A pathbreaking study reports success in disabling an important gene that is responsible for inducing the sensation of pain. This discovery could be of invaluable assistance to millions of patients with chronic pain, helping them to manage their condition better and live with a vastly better quality of life.
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Devoted to the principle of comparative advantage in the pursuit of efficiency, this industry had forsaken resilience. As a result, this lean and agile supply chain made itself vulnerable not just to a global risk event such as Covid-19 but also to export controls such as the ones directed against Huawei. The events of the past six months are likely to force a re-evaluation of this trade-off towards building more redundancy.
Specifically, the semiconductor supply chain is susceptible to four risks.
Covid-19 is likely to accelerate the move towards more resilience in the semiconductor industry.
A new version of Google’s mapping service being rolled out will display pandemic-related transit alerts and let people know when buses or trains might be crowded.
Updated versions of the free app for smartphones powered by Apple or Google-backed Android software will also let drivers know about COVID-19 checkpoints or restrictions on their routes.
“We’re introducing features to help you easily find important information if you need to venture out, whether it’s by car or public transportation,” Google Maps product management director Ramesh Nagarajan said in a blog post.
The three-dimensional structure of the human genome is essential for providing a rapid and robust inflammatory response but is surprisingly not vital for reprogramming one cell type into another, according to research published today in Nature Genetics. The findings shed new light on the fundamental relationship between how a genome folds and the function of a cell.
3. Evolution shifts to off-world human colonies.
4. Transhumanism will drive evolution.
Is natural selection still a major force in human evolution? As far back as high school biology, we’ve been taught to think the answer must be yes. But is it really true?
Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking On the Origin of Species back in 1859, around the same time that Charles Dickens was making a name for himself writing about social conditions in England. Dickens’ stories emerge from a period in which only 50 percent of British children survived to adulthood — a number not so different from animals in the jungle. In that vein, Darwin was right when he said natural selection was operating on humans full force.
Yet the forces that came into play in the 1850s are far different from those we experience today, prompting some high profile biologists to suggest that our advanced medical capabilities have, in effect, blunted natural selection. In a 2013 Radio Times interview, science communicator David Attenborough described it this way:
Is it possible to rapidly increase (or decrease) the amount of information the brain can store?
A new international study led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) suggests it may be. Their research has identified a molecule that improves brain function and memory recall is improved. Published in the latest issue of Cell Reports, the study has implications for neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases, such as autism spectrum disorders and Alzheimer’s disease.
I remember questioning this data, as it was not even research on animals, it was observation of people’s medical files.
Three unlikely collaborators are at the heart of the fast-moving COVID-19 research scandal, which led to retractions last week by The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), and the withdrawal of an online preprint, after the trove of patient data they all relied on was challenged. The three physician-scientists never were at the same institution nor had they ever before written together, but they are the only authors in common on the disputed papers, and the other co-authors all have ties to at least one of them. Their partnership, which seized a high-impact role during a global public health crisis, has now ended disastrously.
The first author for both retracted papers was cardiac surgeon Mandeep Mehra, an eminent Harvard University professor who works at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and is known internationally for cardiovascular medicine and heart transplants. He provided the kind of gravitas that can fast-track papers to leading journals. In a statement provided by BWH, Mehra said he had met another of the trio, cardiac surgeon Amit Patel, in “academic and medical circles,” and that Patel had introduced him to Sapan Desai, a vascular surgeon and founder of Surgisphere, the tiny company that supplied the data. Journal disclosures, however, also indicate Mehra received compensation from Triple-Gene, a gene therapy company Patel co-founded to develop cardiovascular treatments.
Author partnership on coronavirus papers is “completely bizarre” and should have been a red flag, former journal editor says.
Another link on diet/healthspan.
Studies by Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI), have provided a new understanding into the roles two essential amino acids play in metabolic health, which may help scientists in the fight against obesity.
Led by Dr. Adam Rose, the recent finding, published in Nature Communications, shows that by reducing the amount of two amino acids —threonine and tryptophan—in young healthy mice, they were able to burn more calories than they consumed, without calorie reduction, keeping them lean and healthy and without the side-effect of lower muscle mass. A low-threonine diet even protected mice that were morbidly obese and prone to developing type 2 diabetes.
While a moderate reduction in dietary protein and therefore essential amino acids can enhance vitality, diets devoid of this component can make people sick very quickly and are not recommended. However, this study has shown that a reconsideration of the functions of these two amino acids in nutrition warrants further exploration.
A Minneapolis manufacturing company whose plant was set on fire by rioters plans to leave the city, saying that city officials afforded them no assistance in handling the destruction.
“They don’t care about my business,” 7-Sigma Inc.’s president and owner, Kris Wyrobek, told The Star Tribune about Minneapolis public officials. “They didn’t protect our people. We were all on our own.”
The 7-Sigma plant in south Minneapolis, which the company has maintained since 1987, shut down several hours early around 7 p.m. instead of 11 p.m. as a precautionary measure on the first night of rioting. The company manufactures several products, including rollers for high-speed printing presses and medical training mannequins.
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