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O.o!

From the office of the governor:

Salem, OR—Governor Kate Brown today declared a state of emergency in three Oregon counties due to severe flooding, increased snowmelt, landslides, and erosion. This declaration comes at the request of local legislators and is based on the recommendations of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management (OEM).

“Fast-moving, severe floods have required the evacuation of residences and shut down critical roads in northeastern Oregon. I am grateful for all of our first responders for their efforts to keep our families safe since the waters began rising,” Governor Brown said. “This emergency declaration ensures state resources, emergency response personnel, and equipment can be activated to complement critical local resources as this situation progresses.”

Continue reading “Gov. Brown declares state of emergency” | >

O.o probs alien o.o circa 2013.

Remember when encyclopaedias were books, and not just websites? You’d have a shelf full of information, packaged into entries, and then into separate volumes. Your genome is organised in a similar way. Your DNA is packaged into large volumes called chromosomes. There are 23 pairs of them, each of which contains a long string of genes. And just as encyclopaedia books are bound in sturdy covers to prevent the pages within from fraying, so too are your chromosomes capped by protective structures called telomeres.

That’s basically how it works in any animal or plant or fungus. The number of chromosomes might vary a lot—fruit flies have 8 while dogs have 78—but the basic organisation is the same.

But there’s a pond-dwelling creature called Oxytricha trifallax whose DNA is organised in a very… different… way. A team of US scientists has sequenced its genome for the first time and discovered genetic chaos. It’s like someone has taken the encyclopaedias, ripped out all the individual pages, torn some of them, photocopied everything dozens of times, and stuffed the whole lot in a gigantic messy drawer.

Continue reading “You Have 46 Chromosomes. This Pond Creature Has 15,600” | >

Researchers-genetically-alter-the-immune-system-of-cancer-patients-without-side-effect.

US scientists have succeeded in genetically editing the immune systems of three cancer patients using CRISPR, without creating any side effects, a first for the tool which is revolutionizing biomedical research.

The highly anticipated results from the first phase of a clinical trial were published in the journal Science on Thursday.

They represent a stepping stone that doesn’t yet prove CRISPR can be used to fight cancer. Indeed, one of the patients has since died and the disease has worsened in the other two — but the trial does show that the technique is non-toxic.

Continue reading “US Trial Shows 3 Cancer Patients Had Their Genomes Altered Safely” | >

Circa 2016 o.o

Americans dump 251 million tons of trash annually into landfills. Bike seat ripped? Toss it. Hole in the old garden hose? Get rid of it. Spandex not tucking in your tummy? Loose it and replace it. This linear process of extracting a resource, processing it, selling it than discarding it is creating a mound of trash dangerously equivocal to the ball of trash in Futurama episode 8 season 1.

Why Plastic Sucks

Continue reading “Plastic Eating Plants: Will they Save our Environment?” | >

O.o!

Some 4,000 years ago, a tiny population of woolly mammoths died out on Wrangel Island, a remote Arctic refuge off the coast of Siberia.

They may have been the last of their kind anywhere on Earth.

To learn about the plight of these giant creatures and the forces that contributed to their extinction, scientists have resurrected a Wrangel Island ’s mutated . The goal of the project was to study whether the genes functioned normally. They did not.

Continue reading “Scientists resurrected a Wrangel Island mammoth’s mutated genes” | >

Sharks are at the top of the marine food chain for a reason. Their massive size along with a dazzling row of extra-sharp teeth make them the fiercest hunters in our oceans. But it turns out that the shark’s aquatic dominance reaches down into its very DNA, and through its mutations, sharks could teach us how to fight our most deadly affliction—cancer.

This isn’t the first evidence that mutations can prove beneficial for disease resistance and long-term survival. High bone density, a hemoglobin that boosts malaria resistance, and a third retinal cone that improves color vision are some human examples. But new gene mapping conducted by scientists at the Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center at Florida’s Nova Southeastern University, the Guy Harvey Research Institute, and the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine shows that sharks have developed genomic adaptations that repair damaged DNA, effectively protecting them against cancer and other diseases.

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O.o!

The epic collision between two neutron stars in 2017 really is the science gift that keeps on giving. As they merged, gravitational waves rippled out across the Universe; now reverberations from that event could confirm a decades-old hypothesis about black holes.

Astronomers poring over the gravitational wave data believe they have found evidence of echoes — something that would only occur in the presence of the ‘quantum fuzz’ produced by Hawking radiation.

Continue reading “We May Finally Have a Way to Detect Hawking Radiation Leaking From Black Holes” | >

O.o circa 2015.

Researchers from the Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Otago in New Zealand have created a prototype quantum hard drive that may fundamentally alter the realm of secure, long-distance data encryption. Using atoms of the rare-earth element europium embedded in yttrium orthosilicate (YSO) crystals, the scientists have shattered previous records for quantum information retention by creating a storage device capable of holding quantum state information for up to six hours at a time.

Quantum data encryption already offers the promise of intrinsically secure electronic data interchange over relatively short distances (up to around 100 km (62 mi) or so). However, this latest research may help enable a worldwide quantum-encrypted communications network by providing unprecedented storage capabilities and effectively negating the instability problems inherent in currently available technology.

“We believe it will soon be possible to distribute quantum information between any two points on the globe,” said Manjin Zhong, a researcher on the project from the ANU’s Research School of Physics and Engineering (RSPE). “Quantum states are very fragile and normally collapse in milliseconds. Our long storage times have the potential to revolutionize the transmission of quantum information.”

Continue reading “Scientists create prototype quantum hard drive” | >

Traditionally, India’s best and brightest tech talent has emigrated to the United States for lucrative job opportunities. But now they’re putting their entrepreneurial spirit and engineering skills to use at home.

VICE correspondent Krishna Andavolu heads to the city of Bangalore to explore what may indeed be the world’s next Silicon Valley.

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