The Hong Kong Science Park is one example of how national planning and strategic investment have enabled China’s Pearl River Delta region to become a global leader in transformative industries like synthetic biology. Will the US follow suit?
Researchers have launched a new database dedicated to mapping and understanding the complexity of cellular senescence in a bid to help us fully understand this age-related phenomenon.
Introducing the CellAge database
The Human Ageing Genomic Resources ( HAGR ) is a series of databases and tools that have been developed to aid researchers on aging and help them study the genetic elements of human aging. The databases utilize modern techniques, such as functional genomics, network analyses, systems biology, and evolutionary analyses, to build what is one of the most valuable resources available today.
Can Nicola figure out the answer to these intriguing biology questions? More importantly, can you? Let’s find out!
In this trivia episode of X10, Giuliano discovers just how much Nicola knows about some weird and interesting facts related to biology.
Any future colonization efforts directed at the Mars all share one problem in common; their reliance on a non-existent magnetic field. Mars’ magnetosphere went dark about 4 billion years ago when it’s core solidified due to its inability to retain heat because of its small mass. We now know that Mars was quite Earth-like in its history. Deep oceans once filled the now arid Martian valleys and a thick atmosphere once retained gasses which may have allowed for the development of simple life. This was all shielded by Mars’ prehistoric magnetic field.
When Mars’ magnetic line of defense fell, much of its atmosphere was ripped away into space, its oceans froze deep into the red regolith, and any chance for life to thrive there was suffocated. The reduction of greenhouse gasses caused Mars’ temperature to plummet, freezing any remaining atmosphere to the poles. Today, Mars is all but dead. Without a magnetic field, a lethal array of charged particles from the Sun bombards Mars’ surface every day threatening the potential of hosting electronic systems as well as biological life. The lack of a magnetic field also makes it impossible for Mars to retain an atmosphere or an ozone layer, which are detrimental in filtering out UV and high energy light. This would seem to make the basic principles behind terraforming the planet completely obsolete.
I’ve read a lot of articles about the potential of supplying Mars with an artificial magnetic field. By placing a satellite equipped with technology to produce a powerful magnetic field at Mars L1 (a far orbit around Mars where gravity from the Sun balances gravity from Mars, so that the satellite always remains between Mars and the Sun), we could encompass Mars in the resulting magnetic sheath. However, even though the idea is well understood and written about, I couldn’t find a solid mathematical proof of the concept to study for actual feasibility. So I made one!
This could lead to self-healing cars.
Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a mathematical framework that can turn any sheet of material into any prescribed shape, inspired by the paper craft termed kirigami (from the Japanese, kiri, meaning to cut and kami, meaning paper).
Unlike its better-known cousin origami, which uses folds to shape paper, kirigami relies on a pattern of cuts in a flat paper sheet to change its flexibility and allow it to morph into 3D shapes. Artists have long used this artform to create everything from pop-up cards to castles and dragons.
A team of scientists from Ohio University, Argonne National Laboratory, Universitié de Toulouse in France and Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan led by Ohio Professor of Physics Saw-Wai Hla and Prof. Gwenael Rapenne from Toulouse developed a molecular propeller that enables unidirectional rotations on a material surface when energized.
In nature, molecule propellers are vital in many biological applications ranging from the swimming bacteria to intracellular transport, but synthetic molecular propellers, like what has been developed, are able to operate in harsher environments and under a precise control. This new development is a multiple component molecular propeller specially designed to operate on solid surfaces. This tiny propeller is composed of three components; a ratchet shape molecular gear as a base, a tri-blade propeller, and a ruthenium atom acting as an atomic ball bearing that connects the two. The size of the propeller is only about 2 nanometers (nm) wide and 1 nm tall.
“What is special about our propeller is its multi-component design that becomes chiral on the gold crystal surface, i.e. it forms right- or left-tilted gears,” said Hla. “This chirality dictates the rotational direction when energized.”
Throughout the densely-populated country of Bangladesh, a lack of access to clean drinking water is responsible for a variety of debilitating and often-lethal infections. Soon, however, residents could filter virtually all harmful microbes out of their water, using paper derived from algae.
The size of a cell is determined by a combination of synthesis, self-assembly, incoming matter and the balance of mechanical forces. Such processes operate at the single-cell level, but they are deeply interconnected with cell-cycle progression, resulting in a stable average cell size at the population level. Here, we examine this phenomenon by reviewing the physics of growth processes that operate at vastly different timescales, but result in the controlled production of daughter cells that are close copies of their mothers. We first review the regulatory mechanisms of size at short timescales, focusing on the contribution of fundamental physical forces. We then discuss the multiple relevant regulation processes operating on the timescale of the cell cycle. Finally, we look at how these processes interact: one of the most important challenges to date involves bridging the gap between timescales, connecting the physics of cell growth and the biology of cell-cycle progression.
Listen up, pet owners! Earlier this summer, several dogs in North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas perished after coming into contact with toxic blue-green algae. Although this may seem pretty far from home, it’s really a countrywide problem. The same toxic algae has even been spotted in Nevada, so you’ll definitely want to be on the lookout for this nasty stuff. Not only can it cause a variety of symptoms in humans, but it’s considered deadly for animals. Keep reading and learn how you can keep an eye out for algal blooms and keep your pets safe during your adventures.
Had you heard about this toxic blue-green algae that’s already killed several dogs this year? This stuff definitely isn’t to be taken lightly.
