Posts Tagged ‘Genetics’
Scientists Mapping Out 10,000 Animal Genomes For “Genetic Zoo” [Genetics]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 5th, 2009
On the tail-end of news that all of the HIV genome and 98% of the pig genome has been decoded, scientists are announcing that they've got a plan to collect and sequence the DNA of 10,000 vertebrate species.
Over 68 scientists worldwide are participating in the Genome 10K Project, the results of which would not only bring understanding of changes in species but also "allow predictions of how certain species might respond to climate change, pollution, new diseases and competitors." There's great potential to discover more about genetics with this project, but I have a sneaking suspicion that at least one of those scientists is in it for the DNA scavenger hunt through zoos. [Genome 10K via Pop Sci]
Optogenetics hold the key to future brain disease cures, still creep us out
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on October 21st, 2009
Filed under: Science
Optogenetics hold the key to future brain disease cures, still creep us out originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsLet’s hear it for inventors and makers
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Technology on August 25th, 2009
Galileo and his telescope are rightly celebrated. But will the inventors of integrated circuits, DNA sequencing and X-ray crystallography be remembered by future generations?
If it weren't for Google, which has transformed its logo into a telescopic doodle to mark the occasion, the 400th anniversary of the first public demonstration of Galileo's revolutionary telescope might have gone unnoticed. How strange that the public – and the media – can be captivated by revolutionary ideas in science, such as evolution and relativity, but fail to be impressed by the invention of new scientific instruments, which have arguably been far more important for human progress.
In centuries to come will we mark the anniversary of the invention of X-ray crystallography, DNA sequencing, magnetic resonance imaging, the silicon chip?
In his book Imagined Worlds, which is next month's Guardian Science Book Club title, Freeman Dyson notes that in the past 500 years there have been only seven concept-driven revolutions in science, which will forever be associated with the names Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Maxwell, Freud, Einstein and Heisenberg. Over the same period, there have been 20 tool-driven revolutions, but none has captured the public imagination in quite the same way.
Dyson blames Thomas Kuhn and his famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions:
It misled a whole generation of students and historians of science into believing that all scientific revolutions are concept-driven. The concept-driven revolutions are the ones that attract the most attention and have the greatest impact on the public awareness of science, but in fact they are comparatively rare ... Two prime examples of tool-driven revolutions are the Galilean revolution resulting from the use of the telescope in astronomy, and the Crick-Watson revolution resulting from the use of X-ray diffraction to determine the structure of big molecules in biology.
Later in the book Dyson has fun speculating about future tool-driven revolutions, including "radioneurology" which would make telepathy possible. And he's perfectly serious:
There is no law of physics that declares such an observational tool to be impossible ... We need a technology that allows us to build and deploy large areas of small transmitters inside a living brain, just as integrated-circuit technology allows us to build large arrays of small transistors on a chip of silicon.
So let's hear it for the unsung heroes of human progress: the technicians and toolmakers. Galileo's telescope we remember, but what about Max von Laue (X-ray crystallography), Fred Sanger (DNA and protein sequencing), Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce (silicon chips)?
They deserve a Google doodle, all of them.
IBM Examining Microchips Built On DNA “Oragami” Nanostructures [Dna]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on August 16th, 2009
From the "at least 10 years out" category of microchip fabrication comes word that IBM is working to reduce future costs and microchip sizes by using DNA. That's correct, the building blocks of life could one day contribute to your virtual reality headshot in Halo 28: Master Chief Comes Back From the Dead for the 12th Time.
IBM's early stage research combines the DNA double helix and, unsurprisingly, nanotechnology to build frameworks for theoretically smaller and less expensive microchips.
"This is the first demonstration of using biological molecules to help with processing in the semiconductor industry," said IBM research manager Spike Narayan. "Basically, this is telling us that biological structures like DNA actually offer some very reproducible, repetitive kinds of patterns that we can actually leverage in semiconductor processes," he said.
