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Jul 21, 2020
IBM Seriously Just Turned an Atom Into The World’s Smallest Hard Drive
Posted by Quinn Sena in categories: computing, nanotechnology, particle physics
Circa 2017
Data storage technology continues to shrink in size and grow in capacity, but scientists have just taken things to the next level — they’ve built a nanoscale hard drive using a single atom.
Continue reading “IBM Seriously Just Turned an Atom Into The World’s Smallest Hard Drive” »
Jul 21, 2020
SpaceX Starlink beta test: coverage area, pricing, how to sign up and more
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: internet
SpaceX is set to launch a beta version of its Starlink internet connectivity constellation.
Jul 21, 2020
Mysterious 450-foot ‘blue hole’ off Florida has researchers looking for signs of life
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: futurism
Tales of the ocean swallowing places are as ancient as the myth of Atlantis, but there is an element of truth in the science, according to a NOAA-backed expedition set for Florida’s Gulf Coast.
The ocean does open up and consume areas of sea floor.
However, these are basically sink holes, similar to those that gobble suburban homes in Florida, NOAA says.
Jul 21, 2020
CRISPR C-to-G base editors for inducing targeted DNA transversions in human cells
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, engineering
CRISPR-guided DNA cytosine and adenine base editors are widely used for many applications1,2,3,4 but primarily create DNA base transitions (that is, pyrimidine-to-pyrimidine or purine-to-purine). Here we describe the engineering of two base editor architectures that can efficiently induce targeted C-to-G base transversions, with reduced levels of unwanted C-to-W (W = A or T) and indel mutations. One of these C-to-G base editors (CGBE1), consists of an RNA-guided Cas9 nickase, an Escherichia coli –derived uracil DNA N-glycosylase (eUNG) and a rat APOBEC1 cytidine deaminase variant (R33A) previously shown to have reduced off-target RNA and DNA editing activities5,6. We show that CGBE1 can efficiently induce C-to-G edits, particularly in AT-rich sequence contexts in human cells. We also removed the eUNG domain to yield miniCGBE1, which reduced indel frequencies but only modestly decreased editing efficiency. CGBE1 and miniCGBE1 enable C-to-G edits and will serve as a basis for optimizing C-to-G base editors for research and therapeutic applications.
Jul 21, 2020
Unparalleled inventory of the human gut ecosystem
Posted by Xavier Rosseel in categories: biotech/medical, health
An international team of scientists has collated all known bacterial genomes from the human gut microbiome into a single large database, allowing researchers to explore the links between bacterial genes and proteins, and their effects on human health.
This project was led by EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and included collaborators from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Trento, the Gladstone Institutes, and the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute. Their work has been published in Nature Biotechnology.
Jul 21, 2020
Google’s new tool lets you translate Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: futurism
DUBAI: If you’ve ever wondered what messages the Ancient Egyptians were trying to convey with their hieroglyphics, Google’s new tool might just be able to help. In celebration of the anniversary of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, Google Arts and Culture has released a new AI-powered tool, Fabricius, that allows you to decode and translate the ancient symbols and characters into both Arabic and English. The aim is to raise awareness and preserve the history and traditions of Ancient Egyptian civilization.
Jul 21, 2020
Let Arab space programmes create more space for Arab scientists and students
Posted by Derick Lee in categories: mobile phones, physics, space
But now, all the Arab world’s universities must be ready to run with the baton that Hope is handing to them. Currently, the overwhelming majority of the young people who watched the launch on their smartphones and decided on a career in space science will have to study abroad, because the Arab world largely lacks the capacity to educate them in astrophysics or space science.
The United Arab Emirates’ Mars probe is a stunning and historic effort, but it needs to be transformational, too.
Jul 21, 2020
Guest: Author Osinakachi Akuma Kalu, Nigeria
Posted by Brent Ellman in category: futurism
Jul 20, 2020
AstraZeneca slides even as the company’s coronavirus vaccine trial results show ‘promise’
Posted by Omuterema Akhahenda in categories: biotech/medical, economics
AstraZeneca shares fell on Monday even after the publication of positive results from a trial of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine developed in partnership with Oxford University.
The study, published in The Lancet on Monday, said healthy volunteers who received the experimental vaccine, called AZD1222, showed immune responses.