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Gene Targeting Turns Mice into Long-Distance Runners

Running could be for everyone even at Olympic levels with biocomputing and crispr.

Citation: (2004) Gene Targeting Turns Mice into Long-Distance Runners. PLoS Biol 2(10): e322. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.

Copyright: © 2004 Public Library of Science. This is an open-access distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Have you ever noticed that long-distance runners and sprinters seem specially engineered for their sports? One’s built for distance, the other speed. The ability to generate quick bursts of power or sustain long periods of exertion depends primarily on your muscle fiber type ratio (muscle cells are called fibers), which depends on your genes. To this extent, elite athletes are born, not made. No matter how hard you train or how many performance-enhancing drugs you take, if you’re not blessed with the muscle composition of a sprinter, you’re not going to break the 100-meter world record in your lifetime. (In case you’d like to try, that’s 9.78 seconds for a man and 10.49 seconds for a woman.)

Study shows that perception is driven by variability of neural activity in the sensory cortex

The brain is a sophisticated biological system known to produce different experiences and perceptions via complex dynamics. Different brain regions and neural populations commonly work in tandem, communicating with each other to ultimately produce specific behaviors and sensations.

Researchers at University of Oxford and the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization recently carried out a study aimed at better understanding the neural dynamics underpinning this communication between neural populations. Their findings, gathered in Nature Neuroscience, show that the probability that mice will perceive something is linked to a variability of neural activity in the brain region that processes the incoming stimulus information.

“Generally, we are interested in how the brain processes information,” James Rowland and Thijs Van der Plas, co-authors of the paper, told Medical Xpress. “The brain receives inputs from the senses which reflect what is happening in the world around it. It must then make sense of this information and use it to make decisions and take actions. To achieve this, the brain is built on a principle of division of labor, where different regions are specialized to perform distinct tasks.”

Q&A: ‘Crystal ribcage’ technology pioneers new approaches to lung health

It’s no secret that our lungs play a vital role in our daily lives—ensuring we can breathe, fend off infections, and adapt to various challenges. Despite their importance, the organs still puzzle many medical experts, especially when they’re affected by diseases. While traditional tools like MRI and CT scans are helpful when a patient is experiencing a lung-related illness, they can still fall short in providing the detailed, real-time information needed to understand the intricacies of lung health.

Enter the groundbreaking innovation known as the crystal ribcage. Developed by researchers in Boston University’s College of Engineering, Pulmonary Center, Center for Multiscale and Translational Mechanobiology, and Neurophtonics Center, the technology is poised to revolutionize not only our understanding of lung function but also holds immense potential for other organs and treatments.

In new research, published this month in Nature Methods, the crystal ribcage acts as a clear, protective shield for a mouse’s lungs, allowing scientists to get a close view of how these organs work in real-time, and at a cellular level. What makes this technology special is that it doesn’t disrupt the lung’s natural processes—breathing and continue as usual while the researchers observe.

Stacking order and strain boosts second-harmonic generation with 2D Janus hetero-bilayers

A group of researchers from Tohoku University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Rice University, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have proposed a new mechanism to enhance short-wavelength light (100–300 nm) by second harmonic generation (SHG) in a two-dimensional (2D), thin material composed entirely of commonplace elements.

Since UV with SHG plays an important role in semiconductor lithography equipment and medical applications that do not use fluorescent materials, this discovery has important implications for existing industries and all optical applications.

Details of the research were published in the journal ACS Nano on August 29, 2023. The study was selected to be featured on the cover.

What’s Stopping Us From Building a Warp Drive?

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A faster-than-light (FTL) warp drive would arguably represent the most important invention of all time. In 1994, Miguel Alcubierre gave all of us hope as he found a solution within general relativity that would cause the necessary warping of space. But after nearly 30 years of further study, what does our current understanding of physics say about the feasibility of a warp drive?

Written & presented by Prof. David Kipping. Thanks to Bobrick Martire for clarifications and to John Michael Godier and team for audio from their interview with Alcubierre (https://youtu.be/JafY92PhgKU). Thumbnail image by Zamanday Yolculugunu (www.zamandayolculuk.com)

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THANK-YOU to D. Smith, M. Sloan, L. Sanborn, C. Bottaccini, D. Daughaday, A. Jones, S. Brownlee, N. Kildal, Z. Star, E. West, T. Zajonc, C. Wolfred, L. Skov, G. Benson, A. De Vaal, M. Elliott, B. Daniluk, M. Forbes, S. Vystoropskyi, S. Lee, Z. Danielson, C. Fitzgerald, C. Souter, M. Gillette, T. Jeffcoat, J. Rockett, D. Murphree, T. Donkin, K. Myers, A. Schoen, K. Dabrowski, J. Black, R. Ramezankhani, J. Armstrong, K. Weber, S. Marks, L. Robinson, S. Roulier, B. Smith, J. Cassese, J. Kruger, S. Way, P. Finch, S. Applegate, L. Watson, E. Zahnle, N. Gebben, J. Bergman, E. Dessoi, C. Macdonald, M. Hedlund, P. Kaup, C. Hays, W. Evans, D. Bansal, J. Curtin, J. Sturm, RAND Corp., M. Donovan, N. Corwin, M. Mangione, K. Howard, L. Deacon, G. Metts, G. Genova, R. Provost, B. Sigurjonsson, G. Fullwood, B. Walford, J. Boyd, N. De Haan, J. Gillmer, R. Williams, E. Garland, A. Leishman, A. Phan Le, R. Lovely, M. Spoto, A. Steele, M. Varenka, K. Yarbrough, A. Cornejo, D. Compos, F. Demopoulos, G. Bylinsky, J. Werner, B. Pearson, S. Thayer, T. Edris, A. Harrison, B. Seeley, F. Blood, M. O’Brien, P. Muzyka, E. Loomans, D. Lee, J. Sargent, M. Czirr, F. Krotzer, I. Williams & J. Sattler.

REFERENCES

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More research is examining how we carry the ‘genetic legacy’ of extinct human species

And the answers point to a profound reality: We have far more in common with our extinct cousins than we ever thought.

Neanderthals within us

Until recently, the genetic legacy from ancient humans was invisible because scientists were limited to what they could glean from the shape and size of bones. But there has been a steady stream of discoveries from ancient DNA, an area of study pioneered by Nobel Prize winner Svante Paabo who first pieced together a Neanderthal genome.

Scientists Discover That Australian Honeypot Ant Honey Possesses Unique Anti-Microbial Properties

Researchers have found that the honey produced by ants native to Australia possesses unique anti-microbial activity against bacteria and fungi that could make the liquid useful medicinally.

The study, which was recently published in the journal PeerJ, was led by Andrew Dong and Dr. Kenya Fernandes from the Carter Lab at the University of Sydney. The lab is under the guidance of Professor Dee Carter from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences and the Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases.

The team studied the Australian honeypot ant, Camponotus inflatus, which is found throughout desert areas mainly in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

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