Category: biological – Page 219
Happy birthday Aubrey de Grey
Happy birthday to dr. aubrey de grey bigsmile
How many biologists does it take to make nontrivial progress on an unsolved mathematical problem for the first time in nearly 70 years? The answer is one, at least if the biologist is Dr. Aubrey de Grey, the pioneer of the repair approach to aging.
Yes, you read that right. Today, in occasion of Dr. de Grey’s birthday, we’ve decided to take a short break from biology and rejuvenation to tell our readers about the recent scientific achievement of one of the world’s most famous biogerontologists—unexpectedly, but pleasantly so, in the field of mathematics.
The chromatic number of the plane
Don’t worry if mathematics is not really your thing; we’ll keep it simple. Imagine that you have an infinitely large plane, where all points located at distance 1 from one another are connected by a straight line; any number of so-connected points, finitely or infinitely many, is called a graph. Further suppose that, for some reason, you wanted to color each point in such a fashion that no two connected points have the same color. How many different colors would you need to do this for the entire plane?
Scalable manufacturing process spools out strips of graphene for use in ultrathin membranes
MIT engineers have developed a continuous manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene.
The team’s results are the first demonstration of an industrial, scalable method for manufacturing high-quality graphene that is tailored for use in membranes that filter a variety of molecules, including salts, larger ions, proteins, or nanoparticles. Such membranes should be useful for desalination, biological separation, and other applications.
“For several years, researchers have thought of graphene as a potential route to ultrathin membranes,” says John Hart, associate professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity at MIT. “We believe this is the first study that has tailored the manufacturing of graphene toward membrane applications, which require the graphene to be seamless, cover the substrate fully, and be of high quality.”
Scientists accidentally discovered a mutant enzyme that could help the world eliminate plastic waste
Researchers in the US and UK examined an existing enzyme which had occurred naturally in landfill sites and was able to slowly digest man-made plastics.
But in the course of testing the enzyme’s origins, the researchers made biological changes to it that turbo-charged its ability to digest plastics, according to Britain’s University of Portsmouth.
According to The Guardian, the enzyme starts breaking down plastic in a matter of days, a process which would take centuries under normal conditions.
International conference «Interventions to extend healthspan and lifespan»
Kazan, Russia, April 23–25.
23–25 April 2018 in Kazan (Russia) will be a biogerontological conference with the following main topics:
- Epigenetic mechanisms of aging
- Genomics, metabolomics, proteomics of longevity in humans and animals.
- Environment and aging
- Biomarkers of biological age
- Pharmacological interventions in aging.
- Mechanisms of regeneration.
Synthetic biology companies raised over $650 million in Q1, setting the pace for another record-breaking year
In 2017, synthetic biology companies raised a record amount of funding – just over $1.8 billion for fifty two companies – driven mostly by several multi-hundred million dollar deals. This was a 50% increase over the previous year, a pace of growth that indicated an intense interest in the field from outside investors. It seems that this interest has only intensified since then, as 27 companies raised $650 million in funding during the first quarter of 2018, which is double the activity of the first quarter of 2017. At this rate, the field is on track to raise over $2.4 billion with over 100 companies being funded, which would be a record for both statistics.
The companies raising money in 2018 are pursuing a broadly diverse set of applications from all sections of the synthetic biology technology stack. Many companies are developing products that will eventually end up in the hands (or bodies) of everyday consumers, but others are making the tools and reagents that will empower the whole field to become more productive. It is important that all of these types of companies exist in order to build a healthy industry ecosystem.
