Tag: science

Bioreactor protein synthesis

The key to the cell-free reactions in the new bioreactor is a permeable nanoporous membrane and serpentine (snake-like) design, made using a combination of electron-beam lithography and advanced material-deposition processes. The long serpentine channels allow for exchange of materials between parallel reactor and feeder channels. With this approach, the team can control the exchange of metabolites, energy, and species that inhibit production of the desired protein. The design also extends reaction times and improves yields. Lives of soldiers and others injured in remote locations could be saved with a cell-free protein synthesis device; could also produce custom orphan drugs and personalized medicines at low cost

Medieval fingerprints

A new study will apply modern forensic crime solving techniques to the Middle Ages by examining the hand and fingerprints left on wax seals from the 12th to 14th centuries. The prints will also literally be run through AFIS, comparing fingerprints that are at least 700 years old to modern ones. Researchers are looking for any close or approximate matches even over centuries. Any such discoveries will contribute significantly the study of print identification, which isn’t as well-established, scientifically speaking, as some TV programs would have you believe.

Biofilms

Biofilms are extremely tough to get rid of, so this is very welcome news.

A solution for biofilms — a scourge of infections in hospitals and kitchens formed by bacteria that stick to each other on living tissue and medical instruments — has been developed: Injecting iron oxide nanoparticles into the biofilms, and using an applied magnetic field to heat them, triggering them into dispersing.

2017-09-15: Physics of biofilms

Bacteria are extremely adept at building biofilm cities, often in places humans don’t want them: catheters, sewer lines, and our teeth, to name a few. Now scientists are working to unlock the structural mysteries in order to eradicate unwanted bacterial buildup. The first biofilm researchers focused more on the chemical environments of these microbial communities rather than the physical forces that also governed their existence. In the past 10 years, advances in microscale engineering and high-resolution microscopy have allowed scientists to measure physical forces acting on individual cells and replicate a range of environmental conditions in the lab that have enabled scientists to begin to track the formation of a biofilm, cell by cell.

Cold Fusion

on reputation traps.

there’s a sociological explanation why few people are willing to look at the evidence. They put their reputations at risk by doing so. Cold fusion is tainted, and the taint is contagious – anyone seen to take it seriously risks contamination. So the subject is stuck in a place that is largely inaccessible to reason – a reputation trap, we might call it. People outside the trap won’t go near it, for fear of falling in. ‘If there is something scientists fear, it is to become like pariahs’. People inside the trap are already regarded as disreputable, an attitude that trumps any efforts that they might make to argue their way out, by reason and evidence.

2019-06-11: Google is getting into the game.

This work should produce data that will be of interest to people beyond the remaining cold-fusion believers, and similarly, the team’s work on heated metal powders and hydrogen required them to make advances in calorimetry that could also prove useful. And the hydrogen-saturated palladium electrode work led to new data about the effects of such high loading on the metal structure, and how to measure these reliably.

Coffee rewires the brain

admirable, and very interesting data.

How does this map relate to your brain? Do these connections persist over a period of months or more? Or do they vary with different conditions (happy or sad mood, etc.)? And what if you’re a schizophrenic, alcoholic, meditator, or videogamer, etc., how does your connectome look?

These questions obsessed Stanford psychologist Russell Poldrack, leading to his “MyConnectome project.” In the noble DIY tradition of Marie Curie, Jonas Salk, and Albert Hoffman, he started off his day by climbing into an MRI machine and scanning his brain for 10 minutes Tuesdays and Thursdays every week for 18 months — making his brain the most studied in the world.

Fasting with no caffeine on Tuesdays radically changed the connection between the somatosensory motor network and the higher vision network: it grew significantly tighter without caffeine. “That was totally unexpected, but it shows that being caffeinated radically changes the connectivity of your brain. We don’t really know if it’s better or worse, but it’s interesting that these are relatively low-level areas. It may well be that I’m more fatigued on those days, and that drives the brain into this state that’s focused on integrating those basic processes more.”

An End to Down Syndrome?

things are going to get very complicated, soon.

Diana Bianchi is now trying to fix the developmental abnormalities, often triggered by the non-wild type karyotype, of individuals with Down Syndrome. But the reporting in this piece suggests many in the Down Syndrome community are ambivalent about a cure, though some are supportive. After all, a “fix” implies a problem, which many will not admit. My own question is why pro-life organizations and individuals don’t fund Bianchi’s research to the hilt?

Interspecies friendships

Animals in captivity have their food presented to them; they don’t need to worry about marking their territory or looking for mates the way an animal in the wild would. All those activities take time and energy, and if those needs are removed, the animals get bored. A playmate—even an unorthodox one—can be more satisfying than a meal. The animal’s motivation to engage socially and playfully maybe was higher in its need hierarchy than eating. There’s an 85% chance that Amur will end up eating his new friend.

Chips and cells

The ability to build a system that combines the power of solid-state electronics with the capabilities of biological components has great promise. “You need a bomb-sniffing dog now, but if you can take just the part of the dog that is useful — the molecules that are doing the sensing — we wouldn’t need the whole animal”. The technology could also provide a power source for implanted electronic devices in ATP-rich environments such as inside living cells.