Lifeboat Foundation

Michigan State University scientists have engineered “molecular Velcro” into to cyanobacteria, boosting this microalgae’s biofuel viability as well as its potential for other research.

The findings, featured in the current issue of ACS Synthetic Biology, show how MSU researchers have designed a surface display system to attach cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, to yeast and other surfaces. The proof-of-concept may improve the efficiency of harvesting algae as well as open avenues to improve the construction of artificial microbial communities for sustainable biofuel production or other industrial projects.

“Inadequate cyanobacterial toolkits limited our ability to come up with biological solutions,” said Derek Fedeson, MSU graduate student and the study’s co-lead author. “So, we wanted to add another tool to the toolbox to expand the capacity of these bacteria, which can harness solar energy for the production of useful compounds.”

Continue reading “Molecular Velcro boosts microalgae’s potential in biofuel, industrial applications” »

Salk Institute scientists have extended the average lifespan of live mice by 30 percent, according to a study published December 15 in Cell. They did that by rolling back the “aging clock” to younger years, using cellular reprogramming.

Continue reading “Cellular reprogramming turns back the aging clock in mice” »

Scientists from MIT and Boston University have developed biological cells that can count and ‘remember’ cellular events by creating simple circuits through a series of genes that are activated in a precise order. These circuits, which the scientists say simulate computer chips, could be employed to tally the number of times a cell divides or to track a cycle of developmental stages. Such counting cells could also be used as biosensors to count the number of toxin exposures present in an environment.

Senolytics meets Synthetic biology so come along and ask them anything!

Hey folks, We are excited to announce that the CellAge longform AMA opens Friday for questions and the CellAge team will answer them from Monday 11am PST/2pm EST/6pm GMT. We will update the link to the Futurology AMA once it is ready.

CellAge are using synthetic biology to create new biomarkers for senescent cell detection, developing a new therapy to remove senescent cells which drive the aging process using custom synthetic biology. Come along and ask them all about it.

Continue reading “The CellAge long form AMA Starts Friday with questions answered Monday 11am PST/2pm EST/6pm GMT” »

CellAge targeting senescent cells using sythetic biology! Check out their new campaign video on Lifespan.io

Check out CellAge and their approach to removing senescent cells that accumulate with age and damage tissue regeneration.

https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/cellage-targeting-senescen…c-biology/

Creative Machines; however, are they truly without a built in bias due to their own creator/s?

Despite nature’s bewildering complexity, the driving force behind it is incredibly simple. ‘Survival of the fittest’ is an uncomplicated but brutally effective optimization strategy that has allowed life to solve complex problems, like vision and flight, and colonize the harshest of environments.

Continue reading “Evolution’s Brutally Simple Rules Can Make Machines More Creative” »

In Brief

• By combining the fields of quantum physics and biology, researchers have developed more efficient solar cells inspired by photosynthesis.
• With current solar cells wasting about 80 percent of the energy absorbed, it will be interesting to see what future innovative approaches will allow in the pursuit toward universal clean energy.

Science once again reaches a milestone in technology by modeling it after nature. Researchers have devised a new type of highly efficient photocell by studying photosynthesis in plants.

Nathan Gabor, assistant professor for physics and astronomy at the University of California, Riverside, led research spurred by a simple question as to why plants are green. This eventually led to a quest to mimic plants’ ability to efficiently harvest energy from the Sun regardless of how erratic the sunlight is.

Continue reading “Light Harvesting ‘Quantum Photocells’ Herald A New Age in Solar Energy” »

The US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) are at an advanced stage of with their synthetic biology research. The work could see bacteria being used to send signals and sense in a way similar to computers, the advantage being that it could potentially provide a more intuitive sensory experience to a piece of tech, and bypass some of the pitfalls unique to electrical structures. The research also has application for new 3D printing materials.

The goal of roboticists has long been to make A.I. as efficient as the human brain, and researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology just brought them one step closer.

In a recent paper, published in the journal Biology, scientists were able to successfully train a neural network to recognize faces at different angles by feeding it a set of different orientations for several face templates. Although this only initially gave the neural network the ability to roughly reach invariance — the ability to process data regardless of form — over time, the network taught itself to achieve full “mirror symmetry. Through mathematical algorithms, the neural network was able to mimic the human brain’s ability to understand objects are the same despite orientation or rotation.

Continue reading “A.I. Can Teach Itself to Recognize Faces Now” »