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An international team of researchers has discovered evidence of 27 previously unknown viruses in bees. The finding could help scientists design strategies to prevent the spread of viral pathogens among these important pollinators.

“Populations of bees around the world are declining, and viruses are known to contribute to these declines,” said David Galbraith, research scientist at Bristol Myers Squibb and a recent Penn State graduate. “Despite the importance of bees as pollinators of flowering plants in agricultural and natural landscapes and the importance of viruses to bee health, our understanding of bee viruses is surprisingly limited.”

To investigate viruses in bees, the team collected samples of DNA and RNA, which is responsible for the synthesis of proteins, from 12 bee species in nine countries across the world. Next, they developed a novel high-throughput sequencing technique that efficiently detected both previously identified and 27 never-seen-before viruses belonging to at least six new families in a single experiment. The results appear in the June 11, 2018, issue of Scientific Reports.

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It would be silly to think we completely understand our universe, given how small the Earth is compared to the vastness of the cosmos. But from here on our tiny planet, it appears that much of the universe is missing. And I’m not just talking about dark matter. Regular stuff seems to be missing, too.

Astronomy fans probably know that as far as humans can tell, the universe is composed mostly of some mysterious, unexplained energy called dark energy that pushes it apart. The remaining piece, about a quarter, is dark matter, another unexplained thing that seems to build the universe’s skeleton. Just 4 percent is the regular matter that we can see: stars, planets, and interstellar and intergalactic gas. But the observed amount of this regular matter still falls perhaps a third short of the amount of stuff that physicists think should exist based on their models of the universe.

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Filipinos have achieved yet another milestone after contacting with the International Space Station, even interviewing an astronaut on board the habitable artificial satellite.

By Dhel Nazario

Filipinos have achieved yet another milestone after contacting with the International Space Station (ISS), even interviewing an astronaut on board the habitable artificial satellite.

A mix of Grade 11 and college students from the from the University of the Philippines Integrated School (UPIS) and electronics engineering students from the Holy Angel University (HAU) made the historical feat at the Department of Science and Technology –Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI) last May.

Continue reading “Students make first ever live interview with astronaut from the ISS” | >

An interaction between aggregate alpha synuclein and ATP synthase implicated in Parkinson’s Disease.

An open-access paper published in Nature Communications sheds light on how an accumulation of α-synuclein protein in brain cells contributes to causing Parkinson’s disease. In particular, the researchers discovered how clumps of the protein damage important proteins on mitochondrial surfaces, leading to impaired energy production, swelling and bursting of the mitochondria themselves, and, ultimately, cell death [1].

Study abstract

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From electric cars that travel hundreds of miles on a single charge to chainsaws as mighty as gas-powered versions, new products hit the market each year that take advantage of recent advances in battery technology.

But that growth has led to concerns that the world’s supply of , the metal at the heart of many of the new rechargeable batteries, may eventually be depleted.

Now researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found new evidence suggesting that batteries based on and hold promise as a potential alternative to lithium-based batteries.

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It seems reasonable that people would want to maximize various aspects of life if they were given the opportunity to do so, whether it’s the pleasure they feel, how intelligent they are, or how much personal freedom they have. In actuality, people around the world seem to aspire for more moderate levels of these and other traits, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

“Our research shows that people’s sense of perfection is surprisingly modest,” says psychological scientist Matthew J. Hornsey of the University of Queensland, first author on the research. “People wanted to have positive qualities, such as health and happiness, but not to the exclusion of other darker experiences—they wanted about 75% of a good thing.”

Furthermore, people said, on average, that they ideally wanted to live until they were 90 years old, which is only slightly higher than the current . Even when imagined that they could take a magic pill guaranteeing , their ideal life expectancy increased by only a few decades, to a median of 120 years old. And when people were invited to choose their ideal IQ, the median score was about 130—a score that would classify someone as smart, but not a genius.

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Glorious news! Undoing Aging 2019 has been announced today hosted by Forever Healthy and the SENS Research Foundation. We loved being there last year and bringing the community all the news and interviews from the event and we are delighted to see it is making a return in 2019.

We are very pleased to see that there will be a return of the successful Undoing Aging Conference in 2019. We attended the conference earlier this year, and as we reported at the time, it was a really positive experience.

This was, from the outset, a serious conference focused on the rapid science and research going on in the field and was just the kind of conference that the community needed. The conference was a superb mixture of respected researchers, investors, and thought leaders from the community, and it had no hint of the snake oil that has plagued our community in past years.

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Exciting news smile

Mountain view, california / berlin, germany.

After the incredible success of the 2018 Undoing Aging Conference with 350 participants from 36 countries and over 40 brilliant speakers, SENS Research Foundation (SRF) and Forever Healthy Foundation (FHF) are pleased to announce that Undoing Aging 2019 will take place in Berlin at the Umspannwerk Alexanderplatz from March, 28 to 30.

The conference series Undoing Aging is focused on the cellular and molecular repair of age-related damage as the basis of therapies to bring aging under full medical control. Undoing Aging 2019 will once again bring together scientists from around the globe, all pioneers in their respective fields, who are leading the charge in maintaining and restoring full health in old age.

Continue reading “The 2019 Undoing Aging Conference will take place March 28 — 30 in Berlin, Germany” | >

Some individuals worry they will discover things about their DNA that will be frightening — namely, the risks they run of contracting various diseases — and not know how to move forward with the information. Professional scientific skeptics contend the information may not even be as accurate as claimed, and lead people to make questionable health decisions. But there’s another type of risk that consumers aren’t focusing on as much, and it’s a big one: privacy. There is nothing more private than your personal genetic information, and sending away for a personal genome kit means sharing your DNA with the testing companies. What do they do with it, beyond providing consumers with genetic and health assessments?

Consumer DNA genetic testing kits are a booming business, and the biggest risk isn’t necessarily uncovering a health scare; it’s what these companies may do, or be forced to do, with your genetic data.

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