From signing a nine-page consent form to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, a woman has revealed what happens inside a cryonics lab.
A role for the gut microbiome on the health and functioning of many tissues, including the brain, liver, kidney, and adiposity, has been widely reported in the literature. Interestingly, 2019 might be the year that the role of the gut microbiome on skeletal muscle (i.e. the gut-muscle axis) comes into greater focus.
The influence of the gut microbiome on muscle strength
Continue reading “The Gut Microbiome Affects Muscle Strength in Older Adults” »
Dress made with 100% Brewed Protein materials
This unique textile comes to the forefront during the climax of the collection – an incredible ombré, cropped cape with hues of white and red. The garment’s texture seems to come alive, exuding a striking, three-dimensional quality.
“In several pieces of the collection, we created 3D patterns in the textiles by utilizing the natural supercontraction of spider silk,” says Meyer.
John Mullan, professor of English literature at University College London, wrote an article on The Guardian titled “We need robots to have morals. Could Shakespeare and Austen help?”.
Using great literature to teach ethics to machines is a dangerous game. The classics are a moral minefield.
When he wrote the stories in I, Robot in the 1940s, Isaac Asimov imagined a world in which robots do all humanity’s tedious or unpleasant jobs for them, but where their powers have to be restrained. They are programmed to obey three laws. A robot may not injure another human being, even through inaction; a robot must obey a human being (except to contradict the previous law); a robot must protect itself (unless this contradicts either of the previous laws).
By Michael Le Page
A recently discovered parasitic wasp appears to have extraordinary mind-controlling abilities – it can alter the behaviour of at least seven other species.
Many parasites manipulate the behaviour of their victims in extraordinary ways. For instance, sacculina barnacles invade crabs and make them care for barnacle larvae as if they were their own offspring. If the host crab is male, the parasite turns them female.
The wheels are in motion to send the first humans to Mars. For many, the first image that calls to mind may be of a spaceship touching down in a vast, red desert. But arriving on Mars is only half the picture. People also need to live there, something that can be difficult to imagine because there are so many unknowns. Martian habitation presents one of the greatest scientific challenges of the 21st century. And it is a challenge synthetic biology will be integral in solving.
One of the most exciting ventures tackling this problem is CUBES, the Center for the Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space. SynBioBeta recently spoke with Adam Arkin, the director of CUBES and professor of bioengineering at UC Berkeley. Arkin, who will also speak at SynBioBeta 2019, described the goals of the CUBES project and how their work could enable human life on Mars.
CUBES is a five-year NASA Science Technology Research Institute. Veteran researchers, postdocs, and undergraduates have come together across six universities to develop biomanufacturing systems for Mars missions. But, explains Arkin, “since there isn’t a specified reference mission architecture for a real mission to Mars, we don’t know precisely what our constraints are.” Over the next five years, CUBES will build increasingly realistic models of what it will take to make integrated bio-systems feasible in space.
Eric Schmidt told a conference crowd that Silicon Valley is obsessed with biology because it’s the perfect “marriage” with tech right now.
Checkerspot, a biotech startup using microalgae to produce performance materials, announced today that it has closed its Series A financing for $13 million. The round was led by Builders VC, and included Breakout Ventures, Viking Global Investors, KdT Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, Sahsen Ventures, and Godfrey Capital, among others.
Checkerspot combines bioengineering, chemistry, and materials science to go from microalgae to next-generation performance materials.
“This is a pretty significant milestone for us,” said Checkerspot CEO Charles Dimmler. He said the funding would support the company’s continued infrastructure development, as well as ongoing commercial activities with Beyond Surface Technologies and DIC that focus on novel triglycerides and polyols. He also said it would help complete the development of a direct-to-consumer product later this year.
A Nature analysis explores the investors betting on quantum technology. The science is immature and a multi-purpose quantum computer doesn’t yet exist. But that isn’t stopping investors pouring cash into quantum start-ups.
