From an emerging golden age in medicine to Microsoft’s quantum supercomputer, check out this week’s awesome tech stories from around the web.
Bacteria that contribute to gum disease may be a cause of the gynaecological condition endometriosis, which means it could be treated with antibiotics.
By Grace Wade
“This year, we’re introducing new features that use AI to help fans gain more insight and access commentary through our match highlights videos.”
Wimbledon, one of the most prestigious tennis tournaments in the world, is set to revolutionize its coverage this year by introducing artificial intelligence-powered commentary and analysis, according to a press release. The All England Club has partnered with tech giant IBM to offer fans a unique immersive experience with AI-generated audio commentary and captions in online highlights videos.
IBM, pioneers of AI-curated video highlights which earned the IBM Consulting team an Emmy Award, trained its bleeding-edge Watson AI platform in tennis… More.
Continue reading “Wimbledon to use IBM tech to power AI commentary for online highlights” »
Research from the Babraham Institute has developed a method to ‘time jump’ human skin cells by 30 years, turning back the ageing clock for cells without losing their specialised function. Work by researchers in the Institute’s Epigenetics research programme has been able to partly restore the function of older cells, as well as rejuvenating the molecular measures of biological age. The research is published today in the journal eLife and whilst at an early stage of exploration, it could revolutionise regenerative medicine.
What is regenerative medicine?
As we age, our cells’ ability to function declines and the genome accumulates marks of ageing. Regenerative biology aims to repair or replace cells including old ones. One of the most important tools in regenerative biology is our ability to create ‘induced’ stem cells. The process is a result of several steps, each erasing some of the marks that make cells specialised. In theory, these stem cells have the potential to become any cell type, but scientists aren’t yet able to reliably recreate the conditions to re-differentiate stem cells into all cell types.
Researchers have discovered a type of white blood cell in the lungs, called senescent macrophages, that promote tumor growth.
Some mutations were like a tax rebate and raised the propensity of TAR to adopt its biologically active structures, while other modifications raised the tax and decreased the odds that TAR would adopt a biologically active structure.
Hidden mechanism may lead to new drugs
“What we found was a hidden mechanism for controlling the activity of a molecule in a cell,” says Al-Hashimi. By altering the propensity of TAR to form biologically active states—by changing the tax rate—the researchers could fine-tune the molecule’s activity in cells.
Just as space holds infinite mysteries, when we zoom in at the level of biomolecules (one trillion times smaller than a meter), there is still so much to learn.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Catherine Royer is dedicated to understanding the conformational landscapes of biomolecules and how they modulate cell function. When biomolecules receive certain inputs, it can cause the atoms to rearrange and the biomolecule to change shape. This change in shape affects their function in cells, so understanding conformational dynamics is critical for drug development.
In research recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Royer and her team examined the conformational dynamics of a human transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) under high hydrostatic pressure. The high pressure led to an increased population of the tRNA-excited states that normally exist at very low levels, allowing new insights into tRNA function.
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ElevenLabs, a year-old AI startup from former Google and Palantir employees that is focused on creating new text-to-speech and voice cloning tools, has raised $19 million in a series A round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), former Github CEO Nat Friedman and former Apple AI leader Daniel Gross, with additional participation from Credo Ventures, Concept Ventures and an array of strategic angel investors including Instagram’s co-founder Mike Krieger, Oculus VR co-founder Brendan Iribe and many others.
A recent study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition determined whether marine omega-3 fatty acid (FA) consumption increases atrial fibrillation (AF) risk among United States military veterans.
Study: Dietary ω-3 fatty acids and the incidence of atrial fibrillation in the Million Veteran Program. Image Credit: Natali _ Mis / Shutterstock.com.
Researchers have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells, according to media reports. Remarkably, these embryos have reportedly been created from embryonic stem cells, meaning they do not require sperm and ova.
This development, widely described as a breakthrough that could help scientists learn more about human development and genetic disorders, was revealed this week in Boston at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.
The research, announced by Professor Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz of the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology, has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But Żernicka-Goetz told the meeting these human-like embryos had been made by reprogramming human embryonic stem cells.
