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So much emphasis has been placed on human genome editing that other types of genetic editing are falling through the cracks.
DARPA has entered into a partnership with Northrop Grumman subsidiary Space Logistics LLC to develop robotic technologies for servicing and extending the service lives of orbital satellites. Based on the Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1), which recently docked with a communication satellite in geosynchronous orbit, the technology will be used by the agency’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program to develop a dexterous robotic servicer that would be operated by private companies.
Founded in 2016, the RSGS program completed a Payload Critical Design Review in 2019 and is developing key technologies in the run up to the first space launch scheduled for 2023. As part of this effort, DARPA says it is funding the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) to bring together components like the robotic manipulator arms, a variety of interchangeable tools, cameras, sensors, software, and avionics into a functioning robotic payload.
Meanwhile, Space Logistics will provide the spacecraft bus based on the MEV and integrate the robotic payload, as well as providing launch and orbital operation services. Once the spacecraft has been checked out and demonstrated its capabilities, the technology will be marketed to commercial and government organizations.
Always up-to-date numbers about the COVID-19 cases that you can embed in your own articles.
Proponents of the technology claim it can get people off of opioids, improve their sex lives, and make them smarter. Critics say it’s bunk.
Foldit is crowdsourcing a cure and needs lots new players. All Transhumanist should participate.
The University of Washington is taking a novel approach to combat the spread of coronavirus around the world.
A new puzzle game from the university challenges scientists and the public alike to build a protein that could block the virus from infiltrating human cells. The game is on Foldit, a 12-year-old website created by the university’s Center for Game Science designed to crowdsource contributions to important protein research from more than 200,000 registered players.
Continue reading “University of Washington coronavirus puzzle game aims to crowdsource a cure” »
A little of humor: with rejuvenation technologies, I would have much more time and health to do things like this! How could I get bored? And I want to be a player in the football world cup of 2200 as well…
From petroglyphs to castles carved into hilltops, explore our night sky through our ancestors at these amazing archaeological sites.
This new star only appears to be pulsating in one hemisphere of its surface.
“We’ve known theoretically that stars like this should exist since the 1980s,” said Don Kurtz, study co-author and inaugural Hunstead Distinguished Visitor at the University of Sydney from the University of Central Lancashire in Britain. “I’ve been looking for a star like this for nearly 40 years and now we have finally found one.”
Since 2012, the gene-editing tool CRISPR/Cas9 has enabled scientists to target and modify DNA with remarkable precision. But one constraint of this technique has been that it’s only able to make changes within single genes. Now, scientists have developed new tools that allow them to cut and splice large chunks of chromosomes, and to assemble new synthetic genomes from distinct strains.
The findings, published in a paper on August 30 in Science, likely have major implications for fields such as synthetic biology, computational biology, and biological computing, and could lead to better treatments for a wide array of diseases.
“This new paper is incredibly exciting and a huge step forward for synthetic biology,” Anne Meyer, a synthetic biologist at the University of Rochester in New York who was not involved in the paper, told Science.
