In a first, a patient in New Zealand has undergone gene-editing to lower their cholesterol. If it works, it could signal the start of an era in which nearly everyone might undergo a gene-edit in order to prevent disease.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,630
New miracle drug may increase the human lifespan to 200 years
A new miracle drug could increase the human lifespan by up to 200 years. Dr. Andrew Steele, a British computational biologist recently published a new book on the longevity of human life. In the book, the doctor argues that it is completely feasible for humans to live beyond our standard 100-year lifespan thanks to a new type of drug.
Mars Bioreactor Atmos: Biotech Fit for the Red Planet
Circa 2021
NASA, in collaboration with other leading space agencies, aims to send its first human missions to Mars.
Mars is the second smallest planet in our solar system and the fourth planet from the sun. It is a dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. Iron oxide is prevalent in Mars’ surface resulting in its reddish color and its nickname “The Red Planet.” Mars’ name comes from the Roman god of war.
Development of high-performance, high-tension wearable displacement sensors
Wearable displacement sensors—which are attached to a human body, detect movements in real time and convert them into electrical signals—are currently being actively studied. However, research on tensile-capable displacement sensors has many limitations, such as low tensile properties and complex manufacturing processes.
If a displacement sensor that can be easily manufactured with high sensitivity and tensile properties is developed, it can be attached to a human body, allowing large movements of joints or fingers to be used in various applications such as AR and VR. A research team led by Sung-Hoon Ahn, mechanical engineering professor at Seoul National University, has developed a piezoelectric strain sensor with high sensitivity and high stretchability based on kirigami design cutting.
In this research, a stretchable piezoelectric displacement sensor was manufactured and its performance was evaluated by applying the kirigami structure to a film-type piezoelectric material. Various sensing characteristics were shown according to the kirigami pattern, and higher sensitivity and tensile properties were shown compared to existing technologies. Wireless haptic gloves using VR technology were produced using the developed sensor, and a piano could be played successfully using them.
‘Lives are at stake’: hacking of US hospitals highlights deadly risk of ransomware
The number of ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations increased 94% from 2021 to 2022, according to a report from the cybersecurity firm Sophos. More than two-thirds of healthcare organizations in the US said they had experienced a ransomware attack in 2021, the study said, up from 34% in 2020.
Ransomware attacks on healthcare are particularly common in the US, with 41% of such attacks globally having been carried out against US-based firms in 2021.
“The current outlook is terrible,” said Israel Barak, CISO of Cybereason. “We are seeing the industry experience an extremely sharp increase in both the quantity and level of sophistication of these attacks.”
Biohacking the Oral Microbiome
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Papers referenced in the video:
Interconnections Between the Oral and Gut Microbiomes: Reversal of Microbial Dysbiosis and the Balance Between Systemic Health and Disease https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33652903/
A Brief Introduction to Oral Diseases: Caries, Periodontal Disease, and Oral Cancer.
New research suggests adverse childhood experiences accelerate the biological processes of aging
“Harms in early life can take many forms, and can lead to health consequences many years down the road. What our study shows is that these consequences manifest as perturbations to multiple biological systems, which can be measured from biomarkers in blood.”…
Individuals exposed to adverse childhood experiences tend to be biologically older than their counterparts, according to new research published in the scientific journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.
Adverse childhood experiences refer to a set of potentially traumatic events that occur before adulthood. These experiences include various forms of abuse and neglect, witnessing intimate partner violence, parental death or serious illness, parental divorce or separation, and psychiatric illness of a family member. Biological aging, on the other hand, refers to the accumulation of damage and loss of function to cells, tissues and organs.
Previous research has found that people exposed to adverse childhood experiences are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases and have a shorter lifespan. The authors of the new study were interested in whether accelerated biological aging could help explain the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and poor health outcomes later in life.
After Meta, Microsoft, now Google to slow hiring for rest of the year
Tech major Google is reportedly slowing down its hiring processes for the rest of 2022. According to a memo by CEO Sundar Pichai to employees, obtained by The Verge, Google will still support its “most important opportunities”, and focus on hiring engineering, technical and other critical roles.
Until now, Google has remained relatively immune to economic uncertainties, and in fact, its sister brand YouTube did well in Q4 2020 — first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was reported that its ad revenue hit $6.9 billion — up by 46% quarter-on-quarter. Pichai, in his memo, also highlights that the company hired approximately 10,000 employees in the second quarter of this year, and has a “number of commitments for Q3”, Pichai said in the memo adding that “Google will pause the hiring process for the rest of the year”.
“For the balance of 2022 and 2023, we’ll focus our hiring on engineering, technical and other critical roles, and make sure the great talent we do hire is aligned with our long-term priorities,” he reportedly wrote in the memo.
New technique allows physicists to study interactions of neutrons inside of an atom
An international team of physicists has developed a new technique that allows researchers to study the interactions between neutrons inside of an atom. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describe their laser spectroscopy measurement technique and how it can be used.
It has been nearly 100 years since scientists discovered that inside of every atom are protons —which give atoms their atomic number —as well as neutrons. And despite much study of subatomic particles, scientists still do not know what sorts of interactions go on inside of an atom. In this new effort, the researchers modified laser spectroscopy measurement techniques to study such interactions.
In this new work, the researchers began by looking at elements with a magic number —those that have highly stable protons and neutrons—and wound up using indium-131, which has a magic number of neutrons, and also a proton hole, in which a nuclide has one fewer proton than a traditional magic number element. Indium-131 is, unfortunately, also notoriously unstable, which means that it only exists for a short time before breaking down—it tends to last for just 0.28 seconds.
Physicists use AI to find the most complex protein knots so far
The question of how the chemical composition of a protein—the amino acid sequence—determines its 3D structure has been one of the biggest challenges in biophysics for more than half a century. This knowledge about the so-called “folding” of proteins is in great demand, as it contributes significantly to the understanding of various diseases and their treatment, among other things. For these reasons, Google’s DeepMind research team has developed AlphaFold, an artificial intelligence that predicts 3D structures.
A team consisting of researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the University of California, Los Angeles, has now taken a closer look at these structures and examined them with respect to knots. We know knots primarily from shoelaces and cables, but they also occur on the nanoscale in our cells. Knotted proteins can not only be used to assess the quality of structure predictions but also raise important questions about folding mechanisms and the evolution of proteins.