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An international consortium involving over 50 institutions has announced an ambitious project to assemble high-quality genome sequences of all 66,000 vertebrate species on Earth, including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. With an estimated total cost of $600 million dollars, it’s a project of biblical proportions.

It’s called the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), and it’s being organized by a consortium called Genome 10K, or G10K. As its name implies, this group had initially planned to sequence the genomes of at least 10,000 vertebrate species, but now, owing to tremendous advances and cost reductions in gene sequencing technologies, G10K has decided to up the ante, aiming to sequence both a male and female individual from each of the approximately 66,000 vertebrate species on Earth.

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This video is the first in a two-part series discussing big data. In this video, we’ll be discussing the importance of data and the role, it has played in advancing humankind as well as the exponential rate of growth of data.

[0:29–4:19] — Starting off we’ll look at, how data has been used as a tool from the origins of human evolution, starting at the hunter-gatherer age and leading up to the present information age.

[4:19–7:48] — Following that we’ll discuss, the many statistics demonstrating the exponential rate of growth and future growth of data.

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Continue reading “The Exponential Growth of Data” | >

A new study on adult neurogenesis and Alzheimer’s disease.

According to a study led by scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital, exercise-induced neurogenesis improves cognition in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, yielding more benefits than drug-induced adult neurogenesis. The scientists were able to figure out the difference between the two types of induced neurogenesis and pharmacologically reproduce the same benefits provided by exercise [1].

Study abstract

Adult hippocampal neurogenesis (AHN) is impaired before the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology. We found that exercise provided cognitive benefit to 5×FAD mice, a mouse model of AD, by inducing AHN and elevating levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Neither stimulation of AHN alone, nor exercise, in the absence of increased AHN, ameliorated cognition. We successfully mimicked the beneficial effects of exercise on AD mice by genetically and pharmacologically inducing AHN in combination with elevating BDNF levels. Suppressing AHN later led to worsened cognitive performance and loss of preexisting dentate neurons. Thus, pharmacological mimetics of exercise, enhancing AHN and elevating BDNF levels, may improve cognition in AD. Furthermore, applied at early stages of AD, these mimetics may protect against subsequent neuronal cell death.

Continue reading “Exercise Induces Adult Neurogenesis and Ameliorates Alzheimer’s Disease in Mice” | >

Quantum particles can be difficult to characterize, and almost impossible to control if they strongly interact with each other—until now.

An international team of researchers led by Princeton physicist Zahid Hasan has discovered a state of matter that can be “tuned” at will—and it’s 10 times more tuneable than existing theories can explain. This level of manipulability opens enormous possibilities for next-generation nanotechnologies and quantum computing.

“We found a new control knob for the quantum topological world,” said Hasan, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics. “We expect this is tip of the iceberg. There will be a new subfield of materials or physics grown out of this. … This would be a fantastic playground for nanoscale engineering.”

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But Dr Oransky and colleagues are also calling for better peer review after research is published.

“We should reward people who come forward about problems in other people’s work, not in a punitive way, but actually looking at it and saying, ‘hey, that’s a problem, we should do something about it’, and give people the chance to correct the record,” he said.

In China, there’s a growing black market peddling fake research papers, fake peer reviews, and even entirely fake research results to anyone who will pay. Does the rise of fake and fraudulent science threaten the future of research?

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Researchers have discovered a way to kill #cancer cells and stop #glioblastoma formation by blocking casein kinase 1 gene.

Scientists with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute say a gene involved in the body’s circadian rhythms is a potential target for therapies to help patients with a deadly form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma.

This discovery, to be published in the journal Scientific Reports on Tuesday, Sept. 11, points to a subtype of a particular gene that apparently is enabling the survival of cancer cells, although it is more commonly associated with circadian rhythms — the body’s 24-hour biological clock.

“The world is desperately seeking new treatments for glioblastoma and no one has ever before pointed to this gene as a target upon which to base therapies,” said Zhi Sheng, an assistant professor at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, whose team pinpointed the gene from 20 suspects it had previously identified.

Continue reading “Gene involved in circadian rhythms can be potential target for glioblastoma treatment” | >

The Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program will fund research on tech that can transmit high-fidelity signals between the brain and some external machine without requiring that the user be cut open for rewiring or implantation. It hasn’t escaped DARPA’s attention that no-surgery-required brain gear that gives people superpowers may find applications beyond the military. The proof-of-concept tech that comes out of the N3 program may lead to consumer products, says Justin Sanchez, director of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office. “This will spawn new industries,” he says…

The N3 program will create no-surgery-required neurotech that the general public may also find useful.

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A recent discovery by William & Mary and University of Michigan researchers transforms our understanding of one of the most important laws of modern physics. The discovery, published in the journal Nature, has broad implications for science, impacting everything from nanotechnology to our understanding of the solar system.

“This changes everything, even our ideas about planetary formation,” said Mumtaz Qazilbash, associate professor of physics at William & Mary and co-author on the paper. “The full extent of what this means is an important question and, frankly, one I will be continuing to think about.”

Qazilbash and two W&M graduate students, Zhen Xing and Patrick McArdle, were asked by a team of engineers from the University of Michigan to help them test whether Planck’s radiation law, a foundational scientific principle grounded in quantum mechanics, applies at the smallest length scales.

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