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Researchers from John Hopkins University together with Dr. Brett Kagan, chief scientist at Cortical Labs in Melbourne, have recently led the development of the DishBrain project, in which human cells in a petri dish learnt to play Pong.
The team claims that biological computers could surpass today’s electronic computers for certain applications while using a small fraction of the electricity required by today’s computers and server farms.
Researchers say immune cells in people with schizophrenia may hamper the growth of blood cells in their brain.
The evolution of the human eye has long been considered one of biology’s more challenging mysteries, drawing debate over the sequence of steps required to turn rudimentary sensitivity to light into a complex photographic system.
New research suggests some components of vertebrate vision may not have been shaped incrementally as their genes passed down family lines, but were ‘stolen’ from entirely different branches of life.
“At least one innovation that led to the current structure of vertebrate eyes did not occur from stepwise “tinkering” with genes that exist in other animals, but came from introduction of novel DNA from bacteria by horizontal gene transfer,” explains molecular biologist Matt Daugherty from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) on Twitter.
Sources:
https://sites.google.com/view/sources-complement-system.
One of the key players of our immune system is the complement system. An army of millions and trillions of tiny bombs, which work together in a complex and elegant dance to stop intruders in your body.
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In this animation, the differences between bacteria and viruses are explained. How does a bacterium or virus enter the body? And what are typical complaints of a viral or bacterial infection? Finally, the different treatments for bacterial and viral infections are mentioned.
Health TV makes complex medical information easy to understand. With 2D and 3D animations checked by medical doctors, we give information on certain diseases: what is it, wat are the causes and how is it treated? Subscribe to our Youtube channel and learn more about your health!
Healthchannel attempts to make complex medical information easy to understand. With 2D and 3D animations checked by medical doctors, we give information on certain diseases: what is it, wat are the causes and how is it treated? Subscribe to our Youtube channel and learn more about your health!
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Posted in biotech/medical, education, genetics
https://youtube.com/watch?v=QHHrph7zDLw&feature=share
How do viruses make more copies of themselves? They do this by taking over human cells. When a virus infects a cell, it hijacks the protein-making machinery of the cell by releasing its own genetic code, or instructions, into the cell. Now, instead of making proteins for the body, the cell starts working for the virus, helping it replicate. The cell makes more and more virus particles that are released to go on and infect more cells.
Play a Kahoot! trivia game based on this animation: http://www.vaccinemakers.org/trivia.
Watch the related animation, “A Virus Attacks a Cell,” to learn how viruses get into our cells to begin the process of reproduction: https://youtu.be/jkNxmTrrZSk.
Animation created by and for the Vaccine Makers Project.
The Vaccine Makers Project gratefully acknowledges the ongoing collaboration and partnership with XVIVO, creator of medical animations and scientific media: https://xvivo.com.
Copyright © 2016, Medical History Pictures, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Vaccine Makers Project (VMP) is the classroom-based program of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (VEC at CHOP). The Center’s team is composed of scientists, physicians, mothers and fathers devoted to the study and prevention of infectious diseases. The Center was launched in October 2000 to provide accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date information about vaccines and the diseases they prevent. The VMP program is committed to public education about vaccine science via scientifically supported, historically accurate, and emotionally compelling content.
Access the VMP’s free classroom materials: http://www.VaccineMakers.org.
A tiny computer chip was implanted into seven mice at once
The implant created by the engineers at Columbia is record-breakingly small, but it’s also breaking new ground in simply existing as a wholly functional, electronic circuit whose total volume is less than 0.1 cubic millimeter. In other words, it’s the size of a dust mite, not to mention far more compact than the world’s smallest computer, which is a cube-shaped device precisely 0.01-inches (0.3 mm) on each side. The smaller, new chip is only visible with a microscope, and pushed the envelope in power-sourcing and communications ingenuity design.
Typically, small electronics feature radio frequency (RF) modules capable of transmitting and receiving electromagnetic signals, this method generates wavelengths too large to originate from devices as small as the new one. Alternatively, ultrasound wavelengths are far smaller at specific frequencies because the speed of sound is a lot slower than the speed of light at which all electromagnetic waves move. Consequently, the Colombia team of engineers integrated a piezoelectric transducer capable of functioning like an “antenna” for wireless communication and powering using ultrasound waves.
Finally got around to reading through the Feng Zhang laboratory’s amazing SEND (Selective Endogenous ENcapsidation for cellular Delivery) paper!
[Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg6155] The authors describe a new gene therapy delivery vehicle which leverages virus-like particles (VLPs) originally produced within human cells. These VLPs arise from ancient retroviral genomic fragments that were integrated into the human genome long ago and eventually were utilized to benefit our own physiology. Because they are recognized as ‘self’ by the immune system, the VLPs have potential as a novel gene therapy delivery modality. In this paper, Segel et al.
Aera’s strategy is to harness these proteins, and structures, to move the cargo of genetic medicines: RNAi, antisense RNA, mRNA, or a genetic editing payload, for example. To date, proteins and nucleic acids have been packaged. The company’s first goal is to move smaller nucleic acids like ASOs and siRNA from cell to cell.
What is known about PNPs is “quite limited,” said Akinc. Their role in the human body is particularly opaque. The literature goes back only to 2018. They are called virus-like particles (VLPs) in the literature, but Aera thinks that PNP is a more technically accurate name.
Aera Therapeutics is announcing its launch today, they said, with “a vision to harness its proprietary delivery platform to unlock the potential of genetic medicines.” Akinc doesn’t specify any disease targets but emphasizes the unmet need for diseases that affect the central nervous system.
The pandemic also helped by normalizing remote work.
A new report by Vice.
“That’s the only reason I got my job this year,” one worker referred to only as Ben said of OpenAI’s tool.
Fulltimetraveller/iStock.
Artificial-intelligence tools can enable remote workers to not just more than one job, but to do them with time left to spare. Vice spoke anonymously to various workers holding down two to four full-time jobs with help from these tools and they all were in agreement that it is an ideal way to increase one’s income.
Senescent cells are those that have stopped dividing but haven’t read the “time to die” memo. Instead, they hang around, accumulating in the body and fueling chronic inflammation – sometimes called inflammaging – which in turn, contributes to conditions such cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, sarcopenia and degenerative disorders.
Longevity. Technology: In mice, eliminating senescent cells from aging tissues can restore tissue balance and lead to an increased healthy lifespan. Now a team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of Mass General Brigham (MGB), has found that the immune response to a virus that is ubiquitously present in human tissues can detect and eliminate senescent cells in the skin [1].
For the study, which is published in Cell, the scientists analyzed young and old human skin samples to learn more about the clearance of senescent cells in human tissue.
