Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 9128

Popeye would be proud.

Popeye uses spinach to power his muscles. Now, scientists are looking to spinach as a power source for making electricity.

A solar cell converts sunlight into electricity. Most of these, today, are made of a material called silicon. The new device instead uses proteins from spinach and from a bacterium called Rhodobacter sphaeroides.

To make the solar cell, a team of biologists and chemists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge extracted certain light-sensitive proteins from the spinach and the bacteria. They placed about 2 billion of these proteins on a piece of glass. They made the proteins stick by embedding them in a special framework that looks and acts like a cell membrane.

Continue reading “Spinach power for solar cells” | >

Conjugating Carboxylic Acid Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles, unlike other gold nanoparticles, are pre-ready for covalent conjugation. The carboxlic acid groups on the surface of the gold nanoparticles are easily reacted with primary amines via a condensation reaction which yields strong amide bonds. Usually, this is achieved by using a water-soluble carbodiimide linker such as EDC.

https://nanohybrids.net/pages/conjugating-carboxyl-functiona…oparticles

⬇️

Read more | >

Conclusions:

Extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields aren’t considered as a real carcinogenic agent despite the fact that some studies have showed impairment of the DNA integrity in different cells lines. The aim of this study was evaluation of the late effects of a 100 Hz and 5.6 mT electromagnetic field, applied continuously or discontinuously, on the DNA integrity of Vero cells assessed by alkaline Comet assay and by cell cycle analysis. Normal Vero cells were exposed to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (100 Hz, 5.6 mT) for 45 minutes. The Comet assay and cell cycle analysis were performed 48 hours after the treatment.

Exposed samples presented an increase of the number of cells with high damaged DNA as compared with non-exposed cells. Quantitative evaluation of the comet assay showed a significantly (0.001) increase of the tail lengths, of the quantity of DNA in tail and of Olive tail moments, respectively. Cell cycle analysis showed an increase of the frequency of the cells in S phase, proving the occurrence of single strand breaks. The most probable mechanism of induction of the registered effects is the production of different types of reactive oxygen species.

The analysis of the registered comet indices and of cell cycle showed that extremely low frequency electromagnetic field of 100 Hz and 5.6 mT had a genotoxic impact on Vero cells.

Continue reading “Extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields cause DNA strand breaks in normal cells” | >

Oxford Nanopore systems offer real-time, scalable, direct DNA sequencing. This can be performed on the portable MinION device, the benchtop GridION and the high-thoughput, high-sample number PromethION.

Nanopore sequencing also offers, for the first time, direct RNA sequencing, as well as PCR or PCR-free cDNA sequencing.

With nanopore sequencing, the user chooses fragment length and the nanopore sequences the entire fragments. Reads approaching 1Mb have been reported.

Read more | >

Spotlight: FBI Pushes Forward with Massive Biometric Database Despite Privacy Risks.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) focuses public attention on emerging civil liberties, privacy, First Amendment issues and works to promote the Public Voice in decisions concerning the future of the Internet.

Read more | >

And yet still; the system still requires everyone to carry an identification card.

The most extensive and detailed human genome sequence yet has been assembled using a hand-held device roughly the size of a cell phone.

An international team of scientists working at a lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz, created a portable nanopore sequencer that not only used DNA fragments hundreds of times longer than is standard, but closed 12 gaps in the known human genome, according to a UCSC press release. That makes the human genome it assembled the most complete one ever created to date. A paper describing the research was published in the scientific journal Nature Biotechnology.

The sequencer works by identifying changes in the flow of individual molecules of DNA when they pass through a microscopic membrane hole known as a nanopore. The device can read one million letters of DNA at a time, and has now been used to sequence a human individual’s entire genome, according to New Scientist.

Continue reading “Map your genome at home with a cell-phone sized human DNA sequencer” | >

LAUSANNE, Switzerland—(BUSINESS WIRE).

Breakthrough translational science of dietary supplementation with Urolithin A, a pomegranate metabolite, on mitochondrial and cellular health in humans published in the journal Nature Metabolism

Amazentis, an innovative life sciences company pioneering scientific breakthroughs in nutrition to manage health conditions linked to aging, announced today a collaborative publication in Nature Metabolism with scientists at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) demonstrating the Company’s lead product, Urolithin A (UA), is safe, bioavailable and improves mitochondrial and cellular health in humans.

Read more | >