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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,752

CRISPR-edited rice plants increase grain yield

Scientists from Purdue University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences report the use of CRISPR/Cas9 to develop a variety of rice producing 25–31% more grain than traditional breeding methods.

crispr future technology

The team, led by Jian-Kang Zhu, a distinguished professor in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at Purdue and director of the Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, made mutations to 13 genes associated with the plant hormone abscisic acid – known to play roles in plant stress tolerance and suppression of growth. Of several varieties created, one produced a plant that had little change in stress tolerance but produced 25% more grain in a field test in Shanghai, China, and 31% more in a field test conducted on China’s Hainan Island.

Live forever or die trying: Meet the biohackers who fear their work could get them killed

Long story in The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/…/biohacking-transhumanism-aa… #transhumanism #biohacking

On the morning of 29 April, staff at the Soulex spa in Washington DC discovered the lifeless body of one of its clients lying face down in a sensory deprivation tank. The body was that of 28-year-old Aaron Traywick, who less than three months earlier had injected himself live on stage at an event in Austin, Texas, with an untested gene therapy that he claimed could cure herpes.

Stories soon spread about the discovery of Traywick’s body, with some inferring a potential link between the DIY herpes treatment and his untimely death. But those who knew the young entrepreneur and were familiar with the work he did suspected something much more sinister.

Traywick was part of a fringe but steadily growing community known as body hackers – or biohackers – whose modest goal is to cure disease, end ageing and ultimately stop death. “Why this test is so important,” he said on stage in Austin, just before injecting himself in the leg with the therapy, “is because if we succeed with herpes in even the most minor of ways, then we can move forward immediately with cancer.”

Here’s Why AI Can’t Solve Everything

The hysteria about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere. There seems to be no shortage of sensationalist news about how AI could cure diseases, accelerate human innovation and improve human creativity.

Just looking at the media headlines, you might think that we are already living in a future where AI has infiltrated every aspect of society.

While it is undeniable that AI has opened up a wealth of promising opportunities, it has also led to the emergence of a mindset that can be best described as “AI solutionism”. This is the philosophy that, given enough data, machine learning algorithms can solve all of humanity’s problems.

We want to declare ageing a disease

This in depth story has recently been translated to English: https://ciencias.uautonoma.cl/…/we-want-to-declare-ageing-a…?

Zoltan Istvan is currently a Libertarian candidate for Governor in California, also former 2016’s US presidential candidate for the Transhumanist Party and he is known around the world as someone that advocates for Transhumanism, a public figure in science and technology.

Dr. Marcela Gatica-Andrades and Nadia Politis from Science Communication Center interviewing Zoltan Istvan.

Pictures: Pablo Madariaga

PRESS RELEASE: Tactical Robotics’ Cormorant Achieves IDF Mission Demo Milestone

On May 7th, Tactical Robotics (a subsidiary of Urban Aeronautics Ltd), based in Yavne. Israel, successfully performed a first “mission representative” demonstration for its lead customer, the Israel Defence Forces. This milestone was announced for the first time today at the Israel Combat Rescue and Emergency Medicine conference where the company also presented Cormorant’s capability to be the first UAS system fielded for unmanned casualty evacuation missions.

New Harvard Startup Wants to Reverse Aging in Dogs and then Humans

Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School has co-founded a new startup company, Rejuvenate Bio, which has plans to reverse aging in dogs as a way to market anti-aging therapies for our furry friends before bringing them to us.

Dogs first, humans next

The company has already carried some initial tests on beagles and plans to reverse aging by using gene therapy to add new instructions to their DNA. If it works, the goal is ultimately to try the same approach in people, and George Church may be one the first human volunteers.

A sensor could monitor gut health via engineered bacteria

Esearchers have devised a new way to get a sneak peek into what’s going on deep in your digestive system, creating a swallowable sensor that, with the help of engineered bacteria and a tiny electrical circuit, can detect the presence of molecules that might be signs of disease and then beam the results to a smartphone app.

The device, which scientists validated in pigs, remains a prototype and needs to be refined before it could be used in people. But the researchers, who reported their work Thursday in the journal Science, combined innovations in synthetic biology and microelectronics to create a modular platform that could be adapted to identify a wide range of molecules.

This 3D Printer Can Help Grow Organs With Scaffolding Made Out of Sugar

Sugar, that amazingly sweet treat some of us just can’t get enough of, has long been the fascination of children (and those with a child-like sweet tooth).

Its ability to be melted down into a glass-like substance enables confectionery artists to create tasty displays worthy of museums, or being served as a 3D printed dessert.

In fact, the same properties which make sugar so wonderful for cooking and designing also make it great for science.

Nanoparticles carry drug duo into the brain to fight cancer

Glioblastoma is one of the most deadly forms of cancer. Affecting the brain, those unlucky enough to receive a diagnosis don’t have many treatment options – and usually a median life expectancy of just over a year. Now, researchers at MIT have developed nanoparticles that could provide hope, crossing the blood-brain barrier and delivering two types of drugs to fight tumors.

The MIT nanoparticles are liposomes, fatty droplets that can carry one drug on the inside and another in the outer layer. On the inside, the particles were loaded with a common chemotherapy drug called temozolomide, while the outer shell contained a more experimental substance known as JQ-1.

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