The double-helix structure has practically become synonymous with DNA, but it isn’t the only way long strands of genetic information squeeze themselves into a tight space.
When a double-strand of DNA doubles back on itself or attaches to another double-strand, it can actually create a quadruple-stranded knot, known as a G-quadruplex.
Scientists first discovered these ‘double-double-helixes’ in living human cells in 2013, and in the years since, these knots have been found in high concentrations in cancerous cells.
Humans are pretty good at looking at a single two-dimensional image and understanding the full three-dimensional scene that it captures. Artificial intelligence agents are not.
Yet a machine that needs to interact with objects in the world—like a robot designed to harvest crops or assist with surgery—must be able to infer properties about a 3D scene from observations of the 2D images it’s trained on.
While scientists have had success using neural networks to infer representations of 3D scenes from images, these machine learning methods aren’t fast enough to make them feasible for many real-world applications.
Researchers from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and Saratov State University have come up with an inexpensive method for visualizing blood flow in the brain. The new technique is so precise it discerns the motions of individual red blood cells — all without the use of toxic dyeing agents or expensive genetic engineering. The study was published in The European Physical Journal Plus.
To understand more about how the brain’s blood supply works, researchers map its blood vessel networks. The resulting visualizations can rely on a variety of methods. One highly precise technique involves injecting fluorescent dyes into the blood flow and detecting the infrared light they emit. The problem with dyes is they are toxic and also may distort mapping results by affecting the vessels. Alternatively, researchers employ genetically modified animals, whose interior lining of blood vessels is engineered to give off light with no foreign substances involved. Both methods are very expensive, though.
Researchers from Skoltech and Saratov State University have devised an inexpensive method for visualizing even the smallest capillaries in the brain. The method — which integrates optical microscopy and image processing — is dye-free and very fine-grained, owing to its ability to detect each and every red blood cell travelling along a blood vessel. Since the number of RBCs in capillaries is not that high, every cell counts, so this is an important advantage over other methods, including dye-free ones.
Harvard University on Tuesday launched the Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence, a new University-wide initiative standing at the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence, seeking fundamental principles that underlie both human and machine intelligence. The fruits of discoveries will flow in both directions, enhancing understanding of how humans think, perceive the world around them, make decisions, and learn, thereby advancing the rapidly evolving field of AI.
The institute will be funded by a $500 million gift from Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, which was announced Tuesday by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The gift will support 10 new faculty appointments, significant new computing infrastructure, and resources to allow students to flow between labs in pursuit of ideas and knowledge. The institute’s name honors Zuckerberg’s mother, Karen Kempner Zuckerberg, and her parents — Zuckerberg’s grandparents — Sidney and Gertrude Kempner. Chan and Zuckerberg have given generously to Harvard in the past, supporting students, faculty, and researchers in a range of areas, including around public service, literacy, and cures.
“The Kempner Institute at Harvard represents a remarkable opportunity to bring together approaches and expertise in biological and cognitive science with machine learning, statistics, and computer science to make real progress in understanding how the human brain works to improve how we address disease, create new therapies, and advance our understanding of the human body and the world more broadly,” said President Larry Bacow.
In the first study of its kind, researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) have demonstrated that a stem cell-based treatment delivered through an implantable device can produce insulin in the human body.
Summary: A ten-minute run increases activation of the bilateral prefrontal cortex, improving mood and cognitive function.
Source: University of Tsukuba
Running may be a useful activity to undertake for better mental health. University of Tsukuba researchers have found that only ten minutes of moderate-intensity running increases local blood flow to the various loci in the bilateral prefrontal cortex —the part of the brain that plays an important role in controlling mood and executive functions.
What if the next global health crisis is a mental health pandemic? It is here now.
According to Gallup, anger, stress, worry and sadness have been on the rise globally for the past decade — long before the COVID-19 pandemic — and all reached record highs in 2020.
People die from COVID-19 — they also die from depression and anxiety disorders. The U.S. has seen spikes in deaths from suicide and “deaths of despair.”
Deaths of despair — a new designation made prominent by Princeton economists Anne Case and Nobel laureate Sir Angus Deaton in their book of the same name — are suicides and deaths caused by fatal behaviors such as drug overdoses and liver failure from chronic alcohol consumption. They have particularly harmed working-class males in the American heartland and increased dramatically since the mid-1990s, from about 65,000 in 1995 to 158,000 in 2018.
Think of deaths of despair as suicide in slow motion.
GlaxoSmithKline has said research shows its Covid-19 antibody treatment is effective against the full combination of mutations in the new Omicron variant.
5h ago.
Tests done in-vitro against a pseudo-virus that recreates a synthesised version of Omicron showed that sotrovimab, Glaxo’s antibody treatment, stands up to all mutations in the spike protein of the omicron variant and not just the key mutations, the drugmaker said in a statement on Tuesday. The tests included all 37 mutations identified to-date in the spike protein.
Transhumanism, briefly explained, means the modification of human beings through technology and engineering. It employs a variety of methods used to cure ailments, or upgrading humans just for the sake of it. Creating people that are smarter, stronger, healthier, or more productive.
It comes with plenty of social and ethical implications and challenges. How will we face this future? Let’s find out today.
Notes and References: [1] Harari, N.Y. (2017). Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. HarperCollins Publishing: New York, NY [2] Niller, E. (2018, August 10). Why Gene Editing Is the Next Food Revolution. Time. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/food-…ne-editing. [3] Epstein, L.R., Lee, S.S., Miller, M.F., & Lombardi, H.A. (2021). CRISPR, animals, and FDA oversight: Building a path to success. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(22) e2004831117, doi:10.1073/pnas.2004831117 [4] Park, A. (2019, August 6). CRISPR Gene Editing Is Being Tested in Human Patients, and the Results Could Revolutionize Health Care. Time. Retrieved from https://time.com/5642755/crispr-gene-editing-humans/ [5][Neuralink]. (2021, April 8). Monkey MindPong[Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsCul1sp4hQ [6] Ritchie, H., Ortiz-Ospina E. & Roser, M. (2013). Life Expectancy. OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy. [7] Sinclair, D.A. & LaPlante, M.D. (2019). Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To. Atria Books: New York, NY. [8] Kharpal, A. (2017, February 13). Elon Musk: Humans must merge with machines or become irrelevant in AI age. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/13/elon-musk-humans-merge-machi…obots.html. [9] Humanity+ —World Transhumanist Association. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://humanityplus.org.
Do you want to learn more about Transhumanism? Check out these sources! [Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell]. (2020, December 10). Can You Upload Your Mind & Live Forever?[Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b33NTAuF5E. [Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell]. (2017, October 20). Why Age? Should We End Aging Forever?[Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoJsr4IwCm4&t=1s. [Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell]. (2017, November 3). How to Cure Aging – During Your Lifetime?[Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjdpR-TY6QU [BBC Ideas]. (2019, December 31). Transhumanism: Will humans evolve to something smarter? | A-Z of ISMs Episode 20 — BBC Ideas[Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVmuU04-X5E
