Lifeboat Foundation

Humans may not be able to burp properly in space, but we can now edit a genome. For the first time, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit the DNA of brewer’s yeast.

The goal wasn’t to create super space yeast. The astronauts were studying how DNA repair mechanisms work in space, so they snipped through strands of the fungus’s genetic code in a number of places to mimic radiation damage.

“The damage actually happens on the space station and the analysis also happens in space,” said Emily Gleason of miniPCR Bio, the company that designed the DNA lab aboard the ISS. “We want to understand if DNA repair methods are different in space than on Earth.”

Continue reading “For The First Time, DNA Has Been Edited With CRISPR in Space” »

The science exhibition, which goes by the name “Vigyan Samagam”, will highlight India’s contributions to some of the world’s biggest science projects. It is a jointly-funded effort by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Department of Science & Technology (DST).

While in India, the CERN exhibit will be bilingual — in English and Hindi for the public to make the most of.

Continue reading “CERN travelling science exhibit comes to India: Here’s when and where you can catch it” »

A volcano erupted on the Indonesian island of Bali Saturday, sending ash into the sky over surrounding villages and lava pouring down its sides.

The island’s Mount Agung put national agencies on notice, causing some flight cancellations but no reported casualties with the eruption, which reportedly spread lava and incandescent rocks over about two miles.

The national disaster agency said Mount Agung’s eruption lasted four minutes and 30 seconds, according to multiple reports.

Continue reading “A Volcano in Bali Along The ‘Ring of Fire’ Erupted on Saturday, And It Looks Terrifying” »

The idea that science skills are innate and great discoveries are made only by “lone geniuses” is losing traction in STEM.

Brain cancer kills more Australian children than other cancers; University of Melbourne research finds genetically engineered killer T-cells could change that.

Geologists first noticed something unusual in the Indian Ocean in November last year, when they detected a massive seismic event originating from a spot near to the French island of Mayotte. Now further research has revealed that the source of the seismic activity is an enormous underwater volcano.

The people living on Mayotte, located between Madagascar and Mozambique off the coast of Africa, had been worried by seismic tremors for months. They were experiencing small earthquakes daily, Laure Fallou, a sociologist with the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre in Bruyères-le-Ch tel, France, told Science. People “needed information,” she said. “They were getting very stressed, and were losing sleep.”

Maps of the seafloor showed a dramatic and recent change: a structure 800 meters high and 5 kilometers (3 miles) across had appeared on the ocean floor where there had been nothing before. A research team from the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) were dispatched to investigate and placed six seismometers near the area of activity on the ocean floor, 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) beneath the surface.

Continue reading “Scientists Discover Unexpected Underwater Volcano off the Coast of Africa” »

PARTICLE physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) are tracking down elusive particles of dark matter with the aid of dark photons, CERN has spectacularly announced.

Microorganisms like bacteria and fungi are increasingly becoming resistant to our best drugs, which is hurtling us towards a terrifying future where once-easily-treated infections become potentially life-threatening again. In a new approach to this problem, researchers from the University at Buffalo and Temple University have tested an alternative to antibiotics that uses existing drugs to starve a fungal infection of vital nutrients.

An exciting new study from the University of Cambridge is demonstrating how a novel virtual reality navigation test can better predict which patients are in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease compared to other currently used “gold standard” cognitive tests.