While there are plenty of companies using insects to manage waste, including Goterra, Better Origin and AgriProtein, Insectta is extracting more than agricultural products from black soldier flies. With funding from Trendlines Agrifood Fund and government grants, Insectta is procuring high-value biomaterials from the byproducts of these larvae.
In Singapore, the amount of generated food waste has increased 20% over the past decade. Startup Insectta is turning to maggots to take a bite out of the problem.
Tools for altering gene expression—CRISPRi, CRISPRa, CRISPRoff, and CRISPRon—and CRISPR-compatible cellular models are opening new research possibilities.
A hair-like protein hidden inside bacteria serves as a sort of on-off switch for nature’s “electric grid,” a global web of bacteria-generated nanowires that permeates all oxygen-less soil and deep ocean beds, Yale researchers report in the journal Nature. “The ground beneath our feet, the entire globe, is electrically wired,” said Nikhil Malvankar, assistant professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at the Microbial Sciences Institute at Yale’s West Campus and senior author of the paper. “These previously hidden bacterial hairs are the molecular switch controlling the release of nanowires that make up nature’s electrical grid.”
Almost all living things breathe oxygen to get rid of excess electrons when converting nutrients into energy. Without access to oxygen, however, soil bacteria living deep under oceans or buried underground over billions of years have developed a way to respire by “breathing minerals,” like snorkeling, through tiny protein filaments called nanowires.
Just how these soil bacteria use nanowires to exhale electricity, however, has remained a mystery. Since 2,005 scientists had thought that the nanowires are made up of a protein called “pili” (“hair” in Latin) that many bacteria show on their surface. However, in research published 2019 and 2020, a team led by Malvankar showed that nanowires are made of entirely different proteins. “This was a surprise to everyone in the field, calling into question thousands of publications about pili,” Malvankar said.
“It watches what you’ve done in the past, what you’ve gotten right, and what you’ve gotten wrong,” he explained. “And then it tries to give you things that are not too easy or not too hard, but are sort of what educational psychologists would say are in your ‘zone of proximal development.’”.
In the wake of a noted IPO, EdTech player Duolingo showed off AI-infused updates to its language lesson platform.
Lasers that ‘softly’ burn paper could be the next evolution in printing. Former students of the University of Technology in Delft, Netherlands, have developed a technology that can print on any kind of paper without consumables, such as toner or ink.
This technique is not unlike burning paper using a magnifying glass and sunlight.
The same principle has been created in a laboratory using an infra-red laser ray, which passes through the set of special lenses and burns the paper, printing black carbon dots.
Circa 2015 Clues of the genetic material in vultures could give rise to humans that have immunity to nearly all bacteria and viruses.
WASHINGTON WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A diet of putrid rotting flesh may not be your cup of tea, but to the cinereous vulture, found across southern Europe and Asia, it is positively delightful. This tough bird, it turns out, is genetically wired to thrive on the stuff.
Researchers on Tuesday said they have sequenced the genome of this big scavenger, also called the Eurasian black vulture, identifying genetic traits that account for a stalwart stomach and powerful immune system that let it carry on eating carrion.
They pinpointed genetic features related to gastric acid secretion that help explain this vulture’s ability to digest carcasses and other features linked to its immune system defense against microbial and viral infections from decomposing flesh.
Zolgensma – which treats spinal muscular atrophy, a rare genetic disease that damages nerve cells, leading to muscle decay – is currently the most expensive drug in the world. A one-time treatment of the life-saving drug for a young child costs US$2.1 million.
While Zolgensma’s exorbitant price is an outlier today, by the end of the decade there’ll be dozens of cell and gene therapies, costing hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for a single dose. The Food and Drug Administration predicts that by2025it will be approving 10 to 20 cell and gene therapies every year.
I’m a biotechnology and policy expert focused on improving access to cell and gene therapies. While these forthcoming treatments have the potential to save many lives and ease much suffering, health care systems around the world aren’t equipped to handle them. Creative new payment systems will be necessary to ensure everyone has equal access to these therapies.
Bill Gates made headlines for becoming the largest private farmland owner in the U.S. But he’s not the only one. Some of the wealthiest landowners including Jeff Bezos, John Malone and Thomas Peterffy are buying up forests, ranches and farmlands across the United States. Why? Watch the video to find out.
Investments in farmland are growing across the country as people, including the ultra-wealthy like Bill Gates, look for new ways to grow their money.
In 2,020 Gates made headlines for becoming the largest private farmland owner in the U.S. He had accumulated more than 269,000 acres of farmland across 18 states in less than a decade. His farmland grows onions, carrots and even the potatoes that are used to make McDonald’s French fries.
“It’s an asset with increasing value,” American Farmland Trust CEO John Piotti said. “It has great intrinsic value and beyond that, it is a limited resource.”
