DNA damage by radiation is a concern for space travelers. New experiments on the ISS show that CRISPR gene editing tools can function in space and can potentially be used to mitigate these effects.
Image credit: Norbert Kowalczyk Unsplash
Studying DNA repair is key to future space exploration, which could expose humans to risk of DNA damage caused by radiation. Conditions in space also could affect the way the body repairs such damage, potentially compounding that risk.
The jet’s interior includes two private suites with VIP seats that can carry 31 passengers.
The Human Cell Atlas is the world’s largest, growing single-cell reference atlas. It contains references of millions of cells across tissues, organs and developmental stages. These references help physicians to understand the influences of aging, environment and disease on a cell—and ultimately diagnose and treat patients better. Yet, reference atlases do not come without challenges. Single-cell datasets may contain measurement errors (batch effect), the global availability of computational resources is limited and the sharing of raw data is often legally restricted.
Researchers from Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) developed a novel algorithm called “scArches,” short for single-cell architecture surgery. The biggest advantage: “Instead of sharing raw data between clinics or research centers, the algorithm uses transfer learning to compare new datasets from single-cell genomics with existing references and thus preserves privacy and anonymity. This also makes annotating and interpreting of new data sets very easy and democratizes the usage of single-cell reference atlases dramatically,” says Mohammad Lotfollahi, the leading scientist of the algorithm.
Genes can respond to coded information in signals—or filter them out entirely.
New research from North Carolina State University demonstrates that genes are capable of identifying and responding to coded information in light signals, as well as filtering out some signals entirely. The study shows how a single mechanism can trigger different behaviors from the same gene—and has applications in the biotechnology sector.
“The fundamental idea here is that you can encode information in the dynamics of a signal that a gene is receiving,” says Albert Keung, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State. “So, rather than a signal simply being present or absent, the way in which the signal is being presented matters.”
For this study, researchers modified a yeast cell so that it has a gene that produces fluorescent proteins when the cell is exposed to blue light.
Spot enables safe, reliable inspections — even in remote or hazardous locations — and unlocks repeatable, frequent data about your operations. https://bit.ly/2WxqjoN
Mobile robots enable safe, reliable inspections, even in remote or hazardous locations.
Scientists from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology say they have found a way to rejuvenate the aging process of the body’s immune system.
Prof. Doron Melamed and doctoral student Reem Dowery sought to understand why the elderly population is more susceptible to severe cases of COVID-19 and why the vaccines seem to be less effective and wane faster among this population.
The results of their work were published this month in the peer-reviewed, online medical journal Blood.
Posted in physics
A CERN photographer and videographer writes about his experiences documenting the ongoing upgrade that will turn the Large Hadron Collider into the High-Luminosity LHC.
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As work in real and model embryos movesforward, scientists are keen to know how similar the two really are. Finding out how models differ in their molecular details, and how their cells behave, is the main reason researchers wish to push beyond 14 days in real embryos. “We can learn a lot from a model,” says Jesse Veenvliet, a developmental biologist at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany. “But it’s important to know where it goes wrong.”
Researchers are now permitted to grow human embryos in the lab for longer than 14 days. Here’s what they could learn.
Russian start-up NTechLab has released FindFace Multi, a detection technology that uses an advanced algorithm to recognize not only faces, but also bodies of people and cars. This is an update to the company’s flagship product and is able to support numerous video streams and facial database entries.
Body recognition allows FindFace Multi users to count and search people moving through an environment as well as identifying individuals and tracking movements. The algorithm also takes into account markers such as height, color of clothes and accessories.
The vehicle recognition function determines the body type, color, manufacturer, and model of a car, as well as searching by license plate. Even if license plates, or parts of the vehicle are not visible or obscured, the system can still identify a car.