But like I said, ten years out of more before the same genetic building blocks found in all of us are also powering the supercomputers of the future. [Reuters]
Genome Sequencing Gets 99.9833% Price Cut [Dna]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on August 11th, 2009
Dr. Quake of Stanford University only needed $50,000 and a month's time to complete a genome sequencing process which previously took $300 million, over 250 people, and several years. How cheap would Windows 7 be with this guy's cost-cutting?
Dr. Stephen Quake and his team used a "commercially available, refrigerator-sized instrument called the Helicos Biosciences SMS Heliscope" to sequence Quake's genome.
This machine, also known as a single molecule sequencer, is incredible. Instead of needing to generate thousands upon thousands of copies of a person's DNA, it chops the fundamental units of DNA, the bases, into short strands, slaps them onto a specially treated glass plate, and proceeds to read the sequences.
After these steps are completed, a series of computers will assemble all the DNA strands into a genome while comparing it to previously compiled genomes. According to an algorithm used by the team, this sequencing process results in genomes which are about 95% complete. (This is on par with previous sequencing technology.)
While Quake's research is important in what it represents: genome sequencing could become something used by regular health care providers to diagnose genetic predispositions to diseases (or maybe just figure out if someone's genetic code "contains a form of a gene that has sometimes been associated with increased disagreeability"), it also does something curious: in shows a far larger decrease in cost than Moore's law alone would suggest. The combination of better processing with a far better algorithm resulted in this dramatic progress over the past eight years and we can't wait to see how the implementation of improved algorithms will continue to affect this trend. [Business Wire]
Photo by Helicos
Scientists turn bacteria into computers
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Technology on July 24th, 2009
Biologists have created a living computer from E. coli bacteria that can solve complex mathematical problems
Computers are evolving – literally. While the tech world argues netbooks vs notebooks, synthetic biologists are leaving traditional computers behind altogether. A team of US scientists have engineered bacteria that can solve complex mathematical problems faster than anything made from silicon.
The research, published today in the Journal of Biological Engineering, proves that bacteria can be used to solve a puzzle known as the Hamiltonian Path Problem. Imagine you want to tour the 10 biggest cities in the UK, starting in London (number 1) and finishing in Bristol (number 10). The solution to the Hamiltonian Path Problem is the the shortest possible route you can take.
This simple problem is surprisingly difficult to solve. There are over 3.5 million possible routes to choose from, and a regular computer must try them out one at a time to find the shortest. Alternatively, a computer made from millions of bacteria can look at every route simultaneously. The biological world also has other advantages. As time goes by, a bacterial computer will actually increase in power as the bacteria reproduce.
Programming such a computer is no easy task, however. The researchers coded a simplified version of the problem, using just three cities, by modifying the DNA of Escherichia coli bacteria. The cities were represented by a combination of genes causing the bacteria to glow red or green, and the possible routes between the cities were explored by the random shuffling of DNA. Bacteria producing the correct answer glowed both colours, turning them yellow.
The experiment worked, and the scientists checked the yellow bacteria's answer by examining their DNA sequence. By using additional genetic differences such as resistance to particular antibiotics, the team believe their method could be expanded to solve problems involving more cities.
This is not the only problem bacteria can solve. The research builds on previous work by the same team, who last year created a bacterial computer to solve the Burnt Pancake Problem. This unusually named conundrum is a mathematical sorting process that can be visualised as a stack of pancakes, all burnt on one side, which must be ordered by size.
In addition to proving the power of bacterial computing, the team have also contributed significantly to the field of synthetic biology. Just as electronic circuits are made from transistors, diodes and other devices, so too are biological circuits. Synthetic biologists have worked together to create the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, and this new research has contributed more than 60 new components to the list.
For more information on the expanding field of synthetic biology, download the latest edition of the Guardian's Science Weekly podcast. Alok Jha and James Randerson were joined in the pod by synthetic biologist Paul Freemont, professor of protein crystallography at Imperial College London, to discuss a future of biological machines.
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