. nutricula) is the one of the known reported organisms that can revert its life cycle to the polyp stage even after becoming sexually mature, defining itself as the only immortal organism in the animal kingdom. Therefore, the animal is having prime importance in basic biological, aging, and biomedical researches. However, till date, the genome of this organism has not been sequenced and even there is no molecular phylogenetic study to reveal its close relatives. Here, using phylogenetic analysis based on available 16s rRNA gene and protein sequences of Cytochrome oxidase subunit-I (COI or COX1) of T. nutricula, we have predicted the closest relatives of the organism. While we found Nemopsis bachei could be closest organism based on COX1 gene sequence; T. dohrnii may be designated as the closest taxon to T. nutricula based on rRNA. Moreover, we have figured out four species that showed similar root distance based on COX1 protein sequence.

Keywords: Turritopsis nutricula, immortal jellyfish, trans-differentiation, phylogeny, relativeness.

Gerontologists and biologists reached a consensus “evolutionary theory of aging,” [1, 2] embedding aging research into the mainstream of biological research. T. nutricula is the one of the known hydrozoan in the animal kingdom that can revert back into the immature polyp stage after reaching sexual maturity, designating itself as the only immortal animal [3]. T. nutricula interplay with the polyp and sexual maturity stages by virtue of trans-differentiation process [4]. Theoretically, this process can go on indefinitely therefore, the organism can be considered as biologically immortal and does not experience aging. Hence, in the basic biology of aging research, the organism has found itself great importance [5]. If a cell or organism undergoes aging, there are two vital biological processes viz.

Elon Musk Shares Transphobic Meme Following Report of Grimes Dating Chelsea Manning

Sooner or later Musks childish, morally and politically inept use of social media will thwart his greater (and great) ambition. Whatever your personal beliefs, there is exactly ZERO doubt that every generation since and including millennials has become exponentially less willing to tolerate this kind of stuff. Musk is going to NEED to both the fresh and enthusiastic intelligence and majority scale support, and not JUST in SpaceX research labs and on site engineering teams either.

He’s going to need IMMENSE, PROLONGED, and RELIABLE political support even as the reins of power are being passed from one generation to the next. If he keeps using Twitter like he has nothing to lose and no one’s support He’s going to find that he really does no longer have anything to lose nor anyones support.

At that point, he’ll have difficulty getting from city to city, much less get to Mars to build CITIES or become a secure, far more survivable interplanetary civilization!

That would be a tragedy of possibly humanity extinguishing scale. Is THAT really worth the freedom to act like an entitled, petty child on social media?!

Musk and his dreams already have enemies enough. Why put HIMSELF at the top of that list? After all, this dream is NOT his alone, nor even remotly it’s originator. He’s just the only person to have the right mix of buisness acumen, technological literacy, enthusiasm, imagination, discipline, charisma, and luck to actually make it a reality. If he fails now, that dream WILL die. Whether its because of global warming, war, disease, atrophied critical thinking skills, educational decline, all of the above or some black swan event, the funds, time, will, and the global interconnectedness between scientific institutions and freedom to innovate and leverage those many convergent capabilities to achieve what MUST be achieved will be reduced or gone entirely. ☝️🤨👈

The post Elon Musk Shares Transphobic Meme Following Report of Grimes Dating Chelsea Manning appeared first on Consequence.

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New DNA Modification System Discovered in Animals — “It’s Almost Unbelievable”

Marine Biological Laboratory finds gene captured from bacteria more than 60 million years ago.

Your DNA holds the blueprint to build your body, but it’s a living document: Adjustments to the design can be made by epigenetic marks. Cataloguing these marks and how they work is important for understanding biology and genetics—and coming up with therapies to address diseases and disorders.

In humans and our fellow eukaryotes, two principal epigenetic marks are known. But a team from the University of Chicago-affiliated Marine Biological Laboratory has discovered a third, novel epigenetic mark—one formerly known only in bacteria—in small freshwater animals called bdelloid rotifers.

Exclusive: China captures powerful US NSA cyberspy tool

China captured a spy tool deployed by the US National Security Agency, which is capable of lurking in a victim’s computer to access sensitive information and was found to have controlled global internet equipment and stole large amounts of users’ information, according to a report the Global Times obtained from the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center exclusively on Monday.

According to the report, the Trojan horse, “NOPEN,” is a remote control tool for Unix/Linux computer systems. It is mainly used for stealing files, accessing systems, redirecting network communication, and viewing a target device’s information.

Through technical analysis, the center believes that the “NOPEN” Trojan horse is characterized by complex technology, comprehensive functions and strong concealment, which can fit a variety of processor architectures and operating systems. It can also collaborate with other cyber weapons and is a typical tool used for cyber espionage.

New window system allows for long-term studies of brain activity

Bilal Haider is studying how multiple areas of the brain work together for visual perception. This could help researchers understand if neural activity “traffic jams” underlie all kinds of visual impairments: from running a red light when visual attention is elsewhere, to shedding light on the autism-affected brain.

To do this kind of work, researchers need a reliable “map” of all the visual areas with specific coordinates for each unique brain. Drawing the map requires monitoring and recording data from an active, working brain, which usually means creating a window in the skull to watch blood flow activity.

Haider’s team has developed a better approach—a new kind of window that’s more stable and allows for longer-term studies. The assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University explains how in a paper published in February in Scientific Reports.

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