Summary: Boosting the expression of the ABCC1 gene may not only reduce amyloid plaques in the brain, it might also delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
Source: TGen.
Findings of a study by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, suggest that increasing expression of a gene known as ABCC1 could not only reduce the deposition of a hard plaque in the brain that leads to Alzheimer’s disease, but might also prevent or delay this memory-robbing disease from developing.
Qubits offer a fast, highly reliable way to solve one of the great mysteries in physics. Some kind of invisible material is out there affecting the motions of stars and galaxies, but thus far, no one has been able to directly detect the substance—called dark matter—itself. But some are hoping that.
Audio content production company Aflorithmic and digital human creators UneeQ have collaborated to synthesize the voice of renowned historical scientist, Albert Einstein.
Both organizations intend to give users the opportunity to ask a life-like Einstein AI practical questions, just as if they were engaging the real-life physicist himself. The companies claim to have chosen Einstein due to his famous reputation as an actual genius, historical icon, technology enthusiast and someone they felt many people would actually want to ask many questions.
For the Einstein proof of concept, UneeQ has combined visual character rendering techniques with an advanced computational knowledge engine in order to make this prototype as realistic as possible. In terms of resurrecting an authentic voice based on the real Albert Einstein, however, researchers had little go on. The only accounts they managed to uncover from historical records reported Einstein to have a heavy German accent and that he spoke, slowly, wisely and kindly in a high-pitched tone.
Someday, scientists believe, tiny DNA-based robots and other nanodevices will deliver medicine inside our bodies, detect the presence of deadly pathogens, and help manufacture increasingly smaller electronics.
Researchers took a big step toward that future by developing a new tool that can design much more complex DNA robots and nanodevices than were ever possible before in a fraction of the time.
In a paper published today in the journal Nature Materials, researchers from The Ohio State University—led by former engineering doctoral student Chao-Min Huang—unveiled new software they call MagicDNA.
Researchers are blurring the lines between science and art by showing how a laser can be used to create artistic masterpieces in a way that mirrors classical paints and brushes. The new technique not only creates paint-like strokes of color on metal but also offers a way to change or erase colors.
“We developed a way to use a laser to create localized color on a metallic canvas using a technique that heats the metal to the point where it evaporates,” said research team leader Vadim Veiko from ITMO University in Russia. “With this approach, an artist can create miniature art that conveys complex meaning not only through shape and color but also through various laser-induced microstructures on the surface.”
In Optica, The Optica l Society’s (OSA) journal, Veiko and colleagues show that their new laser tools can be used to create unique colorful paintings, including a miniature version of Van Gogh’s painting “The Starry Night.”
In a research paper published in Nature Aging, the team reports using a novel approach to provide the first data-driven classification of multiple diseases obtained using human genetic and medical data freely available from the UK Biobank.
Co-author Professor Linda Partridge (UCL Institute of Health Aging and Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging) said: Advancing age is the main risk for major diseases, including cancer, dementia, and cardiovascular disease. Understanding the molecular links between the aging process and age-related diseases could allow them to be targeted with drugs to improve late-life health.
The striking finding from the study was that diseases with a similar age of onset were genetically more similar to each other than they were to diseases in the other three clusters.
CRISPR: Can we control it? Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo. Learn skills from the world’s top minds at Big Think Edge: https://bigth.ink/Edge. ——————————————————————————— CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is a revolutionary technology that gives scientists the ability to alter DNA. On the one hand, this tool could mean the elimination of certain diseases. On the other, there are concerns (both ethical and practical) about its misuse and the yet-unknown consequences of such experimentation.
“The technique could be misused in horrible ways,” says counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke lists biological weapons as one of the potential threats, “Threats for which we don’t have any known antidote.” CRISPR co-inventor, biochemist Jennifer Doudna, echos the concern, recounting a nightmare involving the technology, eugenics, and a meeting with Adolf Hitler.
Should humanity even have access to this type of tool? Do the positives outweigh the potential dangers? How could something like this ever be regulated, and should it be? These questions and more are considered by Doudna, Clarke, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, psychologist Steven Pinker, and physician Siddhartha Mukherjee. ——————————————————————————— TRANSCRIPT:
The researchers believe that this shade of white may be the polar opposite equivalent of the blackest black – known as “Vantablack” – which absorbs up to 99.9% of visible light. An earlier version developed by the Purdue team in October last year reflected 95.5% of sunlight. However, this latest version is even more efficient with up to 98.1% reflected and keeps surfaces even cooler.
Typical commercial white paint gets warmer, rather than cooler. Paints on the market that are designed to reject heat reflect only 80%-90% of sunlight and can’t make surfaces cooler than their surroundings.
Starship SN15 is expected to undergo a Static Fire test as early as Tuesday to clear the path for a test flight no earlier than Wednesday as SpaceX’s rapidly reusable interplanetary launch and landing system gained a massive sign of NASA approval – and a ton of government cash to boot.
SpaceX was the sole winner of NASA’s initial Human Landing System (HLS) award worth in total more than $2.9 billion, meaning the human return to the Moon’s surface will be via Starship.
