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Mar 5, 2020
China’s largest private automaker is building a satellite network now, too
Posted by Brent Ellman in categories: business, drones, satellites
The largest private automaker in China is getting into the satellite business. Chinese automotive giant Geely has broadened its reach to include everything from trucking, to high-speed trains, to passenger drones, to Volvo over the last decade or so. But its newest effort could tie those things all together, as Geely just announced it’s going to build its own satellite network to enable what it calls a “smart three-dimensional mobility ecosystem.”
Geely announced late Monday that it will erect a satellite production facility and testing center in the port city of Taizhou in the Zhejiang province that the Chinese giant calls home. The facility will be capable of building a “variety of different satellite models,” some of which may be for non-Geely entities.
Geely says it will start launching the satellite network as soon as the end of this year, but did not say how big it will be. Reuters reports that the company is pumping around $326 million into the project, and will eventually make 500 satellites a year.
Mar 5, 2020
Hypergiant’s Ben Lamm adds nostalgic ‘retro-futurism’ to the new space race
Posted by Brent Ellman in category: futurism
Mar 5, 2020
Doctors use CRISPR gene editing inside a person’s body for first time
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical
Scientists say they have used the gene editing tool CRISPR inside someone’s body for the first time, a new frontier for efforts to operate on DNA, the chemical code of life, to treat diseases.
A patient recently had it done at the Casey Eye Institute at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland for an inherited form of blindness, the companies that make the treatment announced Wednesday. They would not give details on the patient or when the surgery occurred.
It may take up to a month to see if it worked to restore vision. If the first few attempts seem safe, doctors plan to test it on 18 children and adults.
Mar 5, 2020
Medical breakthrough in Israel: a lung was removed from the body of a cancer patient, cleaned and returned
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: biotech/medical, innovation
In Beilinson Hospital, for the first time, a lung cancer patient went under surgery in which the tumor removed and the healthy lung returned to his body. “Cleaning” organs from tumors may change global coping with cancer.
Mar 5, 2020
Our Genetic Future Is Coming… Faster Than We Think
Posted by Lola Heavey in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, evolution, food, genetics
If there was a public vote about human gene enhancement, would you vote YES or NO?
Our species is on the cusp of a revolution that will change every aspect of our lives but we’re hardly talking about it.
Continue reading “Our Genetic Future Is Coming… Faster Than We Think” »
Mar 5, 2020
Chinese scientists identify two strains of the coronavirus, indicating it’s already mutated at least once
Posted by Brent Ellman in category: biotech/medical
Researchers in China have found that two different types of the new coronavirus could be causing infections worldwide.
In a preliminary study published Tuesday, scientists at Peking University’s School of Life Sciences and the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai found that a more aggressive type of the new coronavirus had accounted for roughly 70% of analyzed strains, while 30% had been linked to a less aggressive type.
Mar 5, 2020
E.P.A. Updates Plan to Limit Science Used in Environmental Rules
Posted by Brent Ellman in categories: government, science
Even with the revisions, scientists warned, the new regulation would let the federal government dismiss or downplay seminal environmental research.
Mar 5, 2020
WHO says coronavirus death rate is 3.4% globally, higher than previously thought
Posted by Brent Ellman in categories: biotech/medical, health
World health officials said Tuesday the mortality rate for COVID-19 is 3.4% globally, higher than previous estimates of about 2%.
“Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. In comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected, he said.
Mar 5, 2020
CRISPR Scientists Hack Patient’s Genes in Bid to Cure Blindness
Posted by Brent Ellman in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, health
For the first time, doctors have attempted to cure blindness by gene-hacking a patient with CRISPR technology.
A team from Oregon Health & Science Institute injected three droplets of fluid that delivered the CRISPR DNA fragments directly into a patient’s eyeball, The Associated Press reports, in hopes that it will reverse a rare genetic condition called Leber congenital amaurosis, which causes blindness early in childhood.
“We literally have the potential to take people who are essentially blind and make them see,” Charles Albright, chief scientific officer of Editas Medicine, told the AP. Editas is one of the biotech companies that actually developed the treatment. “We think it could open up a whole new set of medicines to go in and change your DNA.”