Lifeboat Foundation

There’s some really interesting CRISPR news out today, and it’s likely to be a forerunner of much more news to come. A research team has demonstrated what looks like robust, long-lasting effects in a primate model after one injection of the CRISPR enzymatic machinery. There have been plenty of rodent reports on various forms of CRISPR, and there are some human trials underway, but these is the first primate numbers that I’m aware of.

The gene they chose to inactivate is PCSK9, which has been a hot topic in drug discovery for some years now. It’s a target validated by several converging lines of evidence from the human population (see the “History” section of that first link). People with overactive PCSK9 have high LDL lipoproteins and cholesterol, and people with mutations that make it inactive have extremely low LDL and seem to be protected from a lot of cardiovascular disease. There are several drugs and drug candidates out there targeting the protein, as well there might be.

It’s a good proof-of-concept, then, because we know exactly what the effects of turning down the expression of active PCSK9 should look like. It’s also got the major advantage of being mostly a liver target – as I’ve mentioned several times on the blog already, many therapies aimed at gene editing or RNA manipulation have a pharmacokinetic complication. The formulations used to get such agents intact into the body (and in a form that they can penetrate cells) tend to get combed out pretty thoroughly by the liver – which after all, is (among other things) in the business of policing the bloodstream for weird, unrecognized stuff that is then targeted for demolition by hepatocytes. Your entire bloodstream goes sluicing through the liver constantly; you’re not going to able to dodge it if your therapy is out there in the circulation. It happens to our small-molecule drugs all the time: hepatic “first pass” metabolism is almost always a factor to reckon with.

The harmfulness of pesticides to beneficial organisms is one of the most serious concerns in agriculture. Therefore scientists are eagerly looking for new, more environmentally friendly and species-specific solutions. Researchers at the Estonian University of Life Sciences, Ghent and the University of Maastricht took a long step forward in this regard.

The detrimental impact of pesticides on non-target organisms is one of the most urgent concerns in current agriculture. Double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) represent the most species-specific class of pesticides to date, potentially allowing control of a target pest without effecting other species. The unprecedented target-specificity of dsRNA is due to its nucleotide sequence-specific mode of action that results in post-transcriptional gene silencing, or RNA interference (RNAi), in the target species. The development and field use of dsRNAs, via both the insertion of transgenes into the plant genome and the application of dsRNA sprays, is a rapidly growing area of research. Simultaneously, there exists the growing prospect of harnessing RNAi within integrated pest management schemes.

Using the pollen beetle (Brassicogethes aeneus) and its host crop oilseed rape (Brassica napus) as a model crop-pest system, a team of researchers collectively from Estonian University of Life Sciences, Ghent University and Maastricht University examined how RNAi efficacy depends on duration of dietary exposure to dsRNA. To this end, the authors applied dsRNA (specifically designed to induce RNAi in the pollen beetle) to oilseed rape flowers, and analyzed RNAi-induced mortality between insects chronically fed dsRNA and insects fed dsRNA for 3 days. Most notably, their data suggest that, with chronic dietary exposure to dsRNA, reduced dsRNA concentrations can be applied in order to achieve a similar effect compared to short-term (e.g. 3 days) exposure to higher concentrations. This observation has important implications for optimizing dsRNA spray approaches to managing crop pests.

Thank you to China for trying to surpass the USA in Ai, otherwise they’d never open the wallet to fund this AI research. AGI 2025!!

China is showcasing its advances in the field of artificial intelligence — at an annual tech-themed forum.
It is being held in the port city of Tianjin.
Super computers, rockets and robots are among the innovations on display.
The event comes just months after the United States National Security Commission said that China is on track to overtake the US as the world’s AI superpower.
Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu reports.

Continue reading “China showcases artificial intelligence advances” »

Network defenders face the constant challenge of effectively preventing, detecting, and responding to cyber incidents.

Our new Scalable Warning and Resilience Model (SWARM) can help enable defenders to proactively protect their systems.

Today’s evolving cyber threats require a tailored and targeted approach to cybersecurity. Current defenses focus on managing threats after a network has been breached. RAND’s Scalable Warning and Resilience Model (SWARM) can help defenders proactively protect their systems through early warning of cyber incidents before they occur.

Israel’s Aquarius Engines this week gave the world a first look at the tiny hydrogen engine it hopes can supplant gas engine-generators and hydrogen fuel cells in future electrified vehicles. Weighing just 22 lb (10 kg), the simple engine uses a single moving piston to develop power. Beyond vehicles, Aquarius is developing the engine for use as an off-grid micro-generator.

First created in 2014, Aquarius’ efficient single-piston linear engine has a single central cylinder in which the piston moves between two engine heads. In previous iterations, Aquarius used more conventional fossil fuels to create combustion, but now it’s turning attention to emissions-slashing hydrogen. The company says Austrian engineering firm AVL-Schrick recently completed third-party testing, verifying that a modified version of the engine can operate purely on hydrogen.

“It was always our dream at Aquarius Engines to breathe oxygen into hydrogen technology as the fuel of the future,” explains Aquarius chairman Gal Fridman. “From initial tests, it appears that our hydrogen engine, that doesn’t require costly hydrogen fuel-cells, could be the affordable, green and sustainable answer to the challenges faced by global transport and remote energy production.”

A variety of molecules protrude from the cell surface, including glycoproteins, glycolipids, and the newly discovered glycoRNAs. This illustration depicts RNA as a double-stranded stem and a loop, and the glycan as a Tinkertoy-like structure branching off it. Credit: Emily M. Eng/R. Flynn et al./Cell 2021.

Sugars attach to certain RNA molecules on the outside membrane of the cell. The newly discovered “glycoRNAs” may be involved in immune signaling.

In a surprise find, scientists have discovered sugar-coated RNA molecules decorating the surface of cells.

French businesses are betting on insects as food. We explore the off-limit foods that might soon be on our plates.

Check out VICE News for more: http://vicenews.com.

Continue reading “Inside One of the World’s Largest Edible Insect Factories” »

See how we developed Hybrid rockets and launched them from high altitude balloon initially with the Huntsville Alabama L5 Society (HAL5)‘s High Altitude Lift-Off (HALO) Program and later with our High Altitude Research Corporation (HARC). See our Balloon Launch Return Vehicle (BLRV) and our HARC Cheap Access to Space (CATS) Prize rocket. Hear some of our war stories from these adventures. A balloon launched rocket is known as a rockoon.

Watch next week for a related interview, The Inside Scoop on Virgin Galactic with Tim Pickens.

Continue reading “HALO & HARC Balloon Launched Hybrid Rockets with Bill Brown” »

Home batteries are becoming increasingly popular ways to store solar energy to power houses at night, but what if one could make the whole house a battery? Rechargeable cement batteries prove the idea is possible, even if it has a long way to go to be affordable.

Dr Emma Zhang of Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, mixed 0.9 percent carbon fibers into cement and poured it over a metal-coated carbon fiber mesh to make concrete blocks. In the journal Buildings, Zhang and colleagues report that with iron anodes and nickel cathodes these blocks become rechargeable batteries.

At 0.8 Watthours per liter, Zhang’s battery is hundreds of times less energy-dense than a lithium-ion battery, and completely useless for transportation purposes. However, it stores about ten times more energy than previous rechargeable concrete batteries. These, Zhang said in a statement; “Showed very low performance,” forcing her and colleagues to seek new ideas on how to produce the electrodes.