Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 1178

Genome editing stands as one of the most transformative scientific breakthroughs of our time. It allows us to dive into the very code of life and make precise modifications. Imagine being able to rewrite the genetic instructions that determine almost everything about an organism—how it looks, behaves, interacts with its environment, and its unique characteristics. This is the power of genome editing.

We use genome editing tools to tweak the genetic sequences of microbes, animals, and plants. Our goal? To develop desired traits and eliminate unwanted ones. This technology’s impact has been felt across biotechnology, human therapeutics, and agriculture, bringing rapid advancements and solutions.

The most widely used proteins in genome editing are Cas9 and Cas12a. These proteins are like the scissors of the genetic world, allowing us to cut and edit DNA. However, they are quite bulky, consisting of 1,000–1,350 amino acids. Advanced editing technologies like base editing and prime editing require the fusion of additional proteins with Cas9 and Cas12a, making them even bulkier. This bulkiness poses a challenge to delivering these proteins efficiently into cells, where the resides.

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Skild AI, a startup that’s developing artificial intelligence-powered brains for robots, said today it has closed on a bumper $300 million early-stage funding round, bringing its valuation to a cool $1.5 billion.

The Series A round was led by a host of top-tier venture capital firms, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue, Softbank Group Corp. and Jeff Bezos’s Bezos Expeditions. It also saw participation from the likes of Felicis Ventures, Sequoia, Menlo Ventures, General Catalyst, CRV, Amazon, SV Angel and Carnegie Mellon University.

Skild AI is building what it says is a “shared, general-purpose brain” that will be able to equip a diverse group of robots that can perform multiple kinds of tasks in a wide range of scenarios, such as manipulating objects, locomotion and navigation. It says its AI intelligence can be integrated with any kind of robot, including humanoid bots with advanced computer vision skills designed to perform dexterous manipulation of objects in the home and in industrial settings, and more resilient quadruped robots that can navigate any physical environment.

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Scientists have for the first time observed how atoms in magnesium oxide morph and melt under ultra-harsh conditions, providing new insights into this key mineral within Earth’s mantle that is known to influence planet formation.

High-energy laser experiments — which subjected tiny crystals of the mineral to the type of heat and pressure found deep inside a rocky planet’s mantle — suggest the compound could be the earliest mineral to solidify out of magma oceans in forming “super-Earth” exoplanets.

“Magnesium oxide could be the most important solid controlling the thermodynamics of young super-Earths,” said June Wicks, an assistant professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University who led the research. “If it has this very high melting temperature, it would be the first solid to crystallize when a hot, rocky planet starts to cool down and its interior separates into a core and a mantle.”

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Scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine discovered a previously unknown link between two key pathways that regulate the immune system in mammals — a finding that impacts our understanding of chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). This family of disorders severely impacts the health and quality of life of more than 2 million people in the United States.

The immune system has many pathways to protect the body from infection, but sometimes an overactive immune response results in autoimmune diseases including IBD, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. Interleukin-23 (IL-23) is one such immune factor that fights infections but is also implicated in many of these inflammatory diseases. However, it was unknown why IL-23 is sometimes beneficial, and other times becomes a driver of chronic disease.

In the study, published June 12 in Nature, the team found that IL-23 acts on group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3s), a family of immune cells that are a first line of defense in mucosal tissues such as the intestines and lungs. In response, ILC3s increase activity of CTLA-4, a key regulatory factor that prevents the immune system from attacking the body and beneficial gut microbiota. This interaction critically balances the pro-inflammatory effects IL-23 to maintain gut health, but is impaired in IBD.

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Researchers at Finland’s Aalto University have found a way to use magnets to line up bacteria as they swim. The approach offers more than just a way to nudge bacteria into order – it also provides a useful tool for a wide range of research, such as work on complex materials, phase transitions and condensed matter physics.

The findings have been reported in Communications Physics (“Magnetically controlled bacterial turbulence”).

Bacterial cells generally aren’t magnetic, so the magnets don’t directly interact with the bacteria. Instead, the bacteria are mixed into a liquid with millions of magnetic nanoparticles. This means the rod-shaped bacteria are effectively non-magnetic voids inside the magnetic fluid. When the magnets are switched on, creating a magnetic field, the bacteria are nudged to line up with the magnetic field because any other arrangement takes more energy – it’s harder to keep the rod-shaped holes at an angle to the magnetic field.

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